Jury Bias in Criminal Cases: Sexual Assault, Homicide, and Generic Prejudice

本研究的目的是进一步探索实验模型，并评估特定情绪作为偏见中介的作用。我们的工作将一般性偏见——对案件类别和被告的预先判断——与其他形式的损害宪法公正原则的陪审员偏见区分开来。强制性的挑战可能是对抗普遍偏见最有效的武器。律师使用强制质疑来清除那些对某种类型的客户、指控或犯罪类别表现出普遍偏见的人。然而，法官、学者和理论家从应用和理论的角度攻击了强制性的挑战。现有的研究支持通用偏见判断模型在分析偏见类型方面的效用，但对于为什么不同的事实模式会产生不同类型的偏见这一问题仍未解决。本研究开发了一种实验方法来研究强制性挑战背景下的一般偏见，并测试了陪审员的情绪反应作为偏见的一种解释的作用。

The purposes of this research are to further probe the experimental model and to evaluate the roles of specific emotions as mediators of bias. Our work distinguishes generic prejudice -- prejudgments about classes of cases and defendants -- from other forms of juror bias that undercut the impartiality principle of the Constitution. Peremptory challenges may be the most effective weapon against generic prejudice. Attorneys use peremptory challenges to remove venire people who show signs of generic prejudice against a type of client, charge, or category of offense. However, judges, scholars, and theorists have attacked peremptory challenges on applied and theoretical grounds. Existing studies support the utility of a judgment model of generic prejudice to parse types of bias, but leave open the question of why different fact patterns produce different types of bias. Our study develops an experimental method to study generic prejudice in the context of peremptory challenges, and tests the role of jurors' emotional responses as one explanation for the bias.