What Makes Race Salient? Juror Decision-Making in Same-Race Versus Cross-Race Identification Scenarios and the Influence of Expert Testimony

Maeder, Evelyn M.; Ewanation, Logan

doi:10.1177/0093854818776998

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…In the same way, they attributed the most blame to nonmember offenders (i.e., different ethnic affiliation). This pattern agrees with previous findings regarding the offender–observer ethnicity nexus (e.g., Maeder & Ewanation, 2018). In our case, the exception was the responses among Christian Arab participants, who blamed African offenders the most (i.e., dissimilar offender) and Jewish offenders the least (i.e., also dissimilar ethnically).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Attribution of Blame Toward Offenders: Victim and Offender Ethnicity, and Observer Ethnic and Religious Background

Rozmann

Levy

2019

J Interpers Violence

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This study focuses on the effects of victim/offender ethnic affiliation and cultural background of observers on attitudes toward offenders. To examine the effect of cultural background, we compared offender attribution among Christian Arabs ( n = 51), Muslim Arabs ( n = 249), and Jews ( n = 285). The participants were students from several Israeli universities and colleges. The age range was 18 to 33 years ( M = 20.23, SD = 2.67), and the majority were female (75.6%). The participants read a version of a vignette describing a case of a stabbing, and then rated the offender’s blame. In different versions of the crime scenario, we manipulated victim and offender ethnicity: two victim (Arab/Jewish) and three offender (African/Arab/Jewish) types. The results indicate that, in general, participants blamed African offenders more than Arab or Jewish offenders. Although the results show that differences in offender blaming between Arab and Jewish participants were not statistically significant, there is an interaction between participant cultural background and victim ethnicity in regard to offender blaming: Participants attributed more blame to offenders who stabbed a victim belonging to the same ethnic group as the participants. Overall, the results support defensive attribution theory, suggesting that observer attitudes toward offenders tend to be affected by similarity in ethnic affiliation. The discussion addresses the findings through the perspectives of cultural reciprocity, defensive attribution theory, and minority threat theory. It also acknowledges the limitations related to the specific cultural and geopolitical context of this research. Practical implications for practitioners and policymakers include training and increased ethnic diversity among professionals and experts working within the criminal justice system.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Attribution of Blame Toward Offenders: Victim and Offender Ethnicity, and Observer Ethnic and Religious Background

Rozmann

Levy

2019

J Interpers Violence

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“…These findings contribute to research showing that jurors' judgments are negatively affected in cases involving racial minority defendants, victims, and/or witnesses (e.g., Bottoms et al, ; Devine & Caughlin, ; Johnson, Blume, Eisenberg, Hans, & Wells, ; Sweeney & Haney, ) by showing that this racial bias in the courtroom extends to mock jurors' evaluations of bystander eyewitnesses. Compared with other studies that have examined the influence of eyewitness race (Abshire & Bornstein, ; Adams et al, ; Ewanation & Maeder, ; Frumkin, ; Maeder & Ewanation, ), the current study is unique both in that the bystander witness testifies for the defense and in that the case does not rely on an eyewitness identification of the defendant for the purposes of determining guilt. Given that the defendant does not dispute that he was involved in the incident, there is no doubt as to whether the witness in our study identified the correct person.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…The few extant relevant studies indicate that eyewitness race (minority versus non‐minority) does not directly influence verdicts, but it does influence jurors' perceptions of eyewitness credibility, accuracy, etc. (Abshire & Bornstein, ; Adams, Bryden, & Griffith, ; Ewanation & Maeder, ; Frumkin, ; Maeder & Ewanation, ). Thus, it is important to explore the continuity of racial effects alongside the introduction of video footage depicting an encounter described by an eyewitness.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of body‐worn camera footage and eyewitness race on jurors' perceptions of police use of force

