Abstract
Attitudes toward the death penalty are consistently predictive of jurors' verdicts in criminal trials. Two studies were conducted to find out why. In Study 1, eligible jurors viewed a videotape showing conflicting testimony by a prosecution and defense witness in an assault case. “Death-qualified” subjects (those permitted to serve on capital juries) interpreted testimony in a manner more favorable to the prosecution than “excludable” subjects (those excluded from serving on juries in capital cases due to their opposition to the death penalty), suggesting that differing interpretations of evidence may mediate the relationship between attitudes toward the death penalty and verdicts. In Study 2, the same jurors indicated their reactions to a number of hypothetical situations in which a jury had convicted an innocent defendant or acquitted a guilty one. “Death qualified” subjects expressed less regret concerning erroneous convictions and more regret concerning erroneous acquittals than “excludable” subjects. Theoretical interpretations of this pattern of results suggest that “death qualified” subjects may have a lower threshold of conviction than “excludable” subjects; thus the relationship between attitudes toward the death penalty and verdicts may also be mediated by differing thresholds of conviction.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Abelson, R. P. Modes of resolution of belief dilemmas.Conflict Resolution, 1959,3, 343–352.
Abelson, R. P. Are attitudes necessary? In T. T. King & E. McGinnies (Eds.),Attitudes, Conflict and Social Change, New York: Academic Press, 1972.
Abelson, R. P. Script processing in attitude formation and decision making. In J. S. Carroll & J. W. Payne (Eds.),Cognition and Social Behavior, Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1976.
Allport, G. L.The Nature of Prejudice. New York: Addison Wesley, 1954.
Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. Attitude-behavior relations: A theoretical analysis and review of empirical research.Psychological Bulletin, 1977,84, 888–918.
Appleman, J. A. Selection of the jury.Trial Lawyer's Guide, 1968,12, 207–239.
Benora, B., & Kraus, E.Jury work: Systematic techniques. Berkeley, California: National Jury Project, 1979.
Bodin, H. S.Selecting A Jury. New York: Practicing Law Institute, 1954.
Boehm, V. R. Mr. Prejudice, Miss Sympathy and the authoritarian personality: An application of psychological measuring techniques to the problem of jury bias.Wisconsin Law Review, 1968, p. 734.
Bronson, E. G. On the conviction proneness and representativeness of the death-qualified jury: An empirical study of Colorado veniremen.University of Colorado Law Review, 1970,42, 1–32.
Chapman, L., & Chapman, J. Illusory correlation as an obstacle to the use of valid psychodiagnostic signs.Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1960,74, 271–280.
Cowan, C. L., Thompson, W. C., & Ellsworth, P. C. The effects of death qualification on jurors' predisposition to convict and on the quality of deliberation.Law and Human Behavior, 1984,8, 53–80.
Davis, J. H., Bray, R. M., & Holt, R. W. The empirical study of social decision processes in juries. In J. Tapp & F. Levine (Eds.),Law, Justice and the Individual in Society: Psychological and Legal Issues. New York: Holt, Rinehart, 1977.
Ellsworth, P. C., & Ross, L. Public opinion and capital punishment: A close examination of the views of abolitionists and retentionists.Crime and Delinquency, in press.
Feild, H. S. Juror background charactersitics and attitudes toward rape.Law and Human Behavior, 1978,2, 73–93.
Fitzgerald, R., & Ellsworth, P. C. Due process vs. crime control: Death qualification and jury attitudes.Law and Human Behavior, 1984,8, 31–52.
Fletcher, D. Two kinds of rules: A comparative study of burden-of-persuasion practices in criminal cases.Yale Law Journal, 1968,77, 880.
Ginger, A. F. (Ed.).Jury Selection in Criminal Trials: New Techniques and Concepts. Law press (1975).
Goldberg, F. Toward expansion of Witherspoon: Capital scruples, jury bias, and the use of psychological data to raise presumptions in the law.Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Review, 1970,5, 53.
