The influence of attorney anger on juror decision making.

We investigated the interactive effect of attorney anger expression and attorney gender on juror decision-making. Jury eligible Amazon MTurk participants (N = 455) were recruited. They listened to an audio recording of a male or female prosecutor delivering a closing statement with varying levels of authenticity (authentic, inauthentic or no anger). Then, they rendered a verdict. After the verdict, participants filled out various measures: guilty verdict confidence, current feelings of anger, and perceptions of prosecutor trust and competence. We found that the prosecutor's authentic displays of anger provoked anger in the participants, which, subsequently, increased the odds of a guilty verdict and guilty verdict confidence. Moreover, authentic displays of anger improved perceptions of the prosecutor's competence, which also increased the odds of a guilty verdict. However, perceptions of the prosecutor's trustworthiness did not vary, and attorney gender did not play a moderating role. The implications of these findings are discussed.

COVID-19 in the Courtroom: The Role of Mask Mandates and Source of Exposure on Negligence and Recklessness Decisions.

The current study examined whether business owners would be found liable for an employee's illness from COVID-19 contracted at work. We varied whether there was a mask mandate at the time of the employee's exposure (Yes or No), how the employee was exposed (an unmasked customer, an unmasked owner who forgot her mask, or an unmasked owner who did not require masks in her store) and measured participants' political orientation. Participants (N = 257) read and listened to a trial transcript about an employee that contracted COVID-19 at her workplace and was suing her employer for compensation to cover hospital bills. Participants were more likely to find the defendant negligent, reckless, and responsible when a mask mandate was present and when an unmasked owner led to the employee's COVID-19 exposure compared to an unmasked customer. Furthermore, the more conservative the participant, the less likely they were to find the defendant negligent, reckless, and responsible. In sum, presence of a mask mandate, owner exposure, and juror political orientation play an important role in civil litigation involving COVID-19.

"Trans Folks are in the Crosshairs": Jury Decision-Making and the Trans Panic Defense.

The LGBTQ+ panic defense is a provocation defense strategy used to attain a lesser sentence for the defendant. It is often used by cisgender straight men to provide reasoning for a violent reaction to an unwanted sexual advance from an LGBTQ+ individual. Existing empirical work has examined juror perceptions of the LGBTQ+ panic defense used against gay victims, but lacks investigation of instances when the victim identifies as transgender. Utilizing a sample of 233 undergraduate students, we examine how mock jurors' individual characteristics (political orientation, masculine honor beliefs, and prejudices) influence victim perceptions (negative affect and blame) as well as verdict decisions in three different defense scenarios (transgender panic defense, transsexual panic defense, and neutral provocation defense). As predicted, participants exposed to trans panic defenses rendered more lenient verdicts compared to the control condition. Mediation analyses revealed that mock jurors with higher masculine honor beliefs and a more conservative political ideology expressed more negative affect toward the victim, leading to more lenient verdict decisions. Additionally, a path analysis revealed verdict to be double mediated by negative affect and victim blame. Legislation to ban the use of LGBTQ+ defenses has been accepted in some U.S. states and two countries, but it is still legal in a majority of U.S. states and worldwide. Therefore, it is important that research examines claims being made about the nature of the defense strategy.

Civil juror compensation and judgments of police use of force at the intersection of race and mental illness.

More than 53 million people come in contact with police each year, with people of color and those with mental illness (MI) being subjected to increased rates of contact. Sometimes police and civilian interactions have fatal outcomes, and these populations are disproportionately affected. As a result, families of these victims sometimes seek monetary compensation through civil litigation. The current study sought to understand how victim race and mental illness might impact civil juror decision-making in deadly police use of force cases. Participants (N = 177) were exposed to trial evidence and were assessed on a number of dimensions. Results display a strong influence of mock jurors' attitudes toward police legitimacy on compensatory damages, as well as interaction effects between attitudes toward police legitimacy and victim race on punitive damage awards and opinions on what professional consequences the involved police officer should face. Implications and future directions are discussed.

When Is "Gay Panic" Accepted? Exploring Juror Characteristics and Case Type as Predictors of a Successful Gay Panic Defense.

