Victim Impact Statements: How Victim Social Class Affects Juror Decision Making

Although the Supreme Court has ruled that victim impact statements (VIS) should be allowed at trial, the concern voiced in Payne v. Tennessee (1991) and Furman v. Georgia (1972) was that VIS might enable jurors to make comparative judgments about the worth of the victim. This study examined the effect VIS and low and middle socioeconomic status (SES) victims have on jurors’ decisions. Mock jurors listened to 1 of 3 audio recordings of the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial (no VIS, low SES VIS, or middle SES VIS) and were asked to sentence the defendant to either life in prison without parole or death. Results indicated VIS themselves did not significantly affect mock jurors’ sentencing decisions. However, mock jurors who heard the middle SES victim VIS were significantly more likely to sentence the defendant to death compared to those who heard the low SES victim VIS. The results suggest that the concerns of the Supreme Court were valid. Mock jurors were impacted by SES information in the VIS and were more punitive toward the defendant when he killed a higher rather than a lower SES person.

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Stabilizing violence

Narrative Inquiry ◽

10.1075/ni.20.2.04cob ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 20 (2) ◽

pp. 296-324

Author(s):

Sara Cobb

Keyword(s):

Causal Relation ◽

Structural Complexity ◽

Death Sentence ◽

Juror Decision Making ◽

Life And Death ◽

Sentencing Decisions ◽

Capital Trials ◽

Capital Murder ◽

Capital Trial ◽

Penalty Phase

Narratives matter. They shape the social world in which they circulate, reflecting and refracting the cultural limits of what narratives can be told, in what setting, to whom. From this perspective, they structure how we make sense of ourselves, as members of a community, but they also structure how we understand right and wrong, good and evil. Nowhere is this more apparent than in capital murder trials in which the narratives that are constructed are literally life and death matters. The research on narrative processes in capital trials documents how the courtroom is a place for “story-battles” where each narrative works to disqualify the other and legitimize itself, in an effort to structure jurors’ decisions. This is accentuated in the penalty phase of the capital trial where both mitigating and aggravating narratives “thicken” the narratives told in the guilt phase; in the penalty phase jurors make the decision to sentence the defendant to either life without the possibility of parole, or to death. While some research of juror decision-making shows that jurors favor the prosecution narrative and make up their minds to give the death sentence independent of the penalty phase narratives, other research on mitigation narratives shows that contextualizing the defendant, via mitigating narratives, can overturn the power of the prosecution narrative and lead to a life, rather than a death, sentence. This research seeks to avoid efforts to associate juror cognitive processes to narrative processes and instead seeks to examine the connection between jury sentencing decisions, for life or death, as a function of narrative closure which is, in turn, defined in terms of two narrative dimensions: structural complexity and moral transparency. Using this framework, the penalty phase narratives in two capital trials are compared along these dimensions; the findings suggest that moral transparency and structural complexity provide the foundations for narrative closure in the penalty phase, as both structural simplicity and moral obtuseness are characteristic of narratives that are not adopted by the jury. While the sample size is small, the narrative data is rich, and the study, overall, is intended not to suggest a causal relation between dimensions of narrative closure and jury sentencing, but rather aims to illustrate a method for assessing narratives in relation to jury sentencing in the penalty phase of capital trials. However, at the broadest level, the paper offers a framework for examining the way that narrative works to contain violence.

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The Impact of Angry Versus Sad Victim Impact Statements on Mock Jurors’ Sentencing Decisions in a Capital Trial

Criminal Justice and Behavior ◽

10.1177/0093854816689809 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 44 (6) ◽

pp. 862-886 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Narina Nuñez ◽

Bryan Myers ◽

Benjamin M. Wilkowski ◽

Kimberly Schweitzer

Keyword(s):

Emotional Content ◽

Death Sentence ◽

Mock Jurors ◽

Sentencing Decisions ◽

Death Sentences ◽

Victim Impact Statements ◽

Capital Trial ◽

The Impact ◽

Penalty Phase

The present study tested the effects of angry and sad victim impact statements (VIS) on jury eligible participants’ decisions. Death qualified participants ( N = 581) watched the penalty phase of a capital trial that varied the presence and emotional content of the VIS (angry, sad, or no VIS) along with the strength of mitigating evidence (weak or strong). Results revealed that Angry VIS led to an increase in death sentences, whereas Sad VIS did not. Furthermore, participants who reported becoming angry during the trial were more likely to render a death sentence, but participants who became sad during the trial were not. No interaction was found between VIS and strength of mitigating evidence, but participants exposed to the angry VIS did rate the mitigating evidence as less important to their decisions. The results indicate that VIS are not inherently biasing, nor are all emotions equally impactful on sentencing decisions.

