NCJ Number
125982
Journal
Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 17 Issue: 3 Dated: (September 1990) Pages: 303-314
Date Published
1990
Length
12 pages
Annotation
Does deliberation attenuate extralegal biases in jury verdicts, or does it exaggerate them? Consistent with an information-integration theory analysis, Kaplan and Miller in 1978 found that deliberation can eliminate such biases.
Abstract
However, in the present study, the physical attractiveness of a criminal defendant only influenced postdeliberation mock juror and jury judgments. When the defendant was attractive, there was a shift in judgments toward acquittal, but when the defendant was unattractive, there was no such shift. As a result, mock juries were more likely to acquit the attractive defendant than the unattractive defendant. Because a shift toward acquittal is the modal pattern during deliberation in close criminal cases, the results suggest that the unattractive defendant did not receive the benefit of the doubt that is usually granted to criminal defendants. The results of this and other studies are discussed in terms of social influence patterns in jury deliberation. 3 tables, 6 notes, and 22 references. (Publisher abstract)