"Gay panic" refers to a situation in which a heterosexual individual charged with a violent crime against a homosexual individual claims they lost control and reacted violently because of an unwanted sexual advance that was made upon them. This justification for a violent crime presented by the defendant in the form of a provocation defense is used as an effort to mitigate the charges brought against him. There has been relatively little research conducted concerning this defense strategy and the variables that might predict when the defense is likely to be successful in achieving a lesser sentence for the defendant. This study utilized 249 mock jurors to assess the effects of case type (assault or homicide) and juror characteristics (homophobia, religious fundamentalism, and political orientation) on the success of the gay panic defense compared with a neutral provocation defense. Participant homophobia was found to be the driving force behind their willingness to accept the gay panic defense as legitimate. Higher levels of homophobia and religious fundamentalism were found to predict more leniency in verdict decisions when the gay panic defense was presented. This study furthers the understanding of decision making in cases involving the gay panic defense and highlights the need for more research to be conducted to help understand and combat LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) prejudice in the courtroom.

Development and validation of the Attitudes Towards Police Legitimacy Scale.

Although there is a substantial body of work examining attitudes towards the police, no measure has been developed to consistently capture citizens' beliefs regarding police legitimacy. Given that police conduct has garnered a great deal of attention, particularly in the last few years, the current research sought to develop a scale measuring perceptions of police legitimacy. Across multiple studies, items were created and the scale's factor structure explored (Study 1 and Study 2), the factor structure was confirmed (Study 3a), and the predictive validity of the scale was tested (Studies 3b-3d). Results provided evidence for a reliable and valid 34-item scale with a single-factor solution that predicted multiple outcomes, including justification of a police shooting (Study 3b) and resource allocation to a police charity (Study 3c), as well as correlations with self-reported criminal activity, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation (Study 3d). We hope this scale will be useful in the study of police legitimacy, expanding the current literature, and improving police-community relations. (PsycINFO Database Record

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

The present research explores how important different trial evidence is to mock jurors' decisions. Study 1 surveys legal professionals to determine what evidence is common at homicide trials. Study 2 utilizes the list of evidence generated in Study 1 to ask mock jurors to report how important each piece of evidence would be in deciding their verdicts. The results indicate that DNA is most important to mock jurors, followed by fingerprints, the weapon, video records, crime-scene photos, gunshot residue, bodily secretions, video confession, testimony from a forensic expert, and eyewitness testimony. Study 3 utilizes a different methodology wherein mock jurors were presented with folders labeled with different evidence and asked to choose the piece of evidence they wanted to learn more about first, second, and so on. The results from Study 3 indicate again that DNA evidence is most important to mock jurors, followed by video confession evidence, eyewitness testimony, and fingerprint evidence. Implications are discussed.

Victim Impact Statements: How Victim Social Class Affects Juror Decision Making.

Although the Supreme Court has ruled that victim impact statements (VIS) should be allowed at trial, the concern voiced in Payne v. Tennessee (1991) and Furman v. Georgia (1972) was that VIS might enable jurors to make comparative judgments about the worth of the victim. This study examined the effect VIS and low and middle socioeconomic status (SES) victims have on jurors' decisions. Mock jurors listened to 1 of 3 audio recordings of the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial (no VIS, low SES VIS, or middle SES VIS) and were asked to sentence the defendant to either life in prison without parole or death. Results indicated VIS themselves did not significantly affect mock jurors' sentencing decisions. However, mock jurors who heard the middle SES victim VIS were significantly more likely to sentence the defendant to death compared to those who heard the low SES victim VIS. The results suggest that the concerns of the Supreme Court were valid. Mock jurors were impacted by SES information in the VIS and were more punitive toward the defendant when he killed a higher rather than a lower SES person.

Unintended, but still blameworthy: the roles of awareness, desire, and anger in negligence, restitution, and punishment.

Two experiments (Experiment 1 N = 149, Experiment 2 N = 141) investigated how two mental states that underlie how perceivers reason about intentional action (awareness of action and desire for an outcome) influence blame and punishment for unintended (i.e., negligent) harms, and the role of anger in this process. Specifically, this research explores how the presence of awareness (of risk in acting, or simply of acting) and/or desire in an acting agent's mental states influences perceptions of negligence, judgements that the acting agent owes restitution to a victim, and the desire to punish the agent, mediated by anger. In both experiments, awareness and desire led to increased anger at the agent and increased perception of negligence. Anger mediated the effect of awareness and desire on negligence rather than negligence mediating the effect of mental states on anger. Anger also mediated punishment, and negligence mediated the effects of anger on restitution. We discuss how perceivers consider mental states such as awareness, desire, and knowledge when reasoning about blame and punishment for unintended harms, and the role of anger in this process.

