Ambiguity and Guilt Determinations: A Modern Racism Perspective¹

Abstract

Studies documenting the existence of prejudice in simulated juror ratings of guilt may not be directly generalizable to legal applications due to a failure to include jury instructions. Jury instructions specifying the conditions required to find a defendant guilty may serve to dissipate juror's overt prejudices. In order to investigate this hypothesis, participants read a transcript of a trial in which the race of the victim and the defendant were varied. In addition, half the participants were given jury instructions which specified the elements of the crime, and noted that in order to find the defendant guilty each element had to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Participants were then asked to rate the guilt of the defendant. Results replicated earlier studies which found that participants overwhelmingly rate black defendants guiltier than white defendants, especially when the victim is white. However, these differences disappeared when participants were provided with jury instructions. The findings are discussed with regard to the theory of modern racism.

The influence of defendant race and victim physical attractiveness on juror decision-making in a sexual assault trial

“…Support for aversive racism has been found in the context of affirmative action (Dovidio & Gaertner, 1996), workplace hiring (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000), and legal decision-making (Dovidio, Smith, Donnella, & Gaertner, 1997). In addition, studies demonstrating that racial disparity in sentencing in sexual assault cases is strongest when no jury instructions (explaining the charge, burden of proof, and reasonable doubt) are present (Hill & Pfeifer, 1992;Mitchell, Haw, Pfeifer, & Meissner, 2005;Pfeifer & Ogloff, 1991, 2003 or when evidence in the case is weak (Ugwuegbu, 1979) lend support to aversive racism theory. Aversive racism also explains why defendant race may not affect participant verdict decision, which is a more guided decision, while still affecting the more flexible decision of sentence length recommendations (Klein & Creech, 1982;Mitchell et al, 2005;Pfeifer & Ogloff, 2003).…”

Race in the Courtroom: Perceptions of Guilt and Dispositional Attributions

“…Most investigators con-clude that race plays a role in juror verdicts and sentencing 1 but some have found jurors to be biased against defendants of a different race (e.g., Klein & Creech, 1982;Sweeney & Haney, 1992), whereas others have found bias against defendants of the same race (McGowen & King, 1982). Some researchers have concluded that racial effects can be erased by judicial instruction (Pfeifer & Ogloff, 1991), by deliberation (Bernard, 1979), or by the absence of inadmissible evidence (Johnson, Whitestone, Jackson, & Gatto, 1995). Still other studies and meta-analyses find no evidence of racial bias (Mazzella & Feingold, 1994;McGuire & Bermant, 1977).…”

Racism in Rape Trials

“…There is always the nagging possibility that the variables manipulated in mockjury studies, such as this one, do not operate similarly in real juries (Baumeister & Darley, 1982;Bernard, 1979;Davis, 1989;Gerbasi et al, 1977;Pfeifer & Ogloff, 1991;Weiten & Diamond, 1979). Attempts to deal with that issue have involved the use of more heterogeneous samples of jury-eligible adults, more realistic trial simulations, and the incorporation of a deliberation phase in study designs.…”