Defendant Gender Research Articles

A Likely Story? The Influence of Type of Alibi and Defendant Gender on Juror Decision-Making

Previous research has demonstrated that stereotypes can be very influential in mock trials. Our study sought to add to the existing research on alibi evidence by investigating the use of gender stereotypes in mock jurors' evaluations of a defendant's alibi. Participants read one of four simulated murder trial transcripts, in which the defendant's gender (man or woman) and type of alibi (gender stereotype-consistent or gender stereotype-inconsistent) were manipulated. Results demonstrated a lack of direct effects of defendant gender and alibi type on verdict certainty; however, these factors did indirectly influence mock jurors' perceptions of the defendant's guilt via their influence on perceived defendant femininity, credibility, and likeability. Defendants who were seen as more feminine were rated more positively in terms of credibility and likeability, and these characteristics were associated with lower guilt ratings. Thus, gender stereotypes may influence how mock jurors evaluate trial information.

Stereotypical and counterstereotypical defendants: Who is he and what was the case against her?

Three studies investigated the effects of stereotype congruence on juror decision making by focusing on how defendant gender affects the way in which jurors attend to aspects of the case. Due to the female defendant's incongruence with offender stereotypes, mock jurors may direct greater attention to encoding features of the defendant at the expense of carefully considering the evidence. Study 1 (N = 101) found that mock jurors took into account the strength of the evidence against male (stereotypical), but not female (counterstereotypical) defendants. Consistent with this, Study 2 (N = 144) demonstrated that mock jurors were less able to recall facts of the case, but better able to recall details of the defendant, when the defendant was female rather than male. The third and final study (N = 113) found that participants spent longer looking at a female defendant than they did looking at a male defendant in a video simulation of a mock trial. Results are discussed in light of the encoding-flexibility explanation of the influence of stereotypes.

What About The Rights Of The Infant With Disabilities? Responses To Infanticide As Function Of Infant Health Status

Building on recent work in the US, we examined the influence of infant disability status and defendant and juror gender on reactions to infanticide cases. Participants (282 juror-eligible adults) read one of four cases in which a parent is charged with first degree murder in the death of a four-month old. The cases varied on the dimensions of infant health status (healthy and typically developing or with a severe disability) and defendant gender (mother or father). Participants then completed case-related judgments, including guilt, and defendant and victim sympathy, similarity, and empathy. In addition to some gender differences, the results showed pervasive effects of infant health status on perceptions of parental responsibility, verdict, and sentencing. When the infant was portrayed as having a disability, the mock jurors were less likely to hold the parent responsible for the infant’s death, less likely to render a guilty verdict, and more likely to recommend lenient sentences. The mock-juror participants also reported more sympathy and empathy for the defendant, and held fewer negative beliefs about the defendant. The data overall suggest that adults perceive the life of an infant with a severe disability to be fundamentally unworthy. They are sympathetic to the infant’s murder and likely to render less punitive judgements and sentences. Such discriminatory attitudes stand in sharp contradiction to the legal rights of all children with disabilities as described in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Potential labeling effects: influence of psychopathy diagnosis, defendant age, and defendant gender on mock jurors' decisions

The present study investigated the impact of diagnostic labels and traits, age, and gender of the defendant on various mock juror decisions. Undergraduate students and members of the community (N=247) read a simulated trial transcript involving a case of aggravated assault. The transcript differed in terms of diagnosis (psychopathy vs. antisocial personality disorder (APD)/conduct disorder (CD) vs. no diagnosis), age (15 vs. 30), and gender (male vs. female) of the defendant. The effects of these variables on decisions regarding credibility, verdict choice, risk of future violence and recidivism, and treatment amenability were investigated. Results indicated that psychopathic defendants were rated as being less credible than defendants in the other diagnostic conditions. Defendants described as psychopaths and as having APD/CD were also more likely to be found guilty and were more likely to receive higher ratings of risk for future violence/recidivism regardless of their age and gender. There were no significant main effects or interactions concerning the age and gender variables. Implications for the use of psychopathy evidence within the Criminal Justice System are discussed.

