Juror Decision‐making in Death Penalty Sentencing when Presented with Defendant's History of Child Abuse or Neglect

Previous studies have found aggravating, mitigating, and null effects of defendant histories of abuse and neglect on punishment preferences in capital sentencing. Perceiving these defendants as more dangerous, jurors may be more likely to favor the death penalty when such evidence is presented. This...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behavioral sciences & the law 2016-11, Vol.34 (6), p.742-766
Main Authors: Bell Holleran, Lisa L., Vaughan, Tyler J., Vandiver, Donna M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Capital Punishment
Child
Child Abuse
Child abuse & neglect
Criminal Law
Criminal sentences
Criminals
Decision Making
Female
Humans
Judgment
Juries
Male
Middle Aged
Young Adult
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Summary:Previous studies have found aggravating, mitigating, and null effects of defendant histories of abuse and neglect on punishment preferences in capital sentencing. Perceiving these defendants as more dangerous, jurors may be more likely to favor the death penalty when such evidence is presented. This is counter to the intuition that abuse or neglect reduces culpability, and therefore mitigates the severity of punishment. We investigated the effect of defendant childhood physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect on the probability of a prospective juror preferring the death penalty in an between‐subject experimental design. Using vignettes and two large samples (students and jurors), defendant histories were found to mitigate the probability that the hypothetical defendant received the death penalty, with sexual abuse having the most salient effect. Further, the effects were conditioned by preference for the death penalty – larger mitigating effects were observed among individuals who favor the death penalty. These findings suggest that initial judgments of abuse and neglect are related to juror leniency, and further research on the interaction of jury instructions and defendant histories is needed. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ISSN:0735-3936
1099-0798
DOI:10.1002/bsl.2271