Extralegal Factors in Juridic Decision-Making

The mock jury paradigm is a method that is frequently used to study juridic decision-making. Research related to jurors explores how jurors weigh evidence, process information, and reach legal decisions (Mazzella & Feingold, 1994). If juridic decisions are reached exclusiv

Gray & Ashmore (1976) examined the hypothesis that “unattractive” defendants receive more severe recommendations for sentences for a given crime than “attractive” defendants do. The three variables of the study were race, class, and religious belief. The study focused on sentencing rather than convicting. The main effects of race, class, and religious belief supported the hypothesis. The findings supported the existence of asocial discrimination hypothesis in the treatment of “unattractive” convicted offenders for certain kinds of samples, such as senior citizens of a religious group and a middle aged high school graduate sample as used in this study (Gray & Ashmore, 1976). However, the authors state that more effective manipulation of social class would be important in future research (Gray & Ashmore, 1976). Another component of the study was that sentencing discrimination might depend on the nature of mock jurors, which in this study was heavily over-represented by senior citizens.

The results of this study indicate that defendant SES status may not be viewed as negatively in length of sentence given as is often suggested. The study also suggests that elderly mock jurors in a nursing home are much more lenient in sentencing than young mock jurors. In both cases, having previous jury experience indicates an inclination to give shorter sentences. The results of the investigation point to the need for further empirical research using age of mock juror as a variable.

In contrast to the Mazzella and Feingold study (1994) and the other studies cited previously, the present findings did not support the existence of a social discrimination hypothesis in the sentencing of a low SES defendant. Although the study focused on sentencing rather than convicting, the mock jurors may have been influenced by a bias against the verdict and therefore, rendered lighter sentences. The mock jurors were asked to decide on a sentence and instructed that the verdict of guilty had already been rendered and therefore, innocence or guilt was not a factor. However, it is common for judicial instructions to be ignored (Kerr & Bray, 1982) and instructions to mock jurors may also be ignored.

Osborne and Rappaport’s (1985) study also concluded that studies that manipulate only one variable dimension might overestimate the influence of these variable dimensions in mock jurors’ decisions. The number of variables and interactions among some of these variables influenced the decisions of mock jurors on sentencing severity. The authors suggest that experimental data should be applied in courtroom settings with caution because experimental manipulations may overestimate the predictive validity of independent variables in courtroom settings (Osborne and Rappaport, 1985).

Some topics in this essay:
Mazzella Feingold, Gray Ashmore, Gleason Harris, Osborne Rappaport, Kerr Bray, Participants Twenty, Appendix Participants, Low SES, Zuckerman Reis, Osborne Rappaport’s, mock jurors, low ses, mazzella feingold, gleason harris, mazzella feingold 1994, feingold 1994, ashmore 1976, gray ashmore 1976, gray ashmore, ses defendants, gleason harris 1976, rappaport 1985, osborne rappaport, osborne rappaport 1985, low ses defendants,