Is it inherently prejudicial to try a juvenile as an adult?
Given only information that a youth who could have been tried as either an adult or as a juvenile was being tried as an adult for murder, 218 undergraduate mock jurors were able to form consistent impressions of the defendant. A very high percent of our mock jurors included a criminal or juvenile justice history as part of that impression. A very large majority of the mock jurors also said that knowledge of that criminal history would be relevant to their vote of guilty. Almost all mock jurors said they would be influenced toward voting guilty by knowledge of a previous criminal history. Few of the other components of the impression were so closely correlated with a judgment of relevance, or with a judgment that they would be influenced toward voting guilty by the knowledge of that component of the stereotype. The effect is relatively specific to knowledge of a previous criminal history. The study has limited ecological validity. Nonetheless, we raise questions about whether the fact that a youth is put on trial as an adult is inherently prejudicial, and violates the Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury.
Department of Psychology, SUNY at Buffalo, Buffalo NY 14260, USA. psylevin@acsu.buffalo.edu
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Levine
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Williams
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Sixt
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Valenti
D000293:Adolescent; D003416:Criminal Law / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007604:Juvenile Delinquency / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D008297:Male; D013240:Stereotyping