Citation

Osborne YH, Rappaport NB. Behav. Sci. Law 1985; 3(4): 467-473.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1985, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/bsl.2370030411

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Previous studies have identified three categories of variables which influence decisions of mock jurors: type of crime, defendant characteristics, and personal characteristics of jurors. This study manipulated the following variables towards the ends of assessing their influence on mock jurors' sentencing severity: premeditated vs. unpremeditated murder, black vs. white defendant, low SES vs. high SES defendant. Only defendant SES predicted sentencing severity: low SES defendants were assigned significantly longer sentences than high SES defendants. None of the measures of juror characteristics correlated with sentencing severity. Failure to replicate significant relationships with most of these variables and sentencing severity suggest that results of studies which manipulate only one variable dimension may overestimate the influence of these variable dimensions in mock jurors' decisions.

Language: en