Green, D. M., & Swets, J. A.Signal Detection Theory and Psychophysics. New York: Wiley, 1966.
Gross, S. R., Determining the neutrality of death-qualified juries: Judicial appraisal of empirical data.Law and Human Behavior, 1984,8, 7–30.
Hepburn, J. R. The objective reality of evidence and the utility of systematic jury selection.Law and Human Behavior, 1980,4, 89–101.
Hovland, C. I., Janis, I. L., & Kelley, H. H.Communication and Persuasion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953.
Jurow, G. New data on the effect of a death qualified jury on the guilt determination process.Harvard Law Review, 1971,84, 567–611.
Kairys, D. (Ed.)The Jury System: New Methods for Reducing Prejudice. The National Jury Project and the National Lawyers Guild, 1975.
Kalven, H., & Zeisel, H.The American Jury. Boston: Little, Brown, 1966.
Kelman, H. C. Attitudes are alive and well and gainfully employed in the sphere of action.American Psychologist, 1974,29, 310–324.
Langer, E. J., & Abelson, R. P. The semantics of asking a favor: How to succeed in getting help without really dying.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972,24, 26–32.
Lord, C. G., Ross, L., & Lepper, M. L. Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1979,37, 2098–2109.
Nagel, S. Bringing the attitudes of jurors in line with the law.Judicature, 1979,63, 189–195.
Nagel, S., & Neef, M.Decision Theory and the Legal Process. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington-Heath, 1979, pp. 187–215.
Nisbett, R., & Ross, L.Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1980.
Packer, H. L. Two models of the criminal process.University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 1964,113, 1–68.
Ross, L., Lepper, M. R., & Hubbard, M. Perseverance in self-perception and social perception: Biased attribution processes in the debriefing paradigm.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975,32, 880–892.
Rothblatt, H. B. Techniques for jury selection.Criminal Law Bulletin, 1966,2(4), 14–29.
Saks, M. J. The limits of scientific jury selection: Ethical and empirical.Jurismetrics Journal, 1976,17, 3–22.
Saks, M.J., & Hastie, R.Social Psychology in Court. New York: Van Nostrand Rinehold, 1978.
Saks, M. J., & Kidd, R. F. Human information processing and adjudication: Trial by heuristics.Law and Society Review, 1980,15, 123–160.
Schulman, J., Shaver, P., Colman, R., Emrich, B., & Christie, R. Recipe for a jury.Psychology Today, 1973,6(12), 37–84.
Simon, R. J.The Jury and the Defense of Insanity. Boston: Little-Brown, 1967.
Simon, R. J., & Mehan, L. Quantifying burdens of proofs: A view from the bench, the jury and the classroom.Law and Society Review, 1971,5, 319–330.
Snyder, M., Tanke, E. D., & Berscheid, E. Social perception and interoersonal behavior: On the self-fulfilling nature of social stereotypes.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1977,35, 656–666.
Suggs, D., & Sales, B. D. The art and science of conducting the voir dire.Professional Psychology, 1978,9, 367–388.
Thomas, E. A. C., & Hogue, A. Apparent weight of evidence, decision criteria and confidence ratings in juror decision making.Psychological Review, 1976,83, 4420465.
Vidmar, N., & Ellsworth, P. C. Public opinion and the death penalty.Stanford Law Review, 1974,26, 1245–1270.
Wicker, A. W. Attitudes versus actions: The relationship of verbal and overt behavioral responses to attitude objects.Journal of Social Issues, 1969,25, 41–78.
Wilson, W. C. Belief in capital punishment and jury performance. Unpublished manuscript: University of Texas, 1964.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
During the course of this research, William C. Thompson was supported, in part, by a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship.
About this article
Cite this article
Thompson, W.C., Cowan, C.L., Ellsworth, P.C. et al. Death penalty attitudes and conviction proneness. Law Hum Behav 8, 95–113 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01044353
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01044353