Sentencing Decisions Research Articles

Effects of Male Defendants' Attractiveness and Trustworthiness on Simulated Judicial Decisions in Two Different Swindles.

The present study aimed to examine the effects of male defendants’ facial appearance (attractiveness and trustworthiness) on judicial decisions in two different swindles. We selected the following four categories of faces by manipulating facial attractiveness and trustworthiness simultaneously: the attractive and trustworthy face; the attractive but untrustworthy face; the unattractive but trustworthy face; and the unattractive and untrustworthy face. A total of six hundred and sixty-three participants across two studies were asked to make conviction-related judgments and penalty-related decisions for the defendants after they were randomly assigned to one of the four categories of faces. In Experiment 1, we used a blind-date swindle and found a “beauty penalty” for physically attractive defendants among females. Specifically, female participants were more likely to issue a guilty verdict to better-looking male defendants. Additionally, this “beauty-penalty effect” was merely observed in the untrustworthy condition. In Experiment 2, we used a telecommunication swindle, and the results showed that facial trustworthiness significantly predicted punishment magnitude and sentence decisions. Moreover, an exploratory analysis revealed that the disgust evoked by the faces partially mediated the relationship between facial trustworthiness and the assignment of criminal penalties. Taken together, these findings indicated that facial attractiveness and trustworthiness played different roles in judicial decisions. Importantly, the effect of facial attractiveness on judicial decisions differed as the detailed criminal circumstances of the offenses changed.

The Effect of Malleability Beliefs and Emotions on Legal Decision Making

For decades, legal formalism has held that judicial sentencing decisions should be guided by facts, not subjective variables. However, scholars and legal practitioners have long been aware of the influence of psychological factors on legal decision making. In this article we report on two studies that examined a model suggesting that belief in malleability (a belief that people’s personalities change and develop) is correlated with the severity assessment of a defendant’s criminal behavior. We also examined whether this relationship is mediated by negative and positive emotions. Our analysis revealed that believing in malleability reduces the likelihood of viewing the defendant’s traits as fixed, which leads to more compassionate legal assessment. Additionally, our results indicate that the mechanism underlying the relationship between a belief in malleability and judicial assessment is emotional. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings with an eye on the literature on law and psychology and implicit beliefs.

An Empirical and Qualitative Assessment of Terrorism Sentencing Decisions in Canada Since 2001: Shifting Away from the Fundamental Principle and Towards Cognitive Biases

In this paper, we take a comprehensive and multidisciplinary look at terrorism sentencing decisions over a 17-year period, between September 2001 when the ATA was first conceived of and September 2018. In so doing, we first offer an empirical analysis of the sentences for all terrorism offenses to date, including the total number of sentences, conviction rates, charges, demographics associated with the accused and other factors. We then engage in a qualitative assessment of the sentencing decisions to date. We also investigate the role that section 718.2(a)(v) of the Criminal Code has had on terrorism sentences in Canada and whether it might help to explain the empirical and qualitative shifts we are seeing in terrorism sentencing decisions. Finally, we ask whether there is anything inherent to the legislative and judicial framing of terrorism as a crime, and therefore in its sentencing, that might explain the unique nature of terrorism sentences.

Nudge the judge? Theorizing the interaction between heuristics, sentencing guidelines and sentence clustering

Although it has long been acknowledged that heuristics influence judicial decision making, researchers have yet to explore how sentencing guidelines might interact with heuristics to shape sentencing decisions. This article contributes to addressing this gap in the literature in three ways: first, by considering how heuristics might help produce the phenomenon of sentence clustering, in which a significant proportion of sentences are concentrated around a small number of outcomes; second, by reflecting on the role of sentencing guidelines as a feature of the environment within which sentencing decisions are made; and third, by analysing the guidelines from Minnesota and from England and Wales, theorizing how their content might interact with heuristics to make clustering more or less likely. Ultimately, we argue that sentencing guidelines likely affect the role played by heuristics in shaping sentencing decisions and, consequently, that their design should be informed by research evidence from the decision sciences.

