The Effect Of Defendant’s Attractiveness On Jury

Introduction

We expect a court system to be unbiased in judging and sentencing, as justice should be blind. Therefore, court system assumes that jurors are making decisions regarding defendant punishment relying purely on informational evidence, avoiding judging by stereotypes, defendant’s appearance, social and financial status. However jurors, just as other people may have developed schemas for stereotypes, be gender and race bias. Past experiences, culture they were raised in, social circle, given instructions in court may also affect their attitude toward defendant. How often do jurors allow their personal perception enter their cognitive judgements and what affects it? In this paper I will observe the phenomenon “what is beautiful is good” which is associated with how attractiveness of defendants affects the severity or the lack of punishment given by jurors. I will also touch on defendant’s socioeconomics status influence on the sentencing.

Discussion

Physical attractiveness and its influence on human perception has been examined across the board in social psychology as well as it’s effects in legal proceedings. Extensive research supports the person’s physical appeal has a tremendous impact in a court room, for example, physically attractive defendants are considered less guilty in committing a crime and judged not as severely as the unattractive counterparts. In a Study of Sigall and Ostrov (1975) participants received a card with a demographic information of the defendant participant, which was identical for each defendant, the only parts of the study that were variable are the attached photographs and the crime they committed (swindle or burglary). After participant jurors were introduced to the cases they were asked to assign sentencing to the participating defendants. The study showed that attractive defendants only received less harsh sentencing when the crime was not connected to their physical appeal (for example if they committed a swindle by luring a victim to the hotel room and robing them afterwords). In this case, attractive defendants were given a more severe sentencing. Further research supported the idea of attractive defendants getting a preferable treatment. McFatter (1978) discovered that subjects were more willing to invoke accidental circumstances in explanations of crimes said to be committed by attractive persons rather than unattractive persons. Downs and Lions (1991) observed court cases archives to discover that judges tend to be more lenient and set lighter bail requirements for attractive defendants. Abwender and Hough (2001) as well as Staley (2007), found favorable treatment of attractive women in a vehiclular - homicides. In the stimulated courtroom study by Jeffers and Darby (1988) significant support was found that attractive defendants were described as more trustworthy which showed juror’s ability to attribute physical attractiveness to the interpersonal characteristics and conclude the beneficial factor of pleasant physical appearance in the courtroom. Several studies have also shown that smiling increases the perception of physical attractiveness in jurors decision making. Abel and Watters (2005) concluded a favorable treatment of the defendants of an opposite sex, in a experiment with mock jurors, where participants were given a brief information about the defendants changed with the DUI. Mock juror have showed lenient bias treatment towards smiling defendants of an opposite sex. However, other studies showed harsher punishment of smiling defendants in the more serious crimes, regardless of defendantэs appearance. In other words smiling lead to the negative impressions among jurors, as defendants didn’t look sorry or sad for committing a crime. These studies in combinations suggest complex and inconsistent relationship between smiling, physical attractiveness and and punishment and leniency in court. Just like the findings reflecting on defendants attractiveness are inconsistent and conflicting, socioeconomic status of the offender on jurors decision making also does not show a significant correlation, however some studies suggest that defendants of high socioeconomic status are being favored in sentencing. However, different variable may result in different outcomes for both offenderы with high and low socioeconomic status. D’alession and Stolzenberg (1993) reviewed over 2899 criminal cases from the archives and reported that offenders from the upper and upper middle class received a harsher punishment in moral and violent offenses, such as homicide or possession of narcotics. “It is possible that this impact issue to the fact that defendants with a high socioeconomic status are assumed to be of a higher morality”.

Conclusion

According to the literature, the research shows that the pattern of bias treatment in the courtroom is not always avoidable. Even there is no concrete conclusion of attractiveness and socioeconomic’s status effecting judgement and the severity of the punishment, it is only natural to suggest that people may involuntarily rely on impressions created by stereotypes. Nonverbal communication as facial expressions has been shown to reflect on people’s conclusions as well. It is important to track these tendencies, as studies showed some some biases can be eliminated under certain conditions.