“But He’s a Star Football Player!”: How Social Status Influences Mock Jurors’ Perceptions in a Sexual Assault Case

Abstract

There have been several recent, high-profile cases in the media that have shed light on the perceived leniency in sentencing defendants in sexual assault cases. In a number of these cases, the defendant was well known within their community (e.g., Brock Turner; People v. Turner) or nationally (e.g., Ghomeshi; R v. Ghomeshi). The purpose of this study was to examine how the social status of the defendant (low vs. high), victim social status (low vs. high), victim gender (male vs. female), and the reason the victim was unconscious during the assault (consuming alcohol vs. consuming cold medicine) influenced mock jurors' decisions in a sexual assault case. Mock jurors ( N = 489) read a mock trial transcript depicting an alleged sexual assault. Mock jurors were asked to render a dichotomous verdict, continuous guilt rating, and rate their perceptions of the victim and defendant. There was no influence of the variables on mock jurors' dichotomous verdicts; however, social status influenced guilt ratings. There also was a combined influence of the defendant's social status and the reason the victim was unconscious such that when the defendant was described as low status, and the victim was unconscious due to alcohol consumption, the defendant received higher guilt ratings compared with when the victim was unconscious due to cold medicine. Moreover, the victim was perceived as having more control over the situation when the defendant was the star quarterback (i.e., high status), the victim was female, and she was unconscious due to alcohol consumption compared with cold medicine. These results suggest that victims may be blamed based on their perceived social status and other factors that may have influenced their control over the sexual assault, such as alcohol consumption.

The Effects of Victim and Perpetrator Characteristics on Ratings of Guilt in a Sexual Assault Case

“…Research by Knight and colleagues (2001) showed that celebrity status had protective benefits for White perpetrators but did not offer the same protection for Black perpetrators in a hypothetical sexual assault. Pica, Sheahan, and Pozzulo (2017) found greater victim blame when the perpetrator was a star athlete (than a bartender), but they did not independently manipulate celebrity status and athlete status. Also, studies have shown that although professional and college athletes were more likely to get arrested than their nonathlete peers in sexual assault cases, they were less likely to get convicted (Benedict & Klein, 1997; Repetto, 2016; Weir & Brady, 2003).…”

“…We also expected a three-way interaction between perpetrator’s celebrity status, perpetrator’s athlete status, and victim’s speed of reporting such that the perpetrator characteristics would only be used for participants’ judgments when the victim reported immediately and there would be no interaction between celebrity status and athlete status when the victim delayed reporting (Hypothesis 2a). Although we found no research to date on perceptions of athletes and sexual assault, we thought that the celebrity status of a professional athlete might serve a protective function for the athlete [given the research on celebrities by Knight and colleagues (2001), star athletes by Pica and colleagues (2017), and the research on low professional athlete convictions by Benedict and Klein (1997)]. However, this protective status may disappear and people may rely on associations between aggression and athletes, especially football players (Cox, 1998; Singer, 1975), when they are not celebrities.…”

Perception of a Perpetrator as a Successful Person Predicts Decreased Moral Judgment of a Rape Case and Labeling it as Rape

“…A more recent study has found that a perpetrator’s low social status affected whether he was seen guilty in a rape case after alcohol consumption, but not after taking cold medicine (i.e., whether they were considered responsible for their state). However, this difference was not found when the perpetrator was a star athlete (Pica et al, 2017).…”

“…These two sources of success may have different implications for lenience. In the former case, it has to do with social power, and in the letter case, it is connected to positive personal qualities and deservingness (for a similar distinction see Pica et al, 2017).…”

Mock Jurors’ Perceptions of Sexual Assault on a University Campus

“…However, it must be noted that some studies have found no effect of victim gender on jurors' guilt judgments. Although gender is influential, it is possible that gender may become less salient/important for decision making when other factors are considered (e.g., Pica et al, 2020). Even more so, the gender of the perpetrator also may combine with victim gender to influence jurors' judgments.…”