Sentencing Drug Court Failures: Judicial Considerations With Increased Offender Information

This study explores the influential predictors of sentence severity within a sample of drug court failures. This sample is unique, in that, judges possess greater amounts of offender information at the time of sentencing, relative to conventional adjudications. Due to defendants’ participation in a drug court program, judges possessed offender program performance information in addition to traditionally assessed criminogenic and offender indicators. Data were collected from 320 individuals who participated, yet failed, in Midwestern adult felony drug court program. Results suggest that, in these instances, judicial sentencing decisions were influenced by case and program performance characteristics. Moreover, judges who oversaw defendants in the program sentenced participant failures more harshly than judges who had no affiliation with the drug court or offender prior to sentencing.

Danger at the Edge of Chaos: Predicting Violent Behavior in a Post-Daubert World

This interdisciplinary article explores the boundaries of predicting violence in the context of capital sentencing decisions. Currently, experts are permitted to proffer opinions in death sentencing proceedings that have little grounding in science, without any examination of the scientific validity of their assertions. They are permitted to do so because, despite being widely castigated as wholly unscientific by the scientific community, predictions of future dangerousness were found to be constitutionally admissible in Barefoot v. Estelle. Standards for evaluating expert testimony have changed considerably since Barefoot, however. The Supreme Court, through its Daubert line of cases, has caused a paradigm shift in the evaluation of scientific evidence in both state and federal courts. The kind of unscientific predictions proffered in Barefoot continue nonetheless to be routinely admitted in sentencing proceedings without any judicial gatekeeping efforts. The tension between the scientific scrutiny required for admissibility even in civil cases (where money damages are at stake) and the unscientific predictions freely admissible in capital sentencing determinations (where the issue is death) is, at best, troubling. This article explores the validity of dangerousness predictions in light of the latest scientific research about brain structure and function. It also discusses the development of actuarial instruments to assess risk, and compares three predominant actuarial instruments. Based on criteria scientists themselves use to assess validity, as well as the Supreme Court's requirements in Daubert, Joiner, and Kumho Tire, this article outlines a framework for sound analysis of scientific evidence regarding predictions of future violence. Drawing on insights from brain science as well as complexity theory and empirical studies of jury decisionmaking, this article concludes that although actuarial instruments should be used with caution, they offer improvements over the unaided judgment of juries and over the kind of unscientific assertions about future dangerousness currently typical in capital sentencing proceedings. This is an important and timely issue, because the consequences of misleading the jury in a death sentencing determination are severe, not only for the defendant, but for a society that values justice and aspires to rationality.

Attitudes and public punishment preferences: Finnish results of Scandinavian sense of justice research

ABSTRACTOpinion polls have repeatedly shown that populations favour severe penalties for offenders. However, surveys using a case vignette method, where the attributes of the case described to the respondents are varied, produce more versatile results. Such research gives a nuanced picture of punitive attitudes. In this study, the sentence decisions of laypeople who are informed about the offender’s criminal history, ethnic background, gender, social issues and substance abuse were examined.A representative mail survey collected in Finland as part of Scandinavian sense of justice research was used as empirical data. Respondents were presented with six criminal cases and asked to determine sentences for them. All respondents received the same vignettes, but the background attributes of the offenders varied randomly.This study showed that all the background attributes had a clear connection to the sentence decisions. Considering these results, the idea of a ‘general punitive attitude’, which is commonly used in academic literature, appears to be too simple of a way to look at the relationship between attitudes and punishment decisions.

