Defense attorneys show measurable race bias despite their professional role defending clients.

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

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s question on the conviction-vs-measured-bias gap — these are professionals whose stated role opposes bias yet show implicit and behavioral bias.
• SEED: Could bolster the argument that institutional role obligations (defending clients) do not override implicit bias, paralleling similar findings for judges.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 672