Cooke LaNina N
Center for Criminal Justice Studies, Farmingdale State College, 2350 Broadhollow Road, Farmingdale, NY 11735, United States.
Heliyon. 2023 Jul 11;9(7):e18116. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e18116. eCollection 2023 Jul.
Juries are a core component of the criminal justice system. Although marked with a history of prejudice, segmentation, and discrimination, the framework of the 6th Amendment calls for impartiality among a jury of peers who are selected for the pursuit of justice. Influencing jury decision-making is the perception of witnesses, defendants, and victims. Specific to this work, the characterization of the victim is often a function of in-group bias in which the jury, operating collectively, decides if it is to cognitively distance itself from the victim based on assigned attributes. The group's agreement with the assignment of negative attributes is especially apparent when the victim is a Black male. In the case of this analysis, teenage murder victim Jordan Davis was described as a man and characterized as an adult aggressor and deserving of blame. The analysis is integrative and considers this case to elaborate on the cognitive theories, system behavior, and cultural norms that frame the perceptive process of jurors. Also reflected are the implications of biased decision-making processes, as well as suggestions for ways to mitigate them.
陪审团是刑事司法系统的核心组成部分。尽管有着偏见、分割和歧视的历史，但第六修正案的框架要求在为追求正义而挑选的同侪陪审团中保持公正。影响陪审团决策的因素包括对证人、被告和受害者的认知。具体到这项工作，受害者的特征往往是群体内偏见的一种表现，在这种情况下，陪审团集体运作，根据所赋予的属性来决定是否在认知上与受害者保持距离。当受害者是黑人男性时，群体对负面属性分配的认同尤为明显。在本分析的案例中，青少年谋杀案受害者乔丹·戴维斯被描述为一名男性，并被刻画成一个成年攻击者且应受指责。该分析是综合性的，通过这个案例来阐述构成陪审员认知过程的认知理论、系统行为和文化规范。同时也反映了有偏见的决策过程的影响，以及减轻这些影响的方法建议。
