Influences of intellectual disability, abuse, and confessions on perceptions of juvenile defendants

What is it about?

This study looked at how jurors respond to teenaged defendants with different backgrounds and case factors. The researchers asked mock jurors to read a trial summary and decide on guilt, punishment, and whether the teen should be tried in adult court. The teen defendant in the study was portrayed as either being intellectually disabled or not, either having a history of abuse or not, , and either having confessed to the crime voluntarily, having confessed under pressure, or never having confessed. The results showed that abused juveniles were treated more leniently than nonabused juveniles only when the juvenile's crime was motivated by self-defense against an abusive parent but not when the juvenile had committed other crimes. Jurors made more lenient judgments for a disabled than a nondisabled juvenile. Jurors also completely discounted a coerced confession for a disabled juvenile, but not for a nondisabled juvenile. In fact, compared with when it was portrayed as voluntary, jurors generally discounted a juvenile's coerced confession. These findings show that while jurors sometimes take a teen’s life circumstances into account in their decision-making, confession evidence still carries a lot of weight even when it might not be reliable.

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Photo by Aditya Sethia on Unsplash

Photo by Aditya Sethia on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This work shows that intellectual disability, a history of abuse, and circumstances around confessions all influence jurors’ judgments. The results help to shed light on how jurors react to teens accused of crimes and how they reach their verdicts in their cases. The results highlight the need for better jury education on confessions and for stronger protections for at-risk youth in the justice system.