Knowledge, punitive attitudes and punitive gap: Finnish findings

The aim of this study was to examine the empirical connections of three phenomena among the Finnish population: (1) the level of knowledge on the crime situation and the criminal justice system; (2) the general punitive attitude and (3) sentence decisions in certain concrete crime cases using vignettes. The same vignettes were shown to professional judges to study the punitive gap between laypeople and judges. The research subjects are a representative sample of the population (N = 1251) and district court judges (N = 192). The research resulted in four main findings: (1) a higher level of knowledge among laypeople mitigates their punitive attitudes, (2) information included in the case vignettes is associated with the sentence decisions of laypeople in different ways, depending on the characteristics of the case; punitive gap varies greatly, (3) level of knowledge is, in general, a poor predictor for the severity of the sentence decisions of laypeople and (4) the general punitive attitude is, at best, a weak predictor for the severity of sentence decisions of laypeople. In conclusion, laypeople’s decisions are probably affected partly by the same legal factors as the professional judges’ decisions and partly by attitudes that are expressly related to features of the cases in question.

Judicial Politics and Sentencing Decisions

This paper investigates whether judge political affiliation contributes to racial and gender disparities in sentencing using data on over 500,000 federal defendants linked to sentencing judge. Exploiting random case assignment, we find that Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to 3.0 more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to 2.0 fewer months than similar males compared to Democratic-appointed judges, 65 percent of the baseline racial sentence gap and 17 percent of the baseline gender sentence gap, respectively. These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion. (JEL D72, J15, J16, K41, K42)

Juror Decision Making in Acquaintance and Marital Rape: The Influence of Clothing, Alcohol, and Preexisting Stereotypical Attitudes.

Stereotypical biases about women's roles in intimate relationships including their marital status and lifestyle choices such as clothing and alcohol use influence juror attributions of rape case defendant guilt, potentially reducing access to justice for victims. Across two mock-juror decision-making experiments, participants read identical fictitious sexual assault vignettes varying in intoxicated defendant-complainant relationship (married vs. acquaintance), accompanied by photographs of complainant clothing at the crime (body revealing vs. plain) and in court (smart vs. casual). Experiment 2 additionally described the defendant's alcohol consumption as either under or over the drink drive limit. Most participants delivered guilty verdicts (Experiment 1: 86.7%; Experiment 2: 75.5%), recommending mean prison sentences of 5.04 years in Experiment 1 (n = 218 students) and 4.33 years in Experiment 2 (n = 1,086 members of public). In Experiment 1, guilty verdict rates and sentences were significantly higher when the married-but not the acquaintance-complainant dressed smartly rather than casually in court. In Experiment 2, significantly more guilty verdicts were delivered by females (80.3%) than males (66.9%), while sentence lengths were longer in acquaintance (M = 4.52 years) than married conditions (M = 4.10). Significant interactions between defendant alcohol use and clothing choice of the married-but not the acquaintance complainant-at the crime also influenced sentencing decisions. Higher scores on additionally administered scales measuring rape myth acceptance and sexist attitudes, but not alcohol expectancies, predicted lenient sentencing decisions in both experiments. These findings highlight how "rape myths" concerning marriages drive juror decisions. Prosecuting lawyers should use these results to better challenge these attitudes in court. Internationally, rape is often unreported to the police, and married victims may be more willing to come forward if they believe unbiased access to justice is likely.

A Fair Assessment of Risk: Examining New Zealand's Risk Assessment Practices

Risk assessment is now a key feature of the New Zealand criminal justice system. Risk assessments are relevant to sentencing and parole decisions, and importantly, the imposition of post-sentence measures. The decisions that are informed by risk assessments have serious consequences for the deprivation of liberty of offenders. Despite its growing importance, risk assessment is not widely understood by the legal community. This paper provides a broad overview of risk assessment practices in New Zealand. In doing so, it explores several shortfalls in the risk assessment process. It appears that the limitations of risk assessment evidence are not well understood. As this paper argues, it is only by truly engaging with risk assessment evidence that proper consideration can be given to the balance between the rights of individual offenders and the interests of the community. To assist with this, this paper argues for a number of changes in the way that risk assessments are carried out.

