Attribution of crime motives biases eyewitnesses’ memory and sentencing decisions

In court, the basic expectation is that eyewitness accounts are solely based on what the witness saw. Research on post-event influences has shown that this is not always the case and memory distortions are quite common. However, potential effects of an eyewitness’ attributions regarding a perpetrator’s crime motives have been widely neglected in this domain. In this paper, we present two experiments (N?=?209) in which eyewitnesses were led to conclude that a perpetrator’s motives for a crime were either dispositional or situational. As expected, misinformation consistent with an eyewitness’ attribution of crime motives was typically falsely recognised as true whereas inconsistent misinformation was correctly rejected. Furthermore, a dispositional vs. situational attribution of crime motives resulted in more severe (mock) sentencing supporting previous research. The findings are discussed in the context of schema-consistent biases and the effect of attributions about character in a legal setting.     

重考量刑公正与量刑差异——德阳市五个基层法院的定量研究证据

主流观点认为中国普遍存在量刑差异,但该结论实证依据不足。本文借助于德阳市5个法院的1039个样本,检测盗窃、抢劫、故意伤害罪的量刑情况。研究按四组配对比较后发现,三组法院量刑均衡。盗抢罪量刑受数额、前科、审理程序、自白、律师参与、从严处罚等影响,故意伤害罪因伤害程度、受害人个数、赔偿等有别。2010年量刑意见有助于规范量刑,但法官更倾向于从严处罚。中国未来的量刑改革,还需具体规定如何适用从宽从严集合情节。     

Examining legal authoritarianism in the impact of punishment severity on juror decisions

Recent Supreme Court decisions point to an increased reliance on juries to determine a defendant's sentence. Evidence is mixed on whether jurors are more likely to convict when the potential punishment is mild. The current study examined this issue, as well as the impact of legal authoritarianism (LA) (Kravitz, D. A., Cutler, B. L., & Brock, P. 1993. Reliability and validity of the original and revised legal attitudes questionnaire. Law and Human Behavior, 17, 661–677. doi: 10.1007/BF01044688), on jurors’ decisions. An ethnically diverse sample of participants completed the individual difference measure prior to viewing a videotaped, reenacted criminal trial. We manipulated the severity of the punishment the defendant would receive if convicted. Results indicated LA moderated the effect of punishment severity on verdict. Specifically, at higher levels of punishment severity, civil libertarians convicted less, while legal authoritarians convicted more. That is, the severity-leniency effect held for civil libertarians, but not for legal authoritarians. As juries become more responsible for determining a defendant's sentence, attorneys should be aware of the defendant's potential sentence and use voir dire to identify jurors who are higher on LA.     

Gender dynamics in the sentencing of white-collar offenders

Theory and empirical research often have agreed that female and white-collar offenders benefit from leniency at the sentencing stage of criminal justice system processing. An untested research question emerging from these distinct bodies of literature is whether the greatest leniency is afforded to female white-collar offenders. We investigate the individual and interactive influences of gender and white-collar conviction on judicial leniency by analyzing Florida sentencing guidelines data from 1994 to 2004 using multinomial logistic regression to model the decision to incarcerate nonviolent economic offenders in jail or prison rather than sentence them to community control. Results indicate that female street offenders sentenced by male judges receive the most lenient sentences, while male offenders are punished the harshest regardless of the gender of the sentencing judge or type of crime. Theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed in terms of focal concerns, familial paternalism, and attributional perspectives on judicial decision-making.     

When Identifying Health Disparities as a Problem Is a Problem: Pedagogical Strategies for Examining Racialized Contexts

The current study presents a critical discussion on community responses to health disparity research and the need for utilizing pedagogical strategies to prepare students to understand and address health disparities in racialized contexts. Qualitative research methods were used to examine community responses to media stories on two health disparity research projects, and four themes emerged: naming health disparities is a tool for dividing, structural racism does not exist, naming of health disparities is a political act, and health disparities exist because of individual-level deficiencies. The implications for teaching students about racial health disparities are presented and discussed.     

