Middle-Eastern Defendants Guilt - Essay Example

Groups of 50 participants were provided with a media booklet to read, presenting media of either a political or religious terror act. A second booklet was then distributed with hypothetical terror act media, and with either an Anglo-American or Middle-Eastern defendant. For each of type of terror act half of the booklets had an Anglo-American defendant, and half had a Middle-Eastern defendant. Participants were asked to record their confidence in the guilt of the defendant. A significant interaction effect found that participants were more confident of guilt for the Anglo-American defendant for the political terror act as compared to the Middle-Eastern defendant for the religious terror act (β = 0.25, p = 0.01). While results were contrary to the hypothesis, the high-profile terror act may have skewed results.

Discussion
The first hypothesis was supported in that jurors exposed to political media coverage of terror acts were more confident of the defendant’s guilt, as compared to jurors exposed to religious media coverage. Additionally, the jurors were more confident of the Anglo-American defendant’s guilt when they had been exposed to media about the political terror act, as compared to confidence in the guilt of the Middle-Eastern defendant for a religious terror act. These results are in contrast to the expected findings that were based on an extension of the conclusions of studies of cross-ethnic effects.

Sommers and Ellsworth (2001) found that Anglo-American jurors were more likely to find an African-American defendant guilty when accused of attacking an Anglo-American, even though the attack may not have been racially motivated. Abshire and Bornstein (2003) found that Anglo-American jurors were more likely find to an African-American guilty as compared to African-American jurors. And Brewer (2004) reasoned that racial identification occurs, to some degree, between jurors and the defendant, depending on the ethnicity of the defendant and the victim/s. The present results are counter to these arguments, despite the majority of the mock jury being Anglo-American. Hence, it is suggested that a degree of impartiality does exist when racial issues are not salient reasons for the terror attack.

The primary limitation of this study was that the demographic characteristics of the jurors were not included in the design. As such, the sample could have been stratified to ensure equal numbers across ethnicity and gender. In regards to ethnicity, non-Anglo-Americans are not a homogenous group, and there is a lack of empirical evidence to support a bias of non-Anglo-Americans in being more confident of the guilt of an Anglo-American as compared to a non-American defendant. Demographic data would have enabled the present study to extend on previous studies of cross-ethnic effects, as well as explore possible gender differences. It would also have been useful to control juror political and religious affiliations. Also, it may have been useful to determine if juror attitudes towards print media, in general, affected outcomes.

It is also recommended that future studies measure mock jury attitudes toward defendants of different