Ugly defendants 'more likely to be found guilty than attractive ones'

thisislondon.co.uk ^ | 21.03.07 | Staff

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Good looks could help guilty defendants dodge justice, researchers have said.

They reported that in an experiment jurors were more likely to convict suspects deemed ugly than those seen as attractive.

It is thought that the principle applies elsewhere in life, with beauty being associated with kindness, intelligence and sporting ability.

The researchers at Bath Spa University came to their conclusions after asking 96 volunteers to read a transcript of a fictitious mugging case.

Half of the participants were given a picture of an attractive suspect, the others one of a supposedly ugly defendant. The script was the same in either case.

The volunteer 'jurors' were then asked to decide whether the suspect was innocent or guilty. In the latter case they also had to decide on a sentence.

Analysis of the results revealed that attractive suspects were more likely to be acquitted, despite there being no extra evidence in their favour.

Sandie Taylor, the psychologist who conducted the study, said: "We set out to consider the influence of physical attractiveness and ethnicity of a defendant depicted in a photograph on mock jurors' decisions of verdict, extent of guilt and sentencing.

"Our findings confirm previous research on the effects of defendant characteristics - such as physical attractiveness - on the deliberations of jurors.

"Attractive defendants are, it seems, rated less harshly than homely defendants, so perhaps justice isn't blind after all.

"People who are physically attractive are assumed to be clever, successful and have more friends - it is tragic in a way."

Dr Taylor said Ted Bundy, who murdered more than 30 young women in the U.S. in the 1970s, was a good example of a criminal who tried to use his looks to his advantage.

"He was quite an attractive person physically and he had the gift of the gab and that is how he lured his victims into his car and killed them in the end," she said.

"He wanted to represent himself in court and I think a few people might have been duped by his character and how he came across.

"The hard-core forensic evidence was against him, but if that forensic evidence hadn't been there, he might well have got off, because he was quite charming and knew how to work people."

The study showed that while the jurors were swayed by attractiveness, they did not let race cloud their judgment. Black and white suspects were treated equally. When black suspects were convicted, however, they were given longer sentences.

"It is interesting that being an unattractive black defendant only had an impact on sentencing and not on a juror's verdict of guilt," Dr Taylor told the British Psychological Society's annual conference in York.

"However, it is a positive finding that neither black nor white participants showed a bias towards their own ethnic group."

She pointed out that in British law sentences are decided by judges rather than juries.

Previous research by Dr Taylor showed that gender can also be important in the courts.

Women jurors treat female suspects more harshly, especially when they think they might have used their looks to their advantage.

Men, on the other hand, tend to give attractive women the benefit of the doubt.

The phenomenon, known as the 'halo effect', is thought to extend far beyond the courtroom, with looks affecting an individual's exam marks, job prospects and even ability to make friends.

"People are constantly making judgments of other people," added Dr Taylor. "That is the way we make sense of a socially chaotic world - we use stereotypes to try to make sense of it all."

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

"Bath Spa University" who the h3ll goes to a school named that?

Clean people with crinkly skin? (Just a surmise.)

[null and void]

*snrk*

[VaBthang4]

Time to ban Beauty

[null and void]

If it didn't affect me, personally, I'd druther ban Ugly.

[TKDietz]

"And I will never understand why just the prospect of facing a "jury of one's peers" isn't enough to keep more folks on the straight and narrow."

Nationwide, only about 2.5% of all felony cases ever make it to jury trial. Almost all the rest are resolved by plea bargain, often with prison being part of the plea deal. Facing a jury of one's peers is a frightening prospect. Hardly any criminal defendants want to do it. Even cases where one is innocent of all or part of the charges levied against him, facing a jury is a big roll of the dice that is frightening enough to make a fairly reasonable plea offer seem not so bad, even if taking it means one will have to plead guilty or no contest to things he did not do. In almost every case where plea offers are made the final offers at least will have somewhat of a "plea discount," meaning the defendant will get significantly less punishment than the prosecutor believes he'll be able to get from the judge or jury if the case proceeds to trial. The plea discount in weaker cases is almost always going to be a lot more significant than it would be in an open and shut case, and there is no doubt in my mind that occasionally a completely innocent defendant will take a really "good" offer rather than face a jury. More often than that one who is guilty of some of what he is charged with but not all of it, or who may be overcharged (guilty of a lesser crime but not of the more serious charge filed against him), will go ahead and plead to everything he charged with rather than face a jury. People are afraid of jury trials...but of course that's obviously not enough to stop deviants from deviating from the laws in the first place.

[popdonnelly]

"Bath Spa University" who the h3ll goes to a school named that?"

Bill Clinton.

[bkepley]

==How do you explain the results of the study, then?

Personally I don't believe that such experiments reflect the real world. If the experiment were repeated on "jurors" who believed they were involved in real trials I would also like to make sure things such as the way the defendents were dressed and the way they behaved was held constant.

[cherry]

"I think its crap. I've been on juries before and I've never heard any jurors arguing anything except the facts in the case"

you completely missed the point of the story.....

no one says that jurors sit there and talk looks....but they subconciously give the benefit of the doubt to the beautiful people, and the nod of suspicion to the not so beautiful.....

[TKDietz]

"The study showed that while the jurors were swayed by attractiveness, they did not let race cloud their judgment. Black and white suspects were treated equally. When black suspects were convicted, however, they were given longer sentences."

I wonder if the conviction rate for blacks would have been higher if this study was done in the U.S., especially in the South. I am a criminal defense attorney is a Southern state practicing in an area where blacks make up less than half of one percent of our population. Maybe we're all just wrong, but it sure looks to those of us in the business that black defendants are much more likely to be convicted and face harsher punishments when they take their cases before our generally all white juries. Our few black clients certainly seem to have the same perception too and rather than face a jury will often begrudgingly take worse offers than whites would get in the same types of cases with similar facts. Our jury pools come solely from our voter registration lists and the twelve people that make it to the box tend to be all white, much more "silver haired" (lots of senior citizens) than the general population, and with a much greater saturation of fundamentalist Christian law and order types than you would find in our overall local populace. They decide whether the defendants are guilty and then they are also responsible for sentencing the defendants after making a determination of guilt. The punishments they hand out tend to be quite severe, especially on sex cases and drug cases, and especially it seems for blacks and Hispanics regardless of the underlying charges.

[bkepley]

==you completely missed the point of the story.....

No I got the point exactly I just think it's silly. For one thing the awful fact is that most people convicted are acually guilty. Any effect of beauty of the defendent would get burried in the noise of the other factors.

[ErnBatavia]

Helen Thomas best be walkin' the straight and narrow...

[AmericaUnited]

"Do I look guilty of anything?"

[null and void]

100% innocent. (What were the charges again?)

[onedoug]

...and money.

[ozzymandus]

It's hell to be ugly. I've had a rough life.

[CORedneck]

Classic movie ! What is the terminal velocity of an unladen swallow ? European or African ?

[Xenalyte]

Just watched that with my kids. They liked the Black Knight.

They better! He always triumphs.