title: Innocent until primed: mock jurors' racially biased response to the presumption of innocence.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Research has shown that crime concepts can activate attentional bias to Black faces. This study investigates the possibility that some legal concepts hold similar implicit racial cues. Presumption of innocence instructions, a core legal principle specifically designed to eliminate bias, may instead serve as an implicit racial cue resulting in attentional bias.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The experiment was conducted in a courtroom with participants seated in the jury box. Participants first watched a video of a federal judge reading jury instructions that contained presumption of innocence instructions, or matched length alternative instructions. Immediately following this video a dot-probe task was administered to assess the priming effect of the jury instructions. Presumption of innocence instructions, but not the alternative instructions, led to significantly faster response times to Black faces when compared with White faces.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings suggest that the core principle designed to ensure fairness in the legal system actually primes attention for Black faces, indicating that this supposedly fundamental protection could trigger racial stereotypes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States of America.
authors.forename: Danielle M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Young
authors.affiliation: William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States of America.
authors.forename: Justin D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Levinson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States of America.
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sinnett
mesh_terms: D001741:Black or African American; D003415:Crime; D003416:Criminal Law / Q000941:ethics*; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D063505:Racism / Q000523:psychology*; D011930:Reaction Time; D014481:United States; D044465:White People; D055815:Young Adult