A Moral Foundations Approach to How Jurors Weigh Aggravating Evidence

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。认定被告有罪的死刑陪审员随后的任务是决定这个人是应该活还是应该死。这个决定可以说是最难做出的道德决定，死刑陪审员必须做出决定，并为这个决定找到理由。目前尚不清楚这一决策过程涉及什么，以及死刑陪审员如何权衡涉及加重和减轻情节的不同证据。尽管迄今为止的大多数研究都假设陪审员对证据的解释是统一的，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权衡。通过评估陪审员自己的道德信念，并将道德信念映射到他们对证据的解释以及最终对死刑的建议上，目前的研究提供了一种更精确的方式来思考人们实际上是如何判断证据的。本研究评估了证据的内在价值和陪审员对证据评估的主观价值，以更好地解释陪审员如何以及为什么在类似案件中得出截然不同的判决，以及在非常不同的案件中得出相似的判决。本研究将扩展道德决策的研究，并有助于解决和解释死刑判决阶段证据评估中的一些差异。目前的项目将道德基础理论应用于模拟陪审员对死刑审判小片段中提出的加重和减轻证据的道德评价，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判决，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研究方法来确定和隔离审判量刑阶段特定加重者的陈述所引发的特定道德机制来实现的。每一个后续的实验都通过被告、证据和犯罪环境的不同方面来扩展先前的实验。本项目首次对陪审员对加重和减轻因素的评价中嵌入的道德推论的一些基本假设进行了实验检验。虽然道义上的理由是使用死刑的基础，但在死刑审判的量刑阶段，陪审员对证据的评价尚未适用适当的理论道德框架，本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为少数民族服务机构提供研究机会。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.