Expert Testimony of the Battered Person Syndrome, Defendant Gender, and Sexual Orientation in a Case of Duress: Evaluating Legal Decisions

The current study examined the utility of expert testimony of the battered person syndrome (BPS) in a case of duress and the extent to which defendant gender, defendant sexual orientation, and participant gender influence mock jury decisions in a case of duress. Participants (N = 413) read a scenario based on U.S. v. Dixon (2006) and answered questions assessing verdict, guilt, sentence length, duress legal elements, and attributes typically ascribed to victims of abuse. Results showed heterosexual female defendants were assigned the lowest sentences and met more of the legal elements of duress (i.e., were coerced, more likely to be believed, and purchased a gun to prevent harm) and attributes (i.e., experienced severe abuse, learned helplessness) compared to other defendants. When mock jurors received expert testimony, they provided lower rates of guilt and sentencing for defendants. Results also showed the inclusion of BPS expert testimony increased ratings for many of the legal elements of duress and attributes typically associated with intimate partner violence. In addition, results suggested that while heterosexual female defendants are more likely to be believed in a case of duress, expert testimony of BPS is helpful to all defendants. Limitations and future directions for research and practice are discussed.

Does the Judge Matter? Exploiting Random Assignment on a Court of Last Resort to Assess Judge and Case Selection Effects

We study 1,410 mandatory jurisdiction and 48 discretionary jurisdiction criminal law case outcomes in cases appealed to the Israel Supreme Court in 2006 and 2007 to assess influences on case outcomes. A methodological innovation is accounting for factors—case specialization, seniority, and workload—that modify random case assignment. To the extent one accounts for nonrandom assignment, one can infer that case outcome differences are judge effects. In mandatory jurisdiction cases, individual justices cast 3,986 votes and differed by as much as 15 percent in the probability of casting a vote favoring defendants. Female justices were about 2 to 3 percent more likely than male justices to vote for defendants but this effect is sensitive to including one justice. Defendant gender was associated with outcome, with female defendants about 17 percent more likely than male defendants to receive a favorable vote on appeal. Our data's samples of mandatory and discretionary jurisdiction cases allow us to show that studies limited to discretionary jurisdiction case outcomes can distort perceptions of judges' preferences. Justices' ordinal rank in rate of voting for defendants or the state was uncorrelated across mandatory and discretionary jurisdiction cases. For example, the justice who sat on the most criminal cases was the fourth (of 16 justices) most favorable to the state in mandatory jurisdiction cases but the 12th most favorable in discretionary jurisdiction cases. This result casts doubt on some inferences based on studies of judges on discretionary jurisdiction courts, such as the U.S. Supreme Court, in which only discretionary case outcomes are observed.

Is Justice Really Blind? Effects of Crime Descriptions, Defendant Gender and Appearance, and Legal Practitioner Gender on Sentences and Defendant Evaluations in a Mock Trial

Two experiments were conducted to investigate how sources of information can bias the judicial process. Experiment 1 investigated the effects of photographs of victims' injury, and of vivid verbal victim injury description, on the evaluation and sentencing of a defendant in a mock criminal trial. The participants were presented with five different crime accounts: (a) vandalism, (b) arson, (c) child abuse, (d) child molestation, and (e) homicide, all committed by male perpetrators, and were asked to evaluate the trustworthiness, culpability, aggressiveness, guilt, and other crime-relevant personality traits of the defendant, and to set imprisonment sentences. Results of Experiment 1 showed that exposure to photographs of crime victim injuries as well as vivid crime descriptions had only weak and non-significant effects on defendant evaluations, but imprisonment terms tended to be longer in the Photo condition than in the No photo condition. To further investigate the possible effects of photographic information on judicial processes for different crimes (child molestation, child abuse, homicide), Experiment 2 was conducted with legal practitioners (judges, members of Swedish juries, law students, counsels for the defence, prosecutors, police officers) as evaluators. Results showed three tendencies: (a) a “same-sex penalty effect”: sentencing evaluators (judges, jurors) evaluated a defendant of the same gender as the evaluator, more harshly than one of the opposite gender, (b) a “male penalty effect”: non-sentencing evaluators (police officers, counsels for the defence, prosecutors, and law students) evaluated and judged a male defendant more harshly than a female, and (c) for female non-sentencing evaluators, the male penalty effect was enhanced for the more attractive defendants. Overall, the results suggest that defendant gender, defendant appearance, evaluator gender, and evaluator profession can affect the outcome of a criminal trial.

