Jurors Report that Risk Measure Scores Matter in Sexually Violent Predator Trials, but that Other Factors Matter More

Abstract

After deliberating to a verdict, jurors (N = 462) from 40 sexually violent predator (SVP) trials completed a questionnaire asking them to rate the extent to which risk measure scores, diagnoses, expert witness testimony, and offender characteristics described during the trials influenced their commitment decisions. Jurors reported that offenders' sexual offending history, failure to change, and lack of remorse had the strongest influence on their commitment decisions. They reported that testimony about risk instrument scores (e.g., Static-99) and psychopathy had less influence on their decisions, but those who did report being influenced by instrument results were especially likely to view the offender as being at a high risk for reoffending. Overall, findings suggest that SVP jurors view risk measure results as important, but not as important as other offender, offense, and testimony characteristics, including some that have limited relevance to recidivism risk. Thus, findings also suggest that experts may need to better educate jurors regarding factors that do and do not relate to recidivism risk.

Risk assessment communication difficulties: An empirical examination of the effects of categorical versus probabilistic risk communication in sexually violent predator decisions

“…Jurors' viewpoints toward punishments will affect their verdicts and recidivism estimates more than various risk level manipulations by categories or probabilities. This hypothesis is consistent with the limited research suggesting that risk assessments have less influence than other factors in juror decisions in SVP cases (Turner et al, 2015), and that those jurors higher in punitiveness/vengeance, in particular, will be the ones most likely to decide to commit (Dover et al, 2012).…”

Effects of Mental Health and Neuroscience Evidence on Juror Perceptions of a Criminal Defendant: the Moderating Role of Political Orientation

“…Because jurors are known to view mental health evidence with a certain level of skepticism (see, e.g., Turner, Boccaccini, Murrie, & Harris, ), we next examined the extent to which our mental health manipulation impacted how our participants perceived the defendant's diagnostic status. In the condition in which the defendant was described as psychopathic, the mean rating of the level of psychopathic traits (on a 0–100 point scale) was 48.0 (SD = 30.3), which was considerably higher than the mean rating for schizophrenia: 29.4 (SD = 29.6), t (414) 6.39, p < .001, Cohen's d = .63.…”

Is it all in the details? Effect of psychopathy communication format on laypeople's perceptions of legal outcomes

“…One of the purposes of using more detailed information when describing the presence of psychopathy in a risk assessment report is to make the information clearer and more useful for legal purposes. Past researchers have argued that providing more detailed information is important to ensure that appropriate and useful information is provided to decision-makers (Blais et al, 2017;Boccaccini et al, 2013;Turner et al, 2015). Having followed recommendations for improved communication, the results were expected to demonstrate that the enhanced psychopathy information format is associated with higher ratings on the format-related variables.…”

“…It is important to note that results from a small body of mock-jury research suggest that the scores from risk measures, including the PCL-R, have little influence on judges' and jurors' perceptions (Boccaccini et al, 2013;Krauss et al, 2012;Turner et al, 2015). This body of research suggests that mock jurors are more likely to be influenced by testimony based on clinical judgement than by testimony based on findings from risk assessment instruments regardless of the empirical support for the latter (Krauss et al, 2012;McCabe et al, 2010).…”

“…Additionally, I predicted that risk level would have no influence on the usefulness of PCL-R information. Past research has demonstrated that jurors tend to rely more on information other than risk scores when making legal decisions (Boccaccini et al, 2013;Turner et al, 2015), therefore, the level of risk indicated by the risk score was expected to have little influence on the perceptions of other risk report information.…”