Capital Punishment Decisions in Pennsylvania: 2000-2010: Implications for Racial, Ethnic and Other Disparate Impacts

A study of disparity in the administration of the death penalty in Pennsylvania by Kramer, Ulmer, and Zajac (2017) was recently completed for the Pennsylvania Interbranch Commission on Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Fairness. This study collected basic statistical data on 4,274 cases charged with homicide in Pennsylvania from 2000 to 2010, and then collected highly detailed data from courts and prosecutors’ offices on a subset of 880 first degree murder convictions in 18 counties accounting for more than 87% of all 2000-2010 first degree murder convictions. Utilizing propensity score methods in analyses of these first degree murder convictions, the study examined whether defendants’ and victims’ race/ethnicity (separately and in combination), predicted: 1) prosecutors’ decisions to seek the death penalty, 2) prosecutors’ decisions to retract a motion to seek the death penalty once it is filed, and 3) court decisions to sentence defendants to death or life without parole. Key findings were: 1) No pattern of disparity was found to the disadvantage of Black or Hispanic defendants in prosecutors’ decisions to seek and, if sought, to retract the death penalty. 2) Black and Hispanic defendants were not disadvantaged in death penalty sentence decisions relative to White defendants. 3) Cases with White victims, regardless of race of defendant, were 8% more likely to receive the death penalty, while Black victim cases were 6% less likely to receive the death penalty. 4) Prosecutors filed to seek the death penalty in 36% of first degree convictions; but later retracted that filing in 46% of those cases. Moreover, a predominant pattern emerged in which a death penalty filing strongly predicted a guilty plea in these murder cases, and pleading guilty strongly predicted the retraction of the death penalty filing. 5) There were very large differences between counties in the likelihood of prosecutors filing to seek the death penalty, the likelihood of their retracting that filing, and in courts imposing the death penalty. In fact, the biggest extra-legal influence on whether defendants faced or received the death penalty was where their cases were handled. 6) Public defenders were less likely than private or court appointed attorneys to have the death penalty filed in cases they represented. However, public defender cases were more likely to receive the death penalty, and defendants represented by private attorneys were especially unlikely to receive the death penalty. These defense attorney differences also, in turn, varied greatly between counties.

Selected Abstracts From the 2017 International Neuroethics Society Annual Meeting

Debates continue over whether the prevailing neuroscientific model of addiction as a brain disease informs questions around moral and criminal responsibility, but little empirical work has been conducted with those tasked to address this question in practical terms on a daily basis. We have explored this point over two studies, respectively sampling 110 and 276 Magistrates active in the UK. In the first study we asked them to consider a criminal sentencing scenario in which evidence of a defendant’s brain damage and impaired impulse control was presented. This neurological damage was attributed to either a (fictional) disease or to addiction. When the same neuropsychiatric profile resulted from disease, rather than heroin use and addiction, custodial sentences were significantly reduced. The pivotal factor denying addiction the mitigating power of disease was perceived choice in the initial acquisition; removing choice from addiction dramatically increased the odds of sentence reduction, while attaching choice to disease tended to aggravate or reverse earlier leniency. The second study presented another criminal sentencing scenario in which the defendant exhibited similar neurological impairment, but additionally included ‘mixed’ aetiologies in which either disease led to addiction or addiction led to disease. Our results confirm the dramatic effect which the aetiology of impairment can have on judgements of criminal responsibility, whilst moreover give suggestion that drug-use tips the balance in favour of the punitive element when weighing criminal sentencing decisions.

