Social Framework Testimony and Race Salience: Examining Bias Correction in the Current Context

Abstract

This juror-simulation study tested whether expert testimony about police relations with Black/Indigenous persons would mitigate potential verdict discrepancies by making race a salient issue, and whether perceived police legitimacy would predict perceptions of race salience and/or effectiveness of the salience manipulation. Jury-eligible community members (N = 392) read a trial transcript in which the defendant claims self-defense for the killing of a police officer. We manipulated defendant race (Black/Indigenous/White) and the presence of expert testimony in which a sociologist described the experience of racialized persons with police. Participants provided verdicts, rated perceptions that racial issues featured prominently in the trial (i.e., perceived race salience), and completed a police legitimacy measure. Results revealed non-significant effects of defendant race and expert testimony on verdicts. Those higher in perceptions of police legitimacy had a greater likelihood of voting guilty and less favourable attitudes toward the expert, with the opposite pattern for those higher in perceived race salience.

Keywords:

• Juror decision-making
• race salience
• defendant race
• police legitimacy
• social framework evidence
• expert testimony

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 All participants were Canadian citizens, fluent in English, 18 years of age or older, and had not been convicted of an indictable offence for which they did not receive a record suspension. Additionally, participants were not employed in an occupation that precludes participation in a jury in Canada (e.g., member of the legal profession; see Juries Act, R.S.O., 1990, for an exhaustive list).

2 In Canada, “irrespective of whether a murder is planned and deliberate on the part of any person, murder is first degree murder when the victim is…a police officer,” Criminal Code 231(4)(a).

3 The dataset and supplementary material can be accessed on Open Science Framework at: https://osf.io/m3ysw/?view_only=347af1ac114246538592e49ccc3e6a5d.

4 Perceived police legitimacy was measured after verdict to preserve the legal verisimilitude of the verdict measure. Notably, this measure was not affected by defendant race (p = .71), expert testimony (p = .20), or their interaction (p = .59), suggesting that perceptions of police legitimacy are stable.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant.