Citizen attitudes toward errors in criminal justice: Implications of the declining acceptance of Blackstone's ratio (original) (raw)
Related papers
Wrongful convictions and the Blackstone ratio: An empirical analysis of public attitudes
Punishment & Society, 2014
When deciding on the issue of guilt, a judge or jury can make two types of error: convicting an innocent person (false positive) or acquitting a guilty person (false negative). The Blackstone ratio addresses the relation between false positive and false negative verdicts. The ratio depends on how much certainty the judicial decision-maker requires before convicting an accused.
The Probability of Guilt in Criminal Cases: Are People Aware of Being ‘Beyond Reasonable Doubt’?
Applied Cognitive Psychology
Data from a series of studies presenting video recorded witness statements to laypersons and legal professionals were examined to trace the relationship between judged probability of guilt and the willingness to vote guilty or not guilty in hypothetical trials, in the absence of specific jury instructions. The results show that a majority of jury-eligible young and elderly participants, and police officers, were willing to convict a defendant when the judged probability of guilt exceeded .6. This is considerably below the legally accepted standard of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, which usually is equated with a very high, around .9 perceived certainty. When jury deliberations were allowed, the threshold for conviction rose, approaching the standard evinced by trial judges under the same conditions. The results suggest that people prefer to vote for guilt according to a balance of probabilities principle, considering only the individual case, and disregarding the implied frequencies of ...
Citizens' Attitudes Toward Wrongful Convictions
Criminal Justice Review, 2012
Perhaps no problem challenges the legitimacy of the criminal justice system more than the conviction of factually innocent individuals. Numerous highly publicized exonerations that occurred since 1989 have raised the visibility of wrongful conviction, eliciting the attention of both scholars and policy makers. Much of the research in this area focuses on the causes and incidence of the phenomenon. Despite the growing body of research, however, there has been no examination of how citizens view this problem. Using data from a statewide survey of Michigan residents, the present study aims to fill that gap in the literature by reporting on citizens' attitudes regarding the issue of wrongful conviction. Overall, the results of this exploratory study suggest that respondents not only recognize the incidence of wrongful conviction but also believe that such errors occur with some regularity. Further results show that respondents believe wrongful convictions occur frequently enough to justify major criminal justice system reform. Attitudes varied significantly across demographic groups as well. Additional findings and policy implications are discussed.
Public Perceptions of Wrongful Convictions
PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2000
Relatively little research has investigated public perceptions of wrongful conviction. Considering the growing number of exonerees and the amassing literature on wrongful conviction, what does the public think about this issue of failed justice? This article investigates how the issue of wrongful convictions has entered Canadian citizens' consciousness, the areas where the public has more accurate knowledge of wrongful convictions vs. issues in need of greater public education. Moreover, as Canada is not currently bound to compensate exonerees and does not systematically track wrongful convictions, unlike many U.S. states that have compensation statutes and American innocence organizations that publically report increasing numbers of exonerees, it is suggested that this lack of national attention to wrongful conviction leads some Canadians to falsely believe that wrongful conviction is an American -and not a Canadian -problem. Très peu de recherches ont porté sur les perceptions du public quant aux condamnations injustifiées. Compte tenu du nombre croissant de personnes exonérées et de l'accumulation de littérature sur les condamnations injustifiées, que pense le public de cette question où la justice a échoué? Dans cet article, les auteures examinent comment la question des condamnations injustifiées est entrée dans la conscience des citoyens canadiens, les domaines où le public a une connaissance plus précise des condamnations injustifiées par rapport aux questions nécessitant une plus grande sensibilisation du public. De plus, comme le Canada n'est actuellement pas tenu d'indemniser les personnes exonérées et ne suit pas systématiquement les condamnations injustifiées, à la différence de nombreux états américains qui ont des lois sur l'indemnisation et des organisations défendant les droits des innocents qui signalent au public le nombre croissant de personnes exonérées, les auteures suggèrent que ce manque d'attention nationale aux condamnations injus-* Associate Professor,
The Presumption of Innocence and the Media Coverage of Criminal Cases
2021
The report aims to look at the various manifestations of the presumption of innocence in the context of media coverage of criminal cases. It represents a collection of papers by different authors, each highlighting a particular aspect of the topic: from the international legal framework and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights to the disclosure of information in cases of terrorism, cases against politicians and other high-profile cases. By shedding light on different problems related to the implementation of the presumption of innocence, the report intends to draw the attention of policy makers, criminal justice practitioners and the media on the importance of safeguarding the rights of suspects and accused persons in criminal proceedings as a key prerequisite for fair trial.