Effects of Crime Type, Perception of Offenders Physical Attraction and Crime Victim’s Status on Perceived Severity of Judgment

Several researches have been conducted on factors influencing sentencing decisions and severity of judgments with literature suggesting that some elements of bias undermine the outcome of judgment. The Nigerian Judicial system seems not to be free from this postulation as reflected in the many disparities in court judgments. However, literature is insufficient on the effects of crime type and crime victim status on severity of judgment. These disparities and the gaps earlier identified escalated the need to research into the rationale behind these discrepancies in judgment. This work, therefore, investigated the effects of crime type, perception of offenders’ physical attraction, crime victim’s status on perceived severity of judgment A total of 120 randomly selected student participants served as judges’ in the experiment These participants comprised 100 Level students of Psychology, Sociology and Law in the University of Ibadan taking same course in the Department of Psychology. Each of the eight experimental group comprised of 15 participants assigned through randomization. Case scenarios alongside photographic images of offenders were presented to each of the participants from which they had to make judgments. Data were analyzed using Multinomial Logistic Regression. Crime type, perception of offenders’ physical attraction and crime victim’s status had no significant interaction effect on severity on judgment -2loglikelihocd =40.13; X2=2.65; df= 2; P>. 05. However, crime type as an independent variable alone had a significant effect on severity of judgment denoted -2loglikelihood =72.77; X2=19.28; df= 2; P<. 01. The implications of the findings from this study have been elaborately highlighted in the body of the research with directions for further researches discussed.

The Best Interests of the Child and the Sentencing of Offenders with Parental Responsibilities

There is a growing body of empirical research demonstrating that sentencing and other criminal justice decisions often have a detrimental, even traumatic impact upon an offender’s dependent children. Judges must balance numerous factors when making sentencing decisions, generally encompassing the protection of the public, the seriousness of the offence, and the personal circumstances of the offender. Should the probable impact of a sentence on an offender’s dependents be a significant factor to be weighed with these other factors in the process of sentencing? More specifically, when a court is sentencing an offender with parental responsibilities, does it have a duty to inquire about the potential impact of the sanction on the offender’s dependent child or children? Must it consider the principle of the best interests of the child or a child’s right to family life as a separate legal consideration in constructing a sentence? International human rights standards suggest that it does. After reviewing existing evidence on the potential hardship of sentencing decisions for an offender’s dependent children, the authors examine the experience of six countries in interpreting and applying these standards in their domestic laws, policies, and practices. They discuss some options for sentencing reforms in the broader context of efforts to reduce high rates of imprisonment in many countries and the need to address the differential impacts of criminal sanctions for primary caregivers and their children.

Victim age and capital sentencing outcomes in North Carolina (1977–2009)

Age is prominent among theories of criminology and victimology. It is less conspicuous in punishment theory, despite its emphasis in retributive theory and lawmaking. The present study evaluated competing ‘years of life lost’ and ‘vulnerable victim’ hypotheses to examine the influence of victim age in capital sentencing decisions. Using case file data on the population of capital murder trials in the State of North Carolina (1977–2009), our findings produce mixed results. Our quantitative analyses suggest that death sentences are significantly less likely in direct proportion to victim age. Killers of elderly victims are less likely to receive the death penalty; conversely, the odds of a death sentences are slightly greater for killers of child victims. Supplementary qualitative analyses suggest that while many child and elderly victims were not per se ‘vulnerable,’ a substantial subset of each clearly were treated as such. We discuss implications for vulnerable victim research and the role of quasi-legal factors in case outcomes.

Briefing Paper: The Impact of Maternal Imprisonment upon a Child's Wellbeing and Their Relationship with Their Mother: Findings from 'Who Cares? Analysing the Place of Children in Maternal Sentencing Decisions in England and Wales', Minson, S (2017), University of Oxford

