Defense attorneys harbor bias blind spots that worsen racial disparities

Evidence

In chapter 5, Lyon and Smith show that even seemingly well-intentioned actors, such as criminal defense attorneys and investigators, may contribute to racially disparate criminal justice outcomes. The authors ask a key question: how does communication—and breakdowns therein—manifest in similarly situated individuals being treated differently on account of race? In drawing on their extensive experience working on the defense and interacting with defendants, the authors identify a bias blind spot in defense attorneys. Change will only come if defense attorneys acknowledge the possibility of bias in their own behavior and discuss the issue within the defense bar, with clients, and with the public. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 32

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: The bias blind spot concept connects to Pronin’s work on the bias blind spot in social psychology, already familiar territory.

Related

• Even well-intentioned defense attorneys harbor an unacknowledged bias blind spot (similarity 0.94)
• Defense attorneys avoid discussing racial bias because they fear it as a weakness (similarity 0.85)
• Academic research on defense attorney bias lags far behind prosecution-side studies (similarity 0.85)
• Refusing to acknowledge racial bias does not prevent it from shaping behavior (similarity 0.84)
• Race matching alone does not grant defense attorneys license to raise bias (similarity 0.83)
• Bias affects even well-intentioned egalitarian defense attorneys who represent the accused (similarity 0.83)
• Criminal defense attorneys are overlooked as contributors to racial bias in sentencing (similarity 0.82)
• Defense attorneys must confront their own bias before fixing the system (similarity 0.82)
• Defense attorneys show measurable race bias despite their professional role defending clients. (similarity 0.82)
• Criminal defense attorneys exhibit implicit racial bias affecting client outcomes (similarity 0.81)
• Bias makes people interpret identical behaviors differently by the actor’s race (similarity 0.80)
• Unconscious bias affects even well-intentioned opposing-counsel defenders (similarity 0.80)
• Racial bias pervades every domain rather than rare individuals (similarity 0.80)
• Racial bias permeates every stage of the criminal justice system (similarity 0.80)