The Impact of Victim Statement of Opinion on Judges' Sentencing Decision

本研究以汽车操作中因疏忽或过失行为导致死亡（包括死亡和受伤）的实际案例为研究对象，首先对一些假设进行了探索性检验，以确定促进使用受害者意见陈述的因素。根据这些测试，发现两个重要因素，即受害人与家属的关系和家属对被告人的评价。然后，VSO对量刑结果的影响进行了研究，一些结果支持VSO的使用促进了无缓刑的判决，尽管由于样本数量有限，这些结果并不清楚。然而，我能够根据可用的数据讨论影响的合理机制。

Actual case records on death (including death and injury) through negligence or negligent conduct in the operation of an automobile were examined.At first, some hypotheses were exploratory tested to identify factors which promote a use of Victim Statement of Opinion (VSO). According to these tests, two important factors were found; namely the relation between victims and bereaved family members and bereaved family members' evaluation on defendants. Then, the impact of VSO on sentencing outcomes was examined, and some results supported that uses of VSO promote sentences without suspension, although these results are not so clear due to the limited sample number. However, I was able to discuss the plausible mechanism of the impact based on the data avalable.