It is my contention that all the harms suffered by a child whose parent is being punished through imprisonment have their origin in prison culture and stigmatisation relating to the parent’s imprisonment, and consequently these harms are different to those suffered due to parent and child separation experienced for any other reason, for example marital breakdown or bereavement. Drawing on Comfort’s work I suggest that the harms raise particular concerns and have ‘corrosive’ damaging impacts on children because their origin is in punishment within the criminal justice system: the criminal justice system is distinct… in that it is charged with exacting control and distributing punishment, and hence a spillover effect is inherently more corrosive to bystanders than that of an institutional process concerned with providing a social good, such as medical treatment or education. I offer the suggestion that harms which children of imprisoned mothers experience come from two different social acts and attach to children in two specific ways. Children experience the first group of harms because the prison’s reach extends into their lives through ‘secondary prisonisation’ and they attach to the children through the prison’s regulation of their relationship with their parent and the demands which the physical separation and limited contact place upon them. The second group of harms is attributable to the stigmatisation of children and their carers by society due to the mother’s imprisonment. Drawing on the work of a number of theorists I argue that in the same way that a prisoner is stigmatised and socially isolated, a label attaches by way of courtesy stigma to the children of prisoners and to those who care for them during the parents’ imprisonment. Such stigmatisation leads not only to isolation, but also to discrimination against that group of children. This briefing paper focuses on the way in which these harms affect children's wellbeing and their relationships with their mothers.

Military Justice: Case Processing and Sentencing Decisions in America’s “Other” Criminal Courts

A wealth of criminological research examines punishment outcomes in state and federal courts, but virtually no research examines the thousands of defendants punished in the military justice system each year. Military courts are characterized by unique case processing norms and distinctive socio-cultural influences that shape punitive decision-making in key ways. The current study provides a broad, systematic analysis of the correlates of criminal case processing in this rarely examined court context. It analyzes a large sample of Air Force court-martial cases, evaluating the evidence for gender and racial/ethnic disparities and the influence of military-specific considerations. Findings indicate that some factors, like offense seriousness, exert influences that are largely consistent with the civilian court literature, but others including gender, race/ethnicity and case processing decisions operate in ways that are particular to military courts. Results are interpreted in light of contemporary sentencing theoretical perspectives.

Examining factors influencing sentencing decisions in school shootings

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine public perception of factors relevant in sentencing decision making for juvenile school shooters with a history of familial abuse, peer victimization, and school intervention.Design/methodology/approachThrough the use of school shooting vignettes, 298 college-aged participants were randomly assigned to one of eight experimental conditions which differed based on the inclusion of the independent variables.FindingsResults revealed no significant differences among the groups on the sentencing recommendations (i.e. psychiatric placement and incarceration). However, correlational analyses indicated that participants’ generally perceived they were influenced by the perpetrator’s history of peer victimization and the level of intervention offered by school personnel when the shooter was bullied. Further regression analyses suggested that participant characteristics such as race, gender, and prior experiences with bullying were among the most powerful predictors of agreement with sentencing recommendations.Practical implicationsImplications of the current findings raise questions as to the influence of peer victimization in civil and criminal court proceedings and its associated impact on the juvenile justice system, the educational system, and society’s desire for justice.Originality/valueThis study ambitiously ventures into exploring and understanding the relevant sociological, academic, and legal factors in addressing acts of school violence.

The Impact of the Rape/Sexual Assault Statutory Aggravating Factor on Death Sentencing Decision Making in Capital Murder Trials in North Carolina (1977–2009): A Propensity Score Matching Approach

It was not too many decades ago that rape was a crime for which the death penalty was a permissible punishment in the United States, particularly in death penalty states in the South. Relatedly, historical and contemporary death penalty research almost always focuses on the role of the race of the defendant and, more recently, the race of the victim and defendant–victim racial dyads as being relevant factors in death penalty decision making. As such, the current study employs data from official court records for the population of capital trials (n = 954) in the state of North Carolina (1977–2009) to evaluate the effect of the rape/sexual assault statutory aggravating factor on jurors’ decision to recommend the death penalty. Results suggest that cases in which rape is an aggravating factor had a significantly greater odds of receiving a death penalty recommendation, and these results are robust after also considering the independent effects of defendant–victim racial dyads, even following the application of propensity score matching to equate cases on a host of defendant and victim characteristics, legal and extralegal confounders, and case characteristics. Study limitations and implications are discussed.