Mock Juror Ratings of Guilt in Canada: Modern Racism and Ethnic Heritage

Abstract

This research investigated whether the prejudicial attitudes of mock jurors in Canada produce criminal sanction disparities similar to those reported by research in the United States. In order to investigate this hypothesis, English Canadian participants read a transcript of a sexual assault trial that varied the ethnic background of both the victim and the defendant (i.e., English, French or Native Canadian). Participants were then asked to rate the guilt of the defendant in two ways: (1) on a 7-point bipolar scale in accordance with their personal beliefs (i.e., Subjective Guilt Rating), and (2) on a dichotomous scale (guilty/not guilty) in accor- dance with judicial instructions (i.e., Legal Standard Guilt Rating). Participants were also asked to rate the victim and defendant on a number of personality traits. Results indicate that participants asked to rate the degree of guilt of the defendant according to the Subjective Guilt Rating found him more guilty if he was French, or Native Canadian as opposed to English Canadian. These prejudicial ratings, however, dissipated when participants were asked to rate the guilt of the defendant according to the Legal Standard Guilt Rating that included jury instructions. This apparent paradox in results is discussed in terms of modern racism theory.

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

“…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).…”

“…Only one study has examined the differential effect of race on juror decision-making in cases of sexual assault comparing a White to an Aboriginal Canadian defendant. Pfeifer and Ogloff (2003) determined that, with a White (English or French) victim, an Aboriginal defendant was rated as guiltier than a White (English or French) defendant on a 7-point subjective scale, but there was no significant difference between the defendant on the number of dichotomous guilty verdicts. This is consistent with research involving Black and White defendant (Klein & Creech, 1982;Rector & Bagby, 1995), as well as aversive racism.…”

“…Based on the literature discussing the influence of defendant race on jurors in sexual assault trials (e.g., Klein & Creech, 1982;Pfeifer & Ogloff, 2003;Rector & Bagby, 1995), we hypothesized that the Aboriginal Canadian defendant would be treated the most harshly, followed by the Black defendant, with the White defendant being treated the most leniently in terms of continuous ratings such as guilt certainty, defendant responsibility, and sentence. Though some studies have failed to find an effect of defendant race (Barnett & Feild, 1978), we suspected that the use of photographs to manipulate race in our study may elicit a race effect.…”

Talking about a Black Man: The Influence of Defendant and Character Witness Race on Jurors' Use of Character Evidence

“…When race is salient in a trial, White jurors are sensitive to the possibility of prejudice and thus tend to make non-biased verdicts; however, when race is not salient, their judgments often are biased against Black defendants (Sommers & Ellsworth, 2000). Likewise, jury instructions may reduce or eliminate racial bias because they may remove the ambiguity that allows jurors to be influenced by prejudice (Pfeifer & Bernstein, 2003;Pfeifer & Ogloff, 2003).…”

“…There were not overall effects of defendant race or character witness race on verdicts (cf., Mitchell et al, 2005), and, unexpectedly, impressions of the defendant were slightly more positive when he was Black (cf., Jones et al, 1998). This lack of bias may reflect the use of dichotomous guilt measures and judicial instructions, both of which reduce race effects in juror decisionmaking (Pfeifer & Bernstein, 2003;Pfeifer & Ogloff, 2003).…”