The Effects of Victim Gender, Defendant Gender, and Defendant Age on Juror Decision Making

Mock jurors provided credibility ratings for a victim (12 years old) and defendant when victim gender, defendant gender, and defendant age (15 vs. 40 years old) were manipulated. Verdicts and sentence recommendations also were assessed. Higher guilt ratings were found for a male versus female defendant. Juror gender was examined as a covariate in the analyses. Female jurors rated the victim higher on accuracy, truthfulness, and believability than male jurors. Male jurors rated the defendant higher on reliability, credibility, truthfulness, and believability than female jurors. Male jurors perceived the victim to desire and cause the crime to a greater extent than female jurors. Mock jurors rated the victim as more responsible for the crime with an older versus younger defendant. Female jurors ascribed higher responsibility to the defendant compared to male jurors. The younger versus older defendant was perceived to have desired the event but only when the victim was female versus male.

The Impact of Defendant Gender and Relationship to Victim on Juror Decisions in a Child Sexual Abuse Case

We examined the impact of defendant gender and relationship to victim on verdict decisions and ratings of witness believability in a case of alleged child sexual assault. Mock jurors (N = 256) read 1 of 4 extensive case summaries. The cases varied the gender of the defendant and his or her relationship to the child (parent or stranger). Data revealed that participants were significantly more likely to find male defendants (especially the father) guilty than female defendants. Female jurors rated the victim as more believable and the defendant as less believable than did male jurors. All mock jurors rated the victim as more believable if the defendant was male, and they saw the female defendants as more believable than the male defendants.

Trial venue decisions in juvenile cases: Mitigating and extralegal factors matter

Purpose. This study assessed whether the characteristics of juvenile offenders and their victims affected respondents' decisions regarding whether a juvenile offender should be transferred to the adult criminal justice system.Method. Participants (N = 758) read a scenario about a juvenile accused of murder and decided whether the youth should be tried as an adult or as a juvenile. The age of the offender (11‐, 13‐ or 15‐years‐old), the sex of the offender, abuse history and victim type (neighbour or father) were varied. After indicating jurisdictional preference, participants read a series of statements (e.g. importance of punishment) and rated how important each was in their decision.Results. Significant main effects and complex interactions between defendant gender, age and abuse history were found. In general, younger defendants were more likely than older defendants to be recommended for juvenile court. Overall, juvenile offenders with a history of child abuse received less harsh verdicts. For males, a history of abuse affected decisions about trial venue and verdict both alone and in combination with other factors such as age, sex and relationship to victim. Results supported a mediational model in which extralegal and mitigating factors influenced the importance of a ‘just desserts’ orientation, which, in turn, influenced jurisdictional decisions.Conclusion. Despite a recent tendency for policymakers to pass legislation that requires more juveniles be sent to adult courts, the present study suggests that the public does not support automatic transfers to adult courts and that mitigating factors are important to their jurisdictional decisions.

An Examination of a Potential Reform to the Provocation Defence: The Impact of Gender of the Defendant and the Suddenness Requirement

Proposed biases in the application of the provocation defence according to defendant gender and time between provocation and killing were investigated to determine their impact on mock juror verdicts. Attenuation of proposed biases was tested by reforming the defence to include a history of violence as provocative. University students (N = 228) rendered verdicts for hypothetical scenarios involving domestic violence, with defendant gender and time of killing varied. Participants determined three verdicts using the Criminal Code definitions of murder and manslaughter, a summarised and a revised version of the current provocation defence. Gender significantly impacted on verdicts rendered using the definitions of murder and manslaughter. Time significantly impacted on all three verdicts rendered, as delayed compared to immediate killings entailed more guilty of murder verdicts. Overall, significantly fewer guilty of murder verdicts were rendered with a revised defence than the current defence; this suggested the reform reduced bias, though not according to time or gender specifically. Due to limited empirical studies on the defence, more research is needed to support proposed revisions, such as including a history of violence.

