On the Decision To Testify in One's Own Behalf - Effects of Withheld Evidence, Defendant's Sexual Preferences, and Juror Dogmatism on Juridic Decisions

• NCJ Number: 81469
• Journal: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Volume: 42 Issue: 2 Dated: (February 1982) Pages: 335-346
• Author(s): D R Shaffer; T Case
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 12 pages
• Grant Number(s): MH-25726
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institutes of Health
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

In the present experiment, individuals high or low in dogmatism served as members of six-person juries that assessed the culpability of a homosexual or heterosexual defendant in a murder trial, who either (a) invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to specific crime-relevant interrogation, (b) invoked the Fifth Amendment by opting not to take the witness stand, or (c) took the stand and provided substantive answers for all crime-relevant interrogation.

Abstract

The results indicated that defendants who invoked the Fifth Amendment (either on the stand or by declining to take the stand) were judged more likely guilty and more deserving of conviction than their counterpart who took the stand and answered all interrogation. As anticipated, juror dogmatism interacted with the defendant's sexual preferences to affect juridic decisions. However, the form of these interactions were contrary to our expectations: That is, high-dogmatic jurors were no more punitive toward homosexual than heterosexual defendants, whereas jurors low in dogmatism were actually more lenient toward homosexual than heterosexual defendants. An explanation for the leniency of nondogmatic jurors toward homosexual defendants was proposed, and some implications of this line of reasoning for future research were discussed. (Publisher abstract)