A re-examination of the acquittal biasing effect of offence seriousness
Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 2018
The justice system should operate free of bias, and jurors' judgements of a defendant's guilt should be based on evidential factors alone. However, research suggests that this is not always the case. The aim of this study is to investigate the biasing effect of offence seriousness-a case-related, extralegal factor-on juror decision-making. An experiment was conducted to examine the effect of this extralegal factor on 118 members of the juryeligible public's interpretations of 'beyond reasonable doubt' (BRD), probability of commission, verdict and confidence in verdict. It was found that defendants charged with more serious offences were judged to be less likely to have committed the crime. However, offence seriousness was not found to have a significant effect on interpretations of BRD and verdict. The present findings suggest a need to instruct jurors on the application of legal (probative) factors alone.
Starting in the mid-1990s-for the first time since the Furman era-public approval of the death penalty took a dramatic dive. Baumgartner argues that this wave of opposition was brought about by the "innocence frame," a novel media frame bringing public awareness to the possibility that innocent people may be, and likely have been, executed for crimes that they did not commit. I expand upon Baumgartner's macro-level approach to the innocence frame, focusing instead on the inner workings of the innocence frame and the implications thereof. Specifically, I identify and investigate one of the innocence frame's two sub-frames-"actual innocence" and "fallibility"-which dictate the extent to which the innocence frame moves public opinion of the death penalty. Having narrowed the scope of my analysis from the innocence frame to actual innocence, I conducted an experiment seeking to identify factors that might assertively establish (or, alternatively, cast into doubt) the innocence of those who were wrongfully convicted and exonerated. I then observe how these factors affect evaluations of exoneree innocence and, in turn, how these evaluations affect attitudes toward the death penalty-thus demonstrating an "actual innocence" framing effect. Finally, I conduct a content analysis in order to assess how the media utilizes the actual innocence frame over time. Results indicate that the presence of DNA evidence in media coverage of exonerations affects evaluations of exoneree innocence, though the extent to which these evaluations shape attitudes toward the death penalty remains uncertain. Results also indicate that the media does utilize the actual innocence frameespecially during periods of time slightly preceding or coinciding with periods of skepticism regarding capital punishment. Together, the data shed light on the problematic nature of "innocence" in America, warranting further examination of the actual innocence frame and, moreover, our fundamental assumptions about modern criminal justice.
Death penalty attitudes and conviction proneness: The translation of attitudes into verdicts
Law and Human Behavior, 1984
Attitudes toward the death penalty are consistently predictive of jurors' verdicts in criminal trials. Two studies were conducted to find out why. In Study 1, eligible jurors viewed a videotape showing conflicting testimony by a prosecution and defense witness in an assault case. "Death-qualified" subjects (those permitted to serve on capital juries) interpreted testimony in a manner more favorable to the prosecution than "excludable" subjects (those excluded from serving on juries in capital cases due to their opposition to the death penalty), suggesting that differing interpretations of evidence may mediate the relationship between attitudes toward the death penalty and verdicts. In Study 2, the same jurors indicated their reactions to a number of hypothetical situations in which a jury had convicted an innocent defendant or acquitted a guilty one. ~ qualified" subjects expressed tess regret concerning erroneous convictions and more regret concerning erroneous acquittals than "excludable" subjects. Theoretical interpretations of this pattern of results suggest that "death qualified" subjects may have a lower threshold of conviction than "excludable" subjects; thus the relationship between attitudes toward the death penalty and verdicts may also be mediated by differing thresholds of conviction.
2019
In most legal systems, a very high standard of evidence is established to reach a verdict of guilty. Accused individuals may not be convicted unless the prosecution proves their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This contrasts with the much lower standards of evidence required to make pre-trial decisions. This paper contributes to the law and economics literature on standards of proof in criminal law by extending the analysis to pretrial decisions on whether the criminal investigation (proceedings) against a person should go ahead or be terminated. The paper shows why optimal standards for these decisions should be lower than that for conviction: false negatives (e.g., wrongful non-indictments) have a more adverse impact on deterrence than false positives (e.g., wrongful indictments). The paper analyzes as well how those standards should vary depending on certain circumstances.