Developmental trends in the process of constructing own- and other-race facial composites.

The current study examined developmental differences from the age of 5 to 18 in the creation process of own- and other-race facial composites. In addition, it considered how differences in the creation process affect similarity ratings. Participants created two composites (one own- and one other-race) from memory. The complexity of the composite creation process was recorded during Phase One. In Phase Two, a separate group of participants rated the composites for similarity to the corresponding target face. Results support the cross-race effect, developmental differences (based on composite creators) in similarity ratings, and the importance of the creation process for own- and other-race facial composites. Together, these findings suggest that as children get older the process through which they create facial composites becomes more complex and their ability to create facial composites improves. Increased complexity resulted in higher rated composites. Results are discussed from a psycho-legal perspective.

The effect of social dominance orientation on perceptions of corporal punishment.

Previous research has suggested the use of corporal punishment is widely endorsed in our society (Straus, 2000; Straus & Stewart, 1999). Furthermore, perceptions of what constitutes corporal punishment vary. The present study examined social dominance orientation (SDO) and age of child as potential factors that may influence perceptions of what is viewed as corporal punishment versus physical abuse. The sample consisted of 206 undergraduate students enrolled at a Rocky Mountain University. A series of regressions were used to examine the relationships between SDO and six forms of punishment. Findings suggest, higher levels of SDO are significantly related to more ratings of physical punishment versus physical abuse. The primary findings of the present study showed SDO was significantly related to how an individual perceives corporal punishment. These results have important implications by serving as a stepping-stone into further understanding what factors may have an influence on perceptions of corporal punishment.

Jury decision making research: are researchers focusing on the mouse and not the elephant in the room?

The concerns of jury research have extensively focused on subject selection, yet larger issues loom. We argue that observed differences between students and non-students in mock juror studies are inconsistent at best, and that researchers are ignoring the more important issue of jury deliberation. We contend that the lack of information on deliberating jurors and/or juries is a much greater threat to ecological validity and that some of our basic findings and conclusions in the literature today might be different if we had used juries, not non-deliberating jurors, as the unit of measure. Finally, we come full circle in our review and explore whether the debate about college and community samples might be more relevant to deliberating versus non-deliberating jurors.

Young children's reports of when learning occurred.

This study investigated young children's reports of when learning occurred. A total of 96 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds were recruited from suburban preschools and elementary schools. The children learned an animal fact and a body movement. A week later, children learned another animal fact and another body movement and then answered questions about when the different learning events occurred. Responses of children who responded correctly to control questions about time supported the hypothesis that temporal distance questions would elicit more correct responses than would temporal location questions. Partial support was also found for the hypothesis that behavior learning would generate more correct reports than would fact learning. Implications for characterizations of children's developing understanding of knowledge and for applications of those characterizations in education and eyewitness testimony are discussed.

Examining the efficacy of truth/lie discussions in predicting and increasing the veracity of children's reports.

This study investigated whether children's ability to reason about truths and lies influenced their truth-telling behavior. Four-six-year-old children (n=118) played a game that was intended to motivate children to use deception to hide a minor transgression. Next, an interviewer gave children one of four preliminary discussions. Children received a typical forensic truth/lie discussion (TLD), a developmentally appropriate and more elaborate TLD, or one of two discussions that controlled for the time spent conversing with children. Children were interviewed about the event. The results revealed that children's performance on the truth/lie questions did not predict their truth-telling behavior. Regardless of their performance on truth/lie questions, children who received TLD's gave more honest reports than children who did not receive TLD's. These results suggest that discussing truths and lies with children may promote truth-telling behavior. However, the results cast doubt on the validity of using children's performance on truth/lie questions as a measure of competency.

The believability of children and their interviewers' hearsay testimony: when less is more.

Hearsay testimony from children's interviewers is increasingly common in sexual abuse trials, but little is known about its effects on juries. In 2 studies, the authors examined college students' perceptions of 3 types of hearsay testimony (an actual interview with a child or an adult interviewer providing either the gist of what that child had said or a verbatim account of the interview). Interviewers were rated as more accurate and truthful than the children. The interview was rated as higher quality, and children's statements, including their false statements, were sometimes rated as more believable in the interviewer gist hearsay condition. Mock jurors reacted differently to various types of hearsay testimony, and interviewer gist testimony may favor a child's case.