Collaborative Research: Victim impact statements in capital trials: Examining the differential influence of anger and sadness on juror sentencing decisions

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The U.S. Supreme Court has warned that the inflammatory nature of victim impact statements (VIS) could lead to capricious sentencing judgments and the purpose of the research is to examine conditions under which the emotional VIS affects sentencing decisions in capital cases. Basic research on emotion suggests that negative emotions do not uniformly affect decision making. While anger can reduce depth of information processing and promote biased decisions, sadness can promote systematic processing and facilitate objective decision making. Thus, the potential for VIS to influence juror sentencing decisions might depend on whether jurors experience sadness or anger in response to VIS. The first study examines VIS from actual capital cases. For descriptive analyses, method of VIS delivery, number length of VIS testimony, and emotional content of VIS will be examined. Content analysis of VIS will be done to assess the emotions typically expressed by victims, and whether angry or sad VIS predicts sentencing decisions. The second study manipulates sadness and anger (using VIS obtained in Study 1) and measures the effect of these specific emotions on sentencing decisions and information. Little research has examined the effects of specific negative emotions on juror information processing and decision making. The results of these studies will contribute to basic theory on the effects of emotions on decision making. Furthermore, results will inform the applied field of psycho-legal science and aid in understanding of how non-legal factors influence jury decision making. Results will shed light on how and when victim impact statements lead to biased decisions, and may provide the courts with information to guide how they accept VIS in their jurisdictions. Research results will be disseminated broadly, and a large database of capital sentencing transcripts will be created and made available to other researchers.