Effects of Victim and Defendant Race on Jurors' Decisions in Child Sexual Abuse Cases¹

Abstract

We examined the influence of victim and defendant race, victim age, juror gender, and juror prejudice on jurors' decisions in child sexual abuse cases. In Experiments 1 and 2, mock jurors judged Black and Hispanic child victims to be more responsible for their sexual abuse than White victims. In Experiment 2, jurors assigned more guilt to defendants in cases involving victims and perpetrators of the same race compared to different races. Experiment 3 illustrated that laypeople believe same‐race cases to be more plausible generally. Experiment 2 revealed that high‐prejudiced White mock jurors made no more racially biased judgments than low‐prejudiced mock jurors. Finally, women were generally more pro‐victim in their case judgments than were men, and older victims were disadvantaged compared to younger victims in terms of perceived credibility and responsibility, and their cases were less likely to draw convictions.

Gender differences in attitudes toward psychopathic sexual offenders

“…In brief, research that has examined adult rape cases with a female victim and a male perpetrator indicates that men tend to blame victims more, identify and empathize with victims less, and attribute greater responsibility to victims (Deitz, Blackwell, Daley, & Bentley, 1982;Foley & Pigott, 2000;see Brekke & Borgida, 1988, for a review). A similar pattern of results is noted in the literature for child victims of sexual violence, in that female jurors, compared to male jurors, tend to make more pro-victim case decisions with respect to credibility, responsibility, or guilt judgments (Bottoms, 1993;Bottoms, Davis, & Epstein, 2004;Bottoms & Goodman, 1994;Crowley, O'Gallaghan, & Ball, 1994;Golding, Sanchez, & Sego, 1997Golding, Sego, Sanchez, & Hasemann, 1995;McCauley & Parker, 2001;Quas, Goodman, & Jones, 2003;Schmidt & Brigham, 1996; for a meta-analytic review, see Schutte & Hosch, 1997). Whether such a gender effect also would be observed in an SVP mock jury paradigm with a child victim has never been tested.…”

Explaining Gender Differences in Jurors' Reactions to Child Sexual Assault Cases

“…1 We also tested the influence of child victim age on case judgments. Older children are generally perceived as less credible than younger children in child sexual abuse cases (e.g., Bottoms, Davis, & Epstein, 2004;Golding, Sanchez, & Sego, 1999; but see Golding, Fryman, Marsil, & Yozwiak, 2003;McCauley & Parker, 2001; for a review, see Bottoms et al, 2007). Bottoms and Goodman (1994) theorized that, compared with older children and adults, young children are generally perceived to be low in competence (cognitive ability, resistance to suggestion), yet high in trustworthiness (honesty, sincerity, innocence; see also Goodman et al, 1984;Leippe & Romanczyk, 1987;, and that jurors attribute credibility to young child sexual abuse victims because they view these victims as honest and trustworthy, but also as sexually naive, lacking the knowledge and cognitive capacity to fabricate sexual encounters.…”

Juror perceptions of African American- and Arabic-named victims

“…Decades of conceptual and empirical work have consistently suggested that from the selection of jurors (Sommers & Norton, 2008) to jury decision-making (Mitchell, Haw, Pfeifer, & Meissner, 2005), victims and offenders who are racial minorities are disadvantaged during trials (Bottoms, Davis, & Epstein, 2004;Lynch & Haney, 2009;Taylor & Hosch, 2004). Likewise, the lay public believes that the legal system is unfair to racial minorities (McGuffee, Garland, & Eigenberg, 2007).…”