Lilley Caroline, Willmott Dominic, Mojtahedi Dara
School of Law, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom.
Division of Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy, School of Social Science and Humanities, Loughborough University, Loughborough, United Kingdom.
Front Psychiatry. 2023 Jan 16;13:1086026. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1086026. eCollection 2022.
Trial by jury is a longstanding legal tradition used in common law jurisdictions to try the most serious of criminal cases. Yet, despite hearing the same trial evidence, individual jurors often arrive at different verdict decisions, indicating that they may be impacted by more than the evidence presented at trial. This study therefore sought to investigate the role of jurors' psychopathology, attitudinal, experiential, and demographic characteristics upon individual verdict decisions.
Adopting an improved mock trial paradigm, 108 jury-eligible participants took part in one of nine identical 12-person mock trial simulations depicting a videotaped recreation of an intimate partner rape trial. Pre-trial, mock-jurors completed a psychosocial survey capturing their psychopathic personality traits (), rape myth beliefs, victimization experiences and demographics. Post-trial, jurors deliberated to reach a collective group decision and individual verdict decisions were recorded pre- and post-deliberation.
Binary logistic regression analyses revealed rape myth beliefs and juror ethnicity were significantly related to verdict decisions both pre- and post-deliberation. Post-deliberation, decreased affective responsiveness (empathy) and experience of sexual victimization were found to be significant predictors of guilty verdict selections.
These findings indicate for the first time that within an intimate-partner rape trial, certain psychosocial traits, crime-specific attitudes, and experiences of sexual victimization appear to predispose juror judgments and decision-making even after group-deliberation. This study therefore has important implications for understanding how individual differences among jurors may impact rape trial verdict outcomes and the need for targeted juror reforms.
陪审团审判是普通法司法管辖区用于审理最严重刑事案件的一项长期法律传统。然而，尽管陪审员听取了相同的审判证据，但个体陪审员往往会做出不同的裁决决定，这表明他们可能受到审判中所呈现证据之外的因素影响。因此，本研究旨在调查陪审员的精神病理学、态度、经历和人口统计学特征在个体裁决决定中的作用。
采用改进的模拟审判范式，108名符合陪审员资格的参与者参加了九个相同的12人模拟审判之一，这些模拟审判描绘了一段亲密伴侣强奸案审判的录像重演。审判前，模拟陪审员完成了一项社会心理调查，记录他们的精神病态人格特质、强奸谬见信念、受害经历和人口统计学信息。审判后，陪审员进行审议以达成集体决定，并记录审议前后的个体裁决决定。
二元逻辑回归分析显示，强奸谬见信念和陪审员种族与审议前后的裁决决定均显著相关。审议后，情感反应性（同理心）降低和性受害经历被发现是有罪裁决选择的重要预测因素。
这些发现首次表明，在亲密伴侣强奸案审判中，某些社会心理特质、特定犯罪态度和性受害经历似乎即使在集体审议后仍会影响陪审员的判断和决策。因此，本研究对于理解陪审员个体差异如何影响强奸案审判裁决结果以及针对性陪审员改革的必要性具有重要意义。
