A Moral Foundations Approach to How Jurors Weigh Aggravating Evidence

陪审员如何权衡加重证据的道德基础方法

• 批准号: 2116981
• 负责人: Logan Yelderman
• 金额: $ 34万
• 依托单位: Prairie View A & M University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-08-15 至 2024-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2116981&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Moral; Foundations; Approach; How; Jurors

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). Capital jurors who find a defendant guilty are subsequently tasked with making the decision on whether that person should live or die. This decision is arguably the toughest moral decision to make, and capital jurors have to make the decision and develop a justification for that decision. It is currently unclear what goes into this decision-making process and how capital jurors weigh different evidence that involves aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Though most research to date has assumed jurors' uniform interpretation of evidence, most jurors probably weigh evidence differently based on their own values, beliefs, and experiences. By assessing jurors'own moral beliefs and by mapping moral beliefs onto their interpretation of evidence and ultimately their death penalty recommendations, the current research provides a much more precise way of thinking about how people actually judge evidence. This research assesses both the inherent value of the evidence and the subjective value of the juror's appraisal of that evidence to better explain how and why jurors come to very different verdicts across similar cases and similar verdicts across very different cases. This research will extend research on moral decision-making and help address and explain some of the variability in evidence evaluation in the death penalty sentencing phase of capital trials. The current project applies moral foundations theory to mock jurors' moral evaluations of aggravating and mitigating evidence presented in death penalty trial vignettes to determine which aggravators represent more severe moral violations and subsequently impact death sentences, and if the influence of the aggravators on death sentences is contingent upon the jurors' moral beliefs and values. This is accomplished by using experimental designs and a multi-study approach to identify and isolate particular moral mechanisms triggered by the presentation of specific aggravators in the trial's sentencing phase. Each subsequent experiment extends the prior experiment by varying aspects of the defendant, evidence, and circumstances of the crime. This project provides the first experimental test of some of the underlying assumptions of moral inferences embedded in jurors' evaluations of aggravators and mitigators. Though moral justifications underlie the use of the death penalty, a proper theoretical moral framework has yet to be applied to jurors' evaluations of evidence during the sentencing phase of a capital trial, and this project fills this gap. Findings will be used to advance theory, and provide recommendations for attorneys and judges involved in capital trials. This project also contributes to the development of research opportunities at minority serving institutions through a collaborative research lab.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该奖项的全部或部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。裁定被告有罪的主审陪审员随后负责决定该人的生死存亡。这一决定可以说是最艰难的道德决定，首席陪审员必须做出决定，并为该决定制定理由。目前尚不清楚这一决策过程涉及哪些内容，以及首都陪审员如何权衡涉及加重和减轻情节的不同证据。尽管到目前为止的大多数研究都假设陪审员对证据的解释是一致的，但大多数陪审员可能会根据自己的价值观、信仰和经验对证据进行不同的衡量。通过评估陪审员自己的道德信仰，并将道德信仰与他们对证据的解释以及最终的死刑建议进行映射，目前的研究为人们实际上如何判断证据提供了一种更准确的方式。这项研究既评估了证据的内在价值，也评估了陪审员对证据的评价的主观价值，以更好地解释陪审员如何以及为什么在类似案件中得出非常不同的裁决，以及为什么陪审员在非常不同的案件中得出类似裁决。这项研究将扩展对道德决策的研究，并帮助解决和解释死刑审判中死刑判决阶段证据评估中的一些变异性。目前的项目应用道德基础理论来模拟陪审员对死刑审判片段中提出的加重和减轻证据的道德评估，以确定哪些加重者代表更严重的道德侵犯并随后影响死刑，以及加重者对死刑判决的影响是否取决于陪审员的道德信仰和价值观。这是通过使用实验设计和多项研究方法来确定和隔离由审判量刑阶段提出的特定加重者触发的特定道德机制来实现的。随后的每一次实验都通过被告、证据和犯罪情节的不同方面来扩展先前的实验。该项目对陪审员对加重犯和减刑人的评估中所包含的道德推论的一些基本假设进行了首次实验测试。虽然使用死刑的道德理由是基础，但在死刑审判的量刑阶段，陪审员对证据的评估尚未采用适当的理论道德框架，该项目填补了这一空白。调查结果将用于推进理论，并为参与死刑审判的律师和法官提供建议。该项目还通过合作研究实验室促进少数族裔服务机构的研究机会的发展。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。