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Who Is the Victim Anyway? The Effects of Bystander Victim Impact Statements on Mock Juror Sentencing Decisions

Violence and Victims ◽

10.1891/vivi.19.3.357.65763 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 19 (3) ◽

pp. 357-374 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Mila Green McGowan ◽

Bryan Myers

Keyword(s):

Crime Scene ◽

Mock Juror ◽

Straightforward Manner ◽

Legal Decisions ◽

Sentencing Decisions ◽

Victim Impact Statement ◽

Jury Service ◽

Victim Impact Statements ◽

Murder Trial

Victim impact evidence was varied in a brief trial scenario given to 120 participants eligible for jury service. The scenario concerned the murder trial of a disgruntled employee accused of bombing his former workplace. Participants read either no victim impact evidence or one of three victim impact statements. For the victim impact statements, we varied the identity of the witness. The victim impact statement was given by either the wife of the victim, a coworker of the victim, or a firefighter called to the crime scene. Results revealed that only the victim impact evidence given by the coworker lead to harsher sentencing judgments. However, participants rated the suffering of the victim’s wife as most severe, indicating that perceptions of suffering may not predict sentencing judgments in a straightforward manner. Implications for these findings for legal decisions such as Payne v. Tennessee (1991) are discussed.

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Malpractice & Negligence: Cal. Supreme Court Clarifies Negligence Provisions under State’s Elder Abuse Act

The Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics ◽

10.1017/s1073110500012973 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 203-203

Author(s):

Kendra Carlson

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Supreme Court ◽

Health Care Providers ◽

Elder Abuse ◽

Skilled Nursing Facility ◽

Pressure Sores ◽

Care Providers ◽

Nursing Facility ◽

Skilled Nursing ◽

The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of California held, in Delaney v. Baker, 82 Cal. Rptr. 2d 610 (1999), that the heightened remedies available under the Elder Abuse Act (Act), Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code, §§ 15657,15657.2 (West 1998), apply to health care providers who engage in reckless neglect of an elder adult. The court interpreted two sections of the Act: (1) section 15657, which provides for enhanced remedies for reckless neglect; and (2) section 15657.2, which limits recovery for actions based on “professional negligence.” The court held that reckless neglect is distinct from professional negligence and therefore the restrictions on remedies against health care providers for professional negligence are inapplicable.Kay Delaney sued Meadowood, a skilled nursing facility (SNF), after a resident, her mother, died. Evidence at trial indicated that Rose Wallien, the decedent, was left lying in her own urine and feces for extended periods of time and had stage I11 and IV pressure sores on her ankles, feet, and buttocks at the time of her death.

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Medical and Legal Issues Raised by the Protz Decision Issued by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Guides Newsletter ◽

10.1001/amaguidesnewsletters.2017.julaug03 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 22 (4) ◽

pp. 12-13

Author(s):

LuAnn Haley ◽

Marjorie Eskay-Auerbach

Keyword(s):

Supreme Court ◽

Scientific Evidence ◽

Workers Compensation ◽

Sixth Edition ◽

Complex Concept ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

Compensation Claims ◽

Recent Edition ◽

Impairment Ratings ◽

Definition Of

Abstract Pennsylvania adopted the impairment rating provisions described in the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides) in 1996 as an exposure cap for employers seeking predictability and cost control in workers’ compensation claims. In 2017, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania handed down the Protz decision, which held that requiring physicians to apply the methodology set forth in the most recent edition of the AMA Guides reflected an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the American Medical Association. The decision eliminates the impairment-rating evaluation (IRE) mechanism under which claimants were assigned an impairment rating under the most recent edition of the AMA Guides. The AMA Guides periodically are revised to include the most recent scientific evidence regarding impairment ratings, and the AMA Guides, Sixth Edition, acknowledges that impairment is a complex concept that is not yet defined in a way that readily permits an evidence-based definition of assessment. The AMA Guides should not be considered standards frozen in time simply to withstand future scrutiny by the courts; instead, workers’ compensation acts could state that when a new edition of the AMA Guides is published, the legislature shall review and consider adopting the new edition. It appears unlikely that the Protz decision will be followed in other jurisdictions: Challenges to using the AMA Guides in assessing workers’ compensation claims have been attempted in three states, and all attempts failed.

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