Effects of Victim, Defendant, and Juror Gender on Decisions in Child Sexual Assault Cases1

We examined the combined influence of juror, victim, and defendant gender on jurors’ decisions in child sexual abuse cases. Mock jurors read scenarios of an assault case involving a man or woman defendant accused of molesting a 15‐year‐old boy or girl. Jurors then rendered verdicts and rated the defendant's and victim's believability and responsibility for the abuse. Female jurors were generally more pro‐victim in case judgments than were male jurors. Additionally, a woman perpetrator was evaluated more leniently than was a man perpetrator, especially by male jurors when the victim was a boy. Case judgments were unrelated to jurors’ social conservatism, sexism, or attitudes toward homosexuality. Results have implications for understanding social perceptions of mixed‐ and same‐gender abuse involving adolescent victims, and juror decision making in man‐ and woman‐perpetrated child sexual assault cases.

The credibility of recovered memory testimony: exploring the effects of alleged victim and perpetrator gender

Objective: The purpose was to explore the effects of victim/complainant and perpetrator/defendant gender on the impact of recovered memory testimony in criminal sexual abuse trials. Method: A jury simulation methodology was used. Two hundred forty-six participants read a summary of a sexual abuse trial in which the following three variables were manipulated: the complainant’s gender, the defendant’s gender, and whether the complainant’s memory of the alleged abuse had been “recovered” or remembered all along. Participants reached a verdict and rated the culpability and credibility of the parties. Results: Compared to a case where the memory of the abuse had always been remembered, recovered memory testimony led to lower perceptions of the defendant’s culpability and higher perceptions of the defendant’s credibility. In addition, the complainant with recovered memory was viewed as less credible and less likely to be telling the truth. These effects of testimony type (i.e., recovered vs. remembered) were qualified by an interaction with complainant and defendant gender, such that testimony type exerted an effect in cases of alleged heterosexual but not homosexual abuse. Conclusion: The results suggest that mock jurors’ judgments in sexual abuse cases reflect their stereotypes about sexual abuse and expectations regarding the relative likelihood of repression in various circumstances.

TheAllen Charge: Expedient justice or coercion?

The Allen Charge is a trial instruction the presiding judge issues to the jury to encourage a quick verdict when the decisionmaking process appears to have stalled. The Allen Charge has been the subject of extensive legal writing and controversy. However, empirical examinations are rare. This study begins to address the coercive nature of the Allen Charge by providing a description of every federal case appealed from 1964 through March 1999 due to the use of this directive. The 566 cases analyzed indicate the type of crime, holiday season, and defendant gender are associated with affirmation of a guilty verdict. Policy suggestions include a critical reexamination of the use of the Allen Charge.

An Examination of Happiness, Racism, and Demographics on Judgments of Guilt

A policy-capturing study was conducted to evaluate the roles of both plaintiff and defendant race and gender on judgments of criminal guilt in either an assault or a theti case. It was hypothesized that defendant gender and race would affect likelihood of guilt ratings. Moreover, mock jurors' dispositional happiness, scores of modern racism, and race and gender were explored as potential influences on their decision-making policies and judgments. As predicted, strong support was found for the role of defendant gender on judgments of guilt. However, defendant race did not significantly impact guilt ratings. Post hoc analses revealed the importance of race and gender of the victim to juror decisions. In addition, participants' own race and gender played signiticant roles in the decisionmaking policies that were produced. Limitations of the study are discussed. as are topics for future research.

