NCJ Number
150404
Journal
Law and Human Behavior Volume: 18 Issue: 3 Dated: special issue (June 1994) Pages: 339-350
Date Published
1994
Length
12 pages
Annotation
Using a videotaped presentation of a mock rape trial, a sample of 361 white Canadian undergraduates were asked to complete a survey designed to examine the effects of defendant and victim race, and the presence and absence of judicial instruction, on jury decision making.
Abstract
The evidence in the case was provided by a police inspector and a gynecologist who testified that blood tests proved inconclusive in identifying the defendant. The results of this study indicate that verdict decisions relied more heavily on the perceived positive appeal of the defendant, rather than on his race or the victim's race. The most unexpected outcome was that the predictive power of positive defendant appeal was not affected by the provision of judicial instructions. In this study, the white jurors were more likely to convict the white, than the black, defendant. The primary limitations of this study were the absence of a jury deliberation process, the problem of external validity, and the use of college students (who have been shown in other research to be less likely to convict than the public at large). 1 table, 1 note, and 36 references