DOES DEFENDANT RACE AND MENTAL ILLNESS DIAGNOSIS CONTRIBUTE TO JUROR BIAS? AN AVERSIVE BIAS EXPLANATION

In recent years, social injustice and racial bias in the United States has become a main focus within the law and psychology literature. Particularly, prejudicial attitudes regarding juror decision making. If jurors are instructed to make decisions based solely on the preponderance of the evidence presented in criminal cases, then why are African American defendants treated more negatively compared with White defendants? One contemporary theory of bias may best explain juror decision making prejudice. The theory of aversive racismpostulates that even persons who believe they are low on prejudice, can still feel underlying and implicit negative thoughts and feelings toward minority group members. Past research on aversive racism with regards to juror decision making has explained that jurors do not find defendants guilty solely based on race. Another perceived negative variable (e.g., low SES) must coincide with race of defendant for jurors to demonstrate aversive racism. This way, jurors can place any internal feelings of racism onto the other perceived negative variable to alleviate any aversiveness they may feel. Defendant mental illness as this other perceived negative variable has yet to be examined in juror decision making literature. The purpose of this study is to examine prejudicial attitudes towards African American defendants who suffer from mental illness and examine if the theory of aversive racism can best explain this bias. One-hundred nineteen participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2 (defendant race: African American or White) X 2 (defendant mental illness diagnosis: depression or schizophrenia) between-groups design. It is hypothesized that European-American mock jurors will find African American defendants diagnosed with depression, guilty more often, recommend lengthier sentences, find these efendants more culpable, and rate this defendant more negatively on a number of trait measures compared with all other conditions. Limitations and future directions will be discussed