The effect of the deliberation process and jurors' prior legal knowledge on the sentence: the role of psychological expertise and crime scene photo

Abstract

An experiment with simulated juries (N = 198) tested the impact of the deliberation process and two extra legal variables on the determination of sentence. Participants were either social science students without prior instruction in criminal law (prior legal knowledge: low-level group) or future professional magistrates completing their final year of training (high-level group). We manipulated the presence versus absence of (i) a non-diagnostic observation of the defendant by a psychology expert and (ii) a realistic crime scene photograph. After controlling for participants' gender and age, our results show that the high-level group was both less sensitive to the manipulated variables and more severe in their sentence than low-level jurors. We observed a post-deliberation increase in pre-deliberation bias such that the non-diagnostic psychological expertise had a stronger post-deliberation impact on the sentence. Finally, an unexpected effect showed that aggressive responses during the psychological observation tended to operate as exculpatory rather than accusatory evidence. Our results are discussed on the basis of previous research and proposals for future research are made.

What Evidence Matters to Jurors? The Prevalence and Importance of Different Homicide Trial Evidence to Mock Jurors

“…The participants were then asked to sentence the defendant (who had already been found guilty) to up to 15 years in prison. The participants who were shown the photograph of the crime scene gave significantly longer sentences than those who did not see the photograph (Finkelstein & Bastounis, 2010). These findings and others indicate that visual evidence, particularly when it is gruesome, leads to more punitive decisions (e.g., Bright & Goodman-Delahunty, 2006;Finkelstein & Bastounis, 2010;Oliver & Griffitt, 1976;Whalen & Blanchard, 1982).…”

“…It was found that the mock jurors who were shown pictures, whether gruesome or not, were more likely to find the defendant guilty than those who were not shown any pictures (Bright & Goodman-Delahunty, 2006). Finkelstein and Bastounis (2010) examined the effects of a crime-scene photograph on mock jurors' sentencing recommendations. The participants read a trial transcript depicting an involuntary homicide and half were shown a photograph of the bloody victim at the crime scene.…”

Impact of Gruesome Photographic Evidence on Legal Decisions: A Meta-Analysis

“…Another limitation often noted is the lack of deliberation in many jury decision-making studies. Two of the studies included in this meta-analysis feature mock juror deliberation (Finkelstein & Bastounis, 2010;Modin, 2006), but do not find any difference in the effect of gruesome photographs between judgments made before and after deliberation -although future studies aiming for applied recommendations may wish to conduct more studies with deliberation. Finally, the heterogeneity of stimuli between studies is important to note.…”

The Effects of Limiting Instructions about Emotional Evidence Depend on Need for Cognition

“…Given that several studies have pointed out the limited effectiveness of juror instructions due to difficulty with comprehension -and given that others have reported that the effect of juror instructions depends on the timing of presentation, whereby pre-trial instructions are more effective than post-trial instructions -the present study provided mock jurors with both pre-and post-trial instructions in simple everyday language to maximize comprehension (Bourgeois, Horowitz, ForsterLee, & Grahe, 1995;Cush & Goodman-Delahunty, 2006;Ellsworth, 1989;Finkelstein & Bastounis, 2010;Rector, Bagby, & Nicholson, 1993;Smith, 1991).…”