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Examining legal authoritarianism in the impact of punishment severity on juror decisions
Authors:Angela M Jones  Shayne Jones  Steven Penrod
Institution:1. Department of Psychology, Barnard College, Columbia University, 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027, USAajones@barnard.edu;3. Department of Criminal Justice, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, USA;4. Department of Psychology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA
Abstract: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.
Keywords:legal authoritarianism  juror sentencing  moderation effects
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