Jurors punish defendants more when crimes fit racial stereotypes

Evidence

Stereotype consistency. Whether the crime committed is stereotypically associated with the defendant’s racial group also moderates the expression of bias against out-group defendants. For example, in one study participants read a case summary in which a White or Black defendant was on trial for embezzlement or automobile theft (Jones & Kaplan, 2003). Participants rendered harsher judgments and asked for fewer additional pieces of evidence when defendant race was consistent with the racial group associated with the charged crime (e.g., the White defendant charged with embezzlement). The harsher judgments against stereotype-consistent individuals stemmed from participants making more dispositional attributions for the stereotype-consistent defendants. Similarly, jurors awarded longer sentences to defendants who committed stereotype-consistent—compared to stereotype inconsistent—crimes (Gordon, Bindrim, McNicholas, & Walden, 1988). — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 872

Categorization

• XREF: The dispositional-attribution mechanism (stereotype-consistent behavior read as character, not circumstance) parallels the fundamental attribution error literature and stereotype confirmation effects in social cognition.
• CANDY: A compact party-trick fact: mock jurors are harsher on a White defendant for embezzlement than auto theft purely because embezzlement ‘fits’ whiteness stereotypically.
• 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…, 872