Defining Provocation

When a defendant is charged with murder and wishes to rely on the defence of provocation, two conditions need to be satisfied. First, the provocation must have caused the defendant to lose his or her self-control suddenly and temporarily. This is the subjective condition. Secondly, the provocation must be such that the reasonable person might have reacted to it in the same way as the defendant. This is the objective condition. This condition is, however, qualified, since it is possible to imbue the reasonable person with relevant characteristics of the defendant, to see whether a reasonable person with such characteristics might have killed had he or she been provoked. Although this qualification of the objective test has been recognised for some time, it has become a matter of recent controversy as to when a particular characteristic of the defendant can be considered to be relevant and what the rationale of this qualification of the objective test actually is. Two distinct lines of authority can be identified. According to the first line, a characteristic can, generally, only be relevant if it affects the gravity of the provocation: Camplin [1978] A.C. 705 (H.L.). So, for example, if the provocation relates to the defendant's characteristic then it can be considered to be relevant, because the reasonable person would be more likely to have lost self-control if he or she had such a characteristic: Morhall [1996] A.C. 90 (H.L.), Luc Thiet Thuan [1997] A.C. 131 (P.C.). This line of authority does, however, recognise an exception to the general principle, namely that the reasonable person can be imbued with the defendant's age or gender, not because these characteristics affected the gravity of the provocation, but because they are characteristics which may affect the defendant's ability to exercise self-control: Camplin. But these are the only characteristics which can be taken into account for this reason. According to the second line of authority, however, any characteristic can be treated as relevant simply because it affects the defendant's ability to exercise self-control. This has been recognised in six recent decisions of the Court of Appeal, where the reasonable person was imbued with a wide variety of characteristics, such as battered woman syndrome (Thornton (No. 2) [1996] 1 W.L.R. 1174) and attention-seeking (Humphreys [1995] 4 All ER. 1008), simply because such characteristics affected the defendant's ability to exercise self-control.

Gender and Case Processing Decisions

ABSTRACT Research conducted during the past twenty years has not provided definitive answers to questions concerning the effect of gender on criminal justice decision making. Some researchers conclude that females receive preferential treatment, while other conclude either that there are no differences or that females are treated more harshly than males. This study uses data on male and female defendants charged with violent felonies to examine the effect of gender on seven case processing decisions. We also probe for interactions between defendant gender and defendant race. We find that female defendants are more likely than male defendants to have all of the charges against them dismissed and that females are sentenced less harshly than males. We also find that gender and race interact. The results of our analysis cast doubt on the validity of the so-called “evil woman thesis” and highlight the importance of testing an interactive model that incorporates the effects of both gender and race.

The effect of race and gender on bail outcomes: A test of an interactive model

This paper responds to suggestions that researchers interested in the relationship between defendant race, defendant gender, and criminal justice outcomes broaden their focus to include pretrial decision making. We used data on defendants charged with violent felonies in Detroit Recorder’s Court to analyze the effect of race and gender on the amount of bail imposed by the judge and on the defendant’s pretrial status. We found that judges take gender, but not race, into account in determining the amount of bail for certain types of cases; more specifically, Black females faced lower bail than Black males in less serious cases. In contrast, we found that both race and gender affected the likelihood of pretrial release. White defendants were more likely than black defendants to be released pending trial and females were more likely than males to be released prior to trial. In fact, white females, white males, and black females all were more likely than black males to be released.

RETHINKING JUDICIAL PATERNALISM:

Many scholars think that women are sentenced more leniently than men because judges are paternalistic toward women. In this article, I suggest that paternalism is a multilayered concept and that it is important to distinguish between judicial concerns for protecting women and those for protecting children and families. To learn what factors judges consider in sentencing and whether these differ for men and women defendants, I interviewed 20 men and 3 women judges in two state criminal courts. I learned that the primary objects of judicial protection were not women, but children, and men's and women's economic support or care for families. However, there was a labor hierarchy in the judges' minds in that they believed that care giving was more important than wage earning for the maintenance of families. Interactive influences among the defendant's gender, familial status, race or ethnicity, and the nature of the offense charged are discussed.

Familial Social Control and Pretrial Sanctions: Does Sex Really Matter?

The literature pertaining to gender and criminal involvement and gender and criminal court sanctions has largely remained disconnected. We propose that the major explanatory themes in these two bodies of literature have a common element-sex-based differences in informal social control. We then test two hypotheses which examine the relationship between familial social control and the pretrial release decisions accorded to male (N = 1,558) and female (N = 1,365) offenders over a sixteen year period (1965-1980). We find that: (i) the effect of familial social control on evidence of gender-based leniency in the allocation of pretrial freedom varies substantially over the sixteen year period; (ii) generally a defendant's gender does not condition the influence of familial social control on pretrial release status; and (iii) the legal determinants of pretrial freedom provide the strongest evidence of gender-bias in the allocation of this criminal sanction. The implications of our work for future studies of the sex-sanctioning issue are also discussed. In an earlier article that used longitudinal data to examine the effect of sex on two criminal court sanctions, the conclusion emerged that gender-related statuses had a significant effect on reducing evidence of sex-based leniency in the allocation of pretrial