Severity of crime increases jury's belief in guilt: study

Severity of crime increases jury's belief in guilt: study

6 years ago
Anonymous $ZPWJA6-QD2

https://phys.org/news/2018-10-severity-crime-jury-belief-guilt.html

The researchers made an online computer assessment for participants to read 33 case descriptions, ranging from running an illegal distillery to mass murder, and rate how strong each case was on a scale of 0 to 100. The stronger they found a case, the more likely the mock jurors were to deem defendants guilty.

"We found that dognapping was worth 15 points on the scale regardless of the evidence," Pearson said. "You can think of that as a bias, people mentally move the slider over a certain amount before they see the evidence."

Severity of crime increases jury's belief in guilt: study

Oct 29, 2018, 4:36pm UTC
https://phys.org/news/2018-10-severity-crime-jury-belief-guilt.html > The researchers made an online computer assessment for participants to read 33 case descriptions, ranging from running an illegal distillery to mass murder, and rate how strong each case was on a scale of 0 to 100. The stronger they found a case, the more likely the mock jurors were to deem defendants guilty. > "We found that dognapping was worth 15 points on the scale regardless of the evidence," Pearson said. "You can think of that as a bias, people mentally move the slider over a certain amount before they see the evidence."