During trial

Question 1

factors influencing during the trial

Answer 1

defendant characteristics
expert witness testimony
story models
witness characteristics

Question 2

defendant characteristics (race)

Answer 2

Race
Bradbury and williams - 2013 - black defendant more likely to be convicted by white and hispanic jurors and less likely by black

Skolnick and shan 1997 - jury and defendant same ethnicity = less likely to find defendant guilty. White jurors were more likely to find a black not guilty (don’t want to be seen as racist)

Abwender and Hough 2001

• black ppts showed leniency to own race
• hispanics showed opposite
• white didn’t show any racial bias

Question 3

3 defendant characteristics

Answer 3

race
attractiveness
accent

Question 4

defendant characteristics (attractiveness)

Answer 4

Abwender and Hough - female jurors were found to be harsher to an unattractive defendant males opposite (villains in films portrayed as unattractive)

Sigall and Ostrove 1975 - 120 ppts make sentence recommendations for fraud or burglary. ppts asked to rate Barbra Helms attractiveness then give prison sentence 1-15 years. Barbra Helms sentenced longer for fraud and shorter for burglary

Question 5

defendant characteristics (accent)

Answer 5

Dixon and Mahoney 1997- ppts given transcript and tape to listen to different accents

• strong brume accent considered more guilty
• black with brummie were more guilty
• ppts were white and non brummie
• study repeated un 2002 and 2004 and same outcome

Question 6

evaluation of defendant characteristics

Answer 6

• lab settings so lacks ecological validity
• too many controlled variables so not applicable
• other factors influence jury decision making such as past experience

Question 7

expert witness testimony

Answer 7

often used to give scientific credibility to evidence

• experts warn jury about reliability of witness evidence
• this reduces trust in some evidence
• but does not distinguish good from bad

Cutler et al 1989 - jurors more likely to give guilty verdicts when the expert witness used easy-to-understand language

Question 8

story models

Answer 8

complex info = jurors pick out key facts and create story to make sense

Pennington and Hastie 1990

• jury given account in easy to understand order = 78% of ppts gave guilty verdicts
• account not in logical order = 31% ppts gave guilty verdicts
• legal representatives should consider how they structure legal arguments

Question 9

witness characteristics

Answer 9

confident authoritarian witness may influence jury as more persuasive