Criminal defense attorneys exhibit implicit racial bias affecting client outcomes
Evidence
Two academic examinations of implicit (or less-conscious) bias in criminal defense have shown that our intuition about bias in criminal defense is correct. First, Eisenberg and Johnson (2004) had ninety-two capital defense attorneys take a race Implicit Association Test (IAT). The findings showed that White attorneys were biased against Black individuals. Second, Edkins (2011) presented ninety-five criminal defense attorneys with vignettes in which she had manipulated race, such that the defendant was described as either an African American male or a Caucasian American male. Edkins found that plea bargains recommended for the African American clients contained sentences that were more severe (and more likely to include jail time) than those recommended for the Caucasian American clients. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 672
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- SEED: Essay angle: the professional gatekeepers supposedly on the client’s side still carry the same implicit bias as everyone else, and plea bargains are where it shows up in concrete sentencing severity rather than courtroom drama.
Related
- Defense attorneys show measurable race bias despite their professional role defending clients. (similarity 0.93)
- Criminal defense attorneys are overlooked as contributors to racial bias in sentencing (similarity 0.87)
- Bias affects even well-intentioned egalitarian defense attorneys who represent the accused (similarity 0.83)
- Race matching alone does not grant defense attorneys license to raise bias (similarity 0.83)
- Academic research on defense attorney bias lags far behind prosecution-side studies (similarity 0.81)
- Even well-intentioned defense attorneys harbor an unacknowledged bias blind spot (similarity 0.81)
- Defense attorneys harbor bias blind spots that worsen racial disparities (similarity 0.81)
- Clients must feel represented or they withhold facts and act destructively (similarity 0.80)
- Defense attorneys avoid discussing racial bias because they fear it as a weakness (similarity 0.80)
- Attorney type outweighs race in predicting detention and sentencing outcomes (similarity 0.79)