Simulated Jurors Research Articles

Effects of a mandatory death penalty on the decisions of simulated jurors as a function of heinousness of the crime

The influence of a mandatory death penalty on the verdicts of simulated jurors was assessed. Seventy male and 81 female subjects read a description of a trial involving either a gang war murder or the heinous murder of a child. A guilty verdict carried with it either a prison term or a mandatory death penalty. Given equivalent evidence against the defendant, subjects rendered guilty verdicts significantly less frequently when the sentence was the death penalty than when it was a prison term. However, the influence of the death penalty in decreasing the likelihood of a guilty verdict was defendent on the nature of the crime. The difference in frequency of guilty verdicts was significant in the gang-war-murder condition but was not significant in the heinous-murder condition. Conviction rates in the imprisonment condition were unaffected by the nature of the crime.

The Effect of Several Types of Pretrial Publicity on the Guilt Attributions of Simulated Jurors1

The experiment (N= 312) tested the effects of two types of pretrial publicity (PTP) on the guilt verdicts of simulated jurors. Heinous PTP was manipulated by varying the degree to which the lurid details of a rape‐murder were presented to prospective jurors. Prejudgement PTP varied in the extent to which it implied that the defendant was the perpetrator or the rape‐murder. As predicted, PTP which was high in either heinousness or prejudgment increased the females' tendency to conclude‐after the trial evidence‐that the defendant was guilty of the crime. The biasing effect of prejudgment PTP, however, was significant only among females categorized as being of low IQ. In contrast, neither dimension of PTF' significantly influenced the guilt verdicts of male jurors. Several possible explanations of the sex's differential vulnerability to PTP were proposed. In addition, evidence was obtained that female jurors may have been derogating the rape‐murder victim and defensively minimizing the gravity of her fate, as a result of motivations to believe in a just world.

Effects of decision alternatives on the verdicts and social perceptions of simulated jurors.

Effects of decision alternatives on the verdicts and social perceptions of simulated jurors.

Latitude and Severity of Sentencing Options, Race of the Victim and Decisions of Simulated Jurors: Some Issues Arising from the “Algiers Motel” Trial

On the fourth day of the Detroit riots (1967), newspapers reported that three Negroes had been killed in a sniper battle at the Algiers Motel. The night before — Tuesday, July 25 — rumors of sniping were widespread. Responding to a telephone report of shots fired in the vicinity, a number of Detroit police officers, State Troopers and National Guardsmen rushed into the annex of the Algiers Motel. Inside, they found ten black men and two white girls. No guns were found. The police began questioning them. One hour later, when the police left, three of the men lay dead [Carl Cooper, Fred Temple, and Auburey Pollard], shot at close range. The others, including the two girls, had been severely beaten (Hersey, 1968; insert ours).

The influence of the character of the criminal and his victim on the decisions of simulated jurors

In two separate experiments subjects read a standardized description of a crime of negligent automobile homicide. In both Experiments I and II, the victim of the crime was presented to approximately one-half of the subjects as an unattractive person (Unattractive Victim condition) and to the other half of the subjects as an attractive person (Attractive Victim condition). In Experiment II the character of the defendant was also varied: he was described to some subjects as an attractive person, to some as an unattractive person, and to others as a “neutral” person. The actual circumstances of the crime were, of course, identical for all subjects. The subjects were requested to sentence the defendant to a specific number of years of imprisonment according to their own personal judgment. As predicted, the results of both Experiments I and II showed that subjects in the Attractive Victim conditions tended to sentence the defendant to a greater number of years of imprisonment than subjects in the Unattractive Victim conditions. In Experiment II, subjects in the Unattractive Defendant condition sentenced the defendant more severely than subjects in either the Attractive or Neutral Defendant conditions.