规范化量刑方法：应用、问题及完善

规范化量刑方法是最高人民法院在总结司法经验的基础上,经过多年的试点探索而最终得以形成的.这种量刑方法的基本做法是：将与犯罪有关的事实和情节进行合理划分,进而针对这些事实和情节进行分步量刑,最后得出宣告刑.规范化量刑方法的科学性是比较明显的,但是,将这一量刑方法作为基本的刑罚裁量方法,其在目前也仍然存在着一些不够合理和不够充分之处.为进一步发挥我国规范化量刑方法在有效促进量刑的公正性和合理性方面的重要作用,当前有必要对这一量刑方法进行必要的充实和完善.其中,重点就是要解决量刑起点的合理确定问题,并同时将这一量刑方法的规范性有效拓展至无期徒刑以及不同种自由刑并罚的合理适用方面.     

Actuarial Sentencing: An “Unsettled” Proposition

This paper discusses the concerns associated with the introduction of, and increased reliance on, actuarial risk tools in sentencing in order to: (1) stimulate cross-disciplinary dialog and research about the impact of incorporating actuarial risk logic into sentencing processes and (2) identify questions requiring further empirical examination. In this article, I recognize that actuarial risk logic offers managerial and organizational benefits, but I also demonstrate that the application of actuarial risk when sentencing offenders is not without important consequences. First, I provide a brief outline of the emergence, logic, and entrenchment of probabilistic reasoning within criminal justice decision-making, and the more recent extension and application of actuarial risk logic to sentencing. Then, I use the following themes to define the limits of using risk sciences in sentencing: (1) the logical structure of risk; (2) the slippage between risk prediction and individual causation; (3) current methodological limits of risk science; (4) the potential for gender and race discrimination; (5) the legal relevance and transparency of risk-based sentencing; and (6) the jurisprudential and organizational impact of various risk technologies. Importantly, the nature and severity of these complications will vary by, and within, the jurisdiction (or sentencing regime) because current sentencing practices are influenced by local jurisdictional needs and sentencing laws.     

Gender,Indigeneity, and the Criminal Courts: A Narrative Exploration of Women's Sentencing in Western Australia

Ethel Rosenberg's prison letters illustrate women's prison writing at a transitional point. Preceding her work are prison writings that focus on self-justification and autobiography; afterward come texts that assert the writer's pride and challenge the penal system and society. Rosenberg's correspondence includes elements of both traditional and contemporary women's prison literature. Along traditional lines, her letters focus on family matters and her own mental state as she attempts to adapt to imprisonment. In their outright assertions of pride in self and anger at perceived injustice, Rosenberg's letters point ahead to the writing of women inmates today.     

FACIAL PROFILING: RACE,PHYSICAL APPEARANCE,AND PUNISHMENT*

We investigate the associations among physical appearance, threat perceptions, and criminal punishment. Psychological ideas about impression formation are integrated with criminological perspectives on sentencing to generate and test unique hypotheses about the associations among defendant facial characteristics, subjective evaluations of threatening appearance, and judicial imprisonment decisions. We analyze newly collected data that link booking photos, criminal histories, and sentencing information for more than 1,100 convicted felony defendants. Our findings indicate that Black defendants are perceived to be more threatening in appearance. Other facial characteristics, such as physical attractiveness, baby‐faced appearance, facial scars, and visible tattoos, also influence perceptions of threat, as do criminal history scores. Furthermore, some physical appearance characteristics are significantly related to imprisonment decisions, even after controlling for other relevant case characteristics. These and other findings are discussed as they relate to psychological research on impression formation, criminological theories of court actor decision‐making, and sociological work on race and punishment.     

The role of neurological and psychological explanations in legal judgments of psychopathic wrongdoers

Although brain imaging has recently taken center stage in criminal legal proceedings, little is known about how neuroscience information differentially affects people’s judgments about criminal behavior. In two studies of community participants (N = 1161), we examined how mock jurors sentence a fictional psychopathic defendant when presented with neurological or psychological research of equal or ambiguous scientific validity. Across two studies, we (a) found that including images of the brain did not alter mock jurors’ sentencing judgments, (b) reported two striking non-replications of previous findings that mock jurors recommend less severe punishments to defendants when a neuroscientific explanations are proffered, and (c) found that participants rated a psychopathic individual as more likely to benefit from treatment and less dangerous when a neurological explanation for his deficits was provided. Overall, these results suggest that neuroscience information provided by psychiatrists in hypothetical criminal situations may not broadly transform mock jurors’ intuitions about a psychopathic defendant’s sentence, but they provide novel evidence that brain-based information may influence people’s judgments about treatability and dangerousness.