Doctoral Dissertation Research: Juror Perceptions of Juveniles Transferred to Criminal Court: The Role of Generic Prejudice and Emotion in Determinations of Guilt.

随着越来越多的青少年在刑事法庭上作为成年人受审，研究人员开始研究陪审员如何看待这些青少年。几项研究的结果表明，陪审员可能会判断一个少年作为一个成年人审判比一个成年人被指控犯有同样的罪行更严厉;然而，其他研究表明，陪审员对少年作为成年人审判没有偏见。本研究旨在通过考察一般偏见和情感在陪审员对未成年人作为成年人审判的判决中的作用来澄清这一问题。一般偏见是指并非特定于被告或与审判有关的其他当事人的偏见，而是对一类被告或犯罪的偏见。陪审员可能会对作为成年人受审的少年作出比对被指控犯有同样罪行的成年人更为严厉的判决，因为陪审员对所有作为成年人受审的少年都有普遍的偏见。此外，某些情绪的体验可能会助长这种普遍的偏见。根据评估倾向框架，悲伤和恐惧导致更大的系统性认知处理，而愤怒导致更大的启发式处理，反过来，在做决定时更依赖于刻板印象。该项目的第一项研究将评估与少年法庭审判的少年和刑事法庭审判的成年人相比，人们对作为成年人受审的少年有哪些成见。本研究的第二部分将探讨愤怒、恐惧、悲伤和中立的模拟陪审员在多大程度上使用这些刻板印象来判断一个被当作成年人审判的未成年人是否有罪，或者一个被指控犯有同样罪行的成年人是否有罪，本研究将对确保被移交刑事法庭的未成年人得到公平审判产生影响。刑事法庭的判决可能比少年法庭的判决导致更严厉的惩罚，因此必须确保作为成年人审判的少年不会比被控犯有同样罪行的成年人受到更严厉的审判。

As increasing numbers of juveniles are tried as adults in criminal court, researchers have begun to examine how jurors perceive these juveniles. Results of several studies suggest that jurors may judge a juvenile tried as an adult more harshly than an adult charged with the same crime; however, other research suggests that jurors show no bias against juveniles tried as adults. The present research aims to clarify this issue by examining the roles of generic prejudice and emotion in jurors' judgments of juveniles tried as adults.Generic prejudice is prejudice that is not specific to the defendant or other parties associated with a trial, but rather prejudice about a category of defendants or crimes. Jurors may judge a juvenile tried as an adult more harshly than they judge an adult charged with the same crime because of generic prejudice toward all juveniles tried as adults. Furthermore, the experience of certain emotions may facilitate this generic prejudice. According to the Appraisal-Tendency Framework, sadness and fear lead to greater systematic cognitive processing, while anger leads to greater heuristic processing, and in turn, greater reliance on stereotypes when making decisions. Study 1 of this project will assess which stereotypes people associate with juveniles tried as adults compared to juveniles tried in juvenile court and adults tried in criminal court. Study 2 of this project will examine to what extent angry, fearful, sad, and neutral mock jurors use these stereotypes to make judgments of guilt when presented with a juvenile tried as an adult, or an adult charged with the same crime.The present research will have implications for ensuring that juveniles transferred to criminal court receive a fair trial. Adjudication in criminal court can result in more severe punishment than adjudication in juvenile court, thus it is important to ensure that juveniles tried as adults are not judged more harshly than are adults charged with the same crimes.