Saulnier

Burke

Bottoms

2019

Behavioral Sci & The Law

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Police use of body‐worn cameras (BWCs) is increasingly common in the USA. This article reports the results of one of the first experimental examinations of the effects of three BWC status conditions (absent, transcribed, viewed) and eyewitness race (Black, White) on mock jurors' case judgments, in a case in which a community member (defendant) was charged with resisting arrest but where the officer's use of force in conducting the arrest was controversial. Results provide evidence of significant main effects of both eyewitness race and BWC status. When the eyewitness supporting the defendant was White, mock jurors were less likely to vote the defendant guilty of resisting arrest, as well as more likely to consider the defendant credible and the officer culpable for the incident. In addition, when BWC footage of the arrest was viewed, compared with transcribed or absent, participants were less likely to vote the defendant guilty of resisting arrest, and also rated the officer's use of force less justifiable, and the officer more culpable and less credible. Follow‐up analyses demonstrated that these relationships between BWC condition and case judgments were all mediated by moral outrage toward the officer.

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“…They varied both defendant race and character witness race (Black or White), but found no main effects or interaction between witness race and defendant race. In two studies that manipulated race of eyewitnesses and defendants, Maeder and Ewanation (Ewanation & Maeder, 2018; Maeder & Ewanation, 2018) hypothesized that White eyewitnesses would be rated as more accurate, but again found no main effects or interactions for the race conditions in either study.…”

Section: Defendant Race Case Factors and Biased Jury Decision Makingmentioning

confidence: 96%

Race, witness credibility, and jury deliberation in a simulated drug trafficking trial.

Shaw¹,

Lynch²,

Laguna³

et al. 2021

Law and Human Behavior

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Objective: The present study integrates several distinct lines of jury decision-making research by examining how the racial identities of the defendant and an informant witness interact in a federal drug conspiracy trial scenario and by assessing whether jurors' individual racial identity and jury group racial composition influence their judgments. Hypotheses: We predicted that jurors would be biased against the Black defendant and would be more likely to convict after exposure to a White informant, among other hypotheses. Method: We recruited 822 nonstudent jury-eligible participants assigned to 144 jury groups. Each group was assigned to one of four onditions where defendant race (Black or White) and informant race (Black or White) was manipulated. Each group watched a realistic audio-visual trial presentation, then deliberated as a group to render a verdict. Results: Contrary to expectations, the conditions depicting a Black defendant yielded lower conviction rates compared to those with a White defendant-at both the predeliberation individual (odds ratio [OR] = 1.54) and postdeliberation group level (OR = 2.91)-while the informant race did not influence verdict outcomes. We also found that jurors rated the government witnesses as more credible when the defendant was White compared to when he was Black. Credibility ratings and verdict outcomes were also predicted by jurors' own race, although juror race did not interact with the race conditions when predicting verdicts. Conclusions: Jurors are sensitive to defendant race, and this sensitivity appears to strengthen after deliberation-but in a direction opposite to what was expected. One potential implication of our findings is that juries may operate as a check on system bias by applying greater scrutiny to law enforcement-derived evidence when the defendant is Black. Public Significance StatementThis study exposed mock jurors to a drug conspiracy case where law enforcement credibility was key to conviction and found that they were less likely to convict a Black defendant than a White defendant. Participants were more skeptical about the credibility of the law enforcement-derived testimony when the defendant was Black, opening the possibility that sensitivity to bias in the criminal justice system may influence how lay persons consider and assess evidence produced by system actors.

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What Makes Race Salient? Juror Decision-Making in Same-Race Versus Cross-Race Identification Scenarios and the Influence of Expert Testimony

Cited by 11 publications

References 63 publications

Attribution of Blame Toward Offenders: Victim and Offender Ethnicity, and Observer Ethnic and Religious Background

Attribution of Blame Toward Offenders: Victim and Offender Ethnicity, and Observer Ethnic and Religious Background

The effects of body‐worn camera footage and eyewitness race on jurors' perceptions of police use of force

Race, witness credibility, and jury deliberation in a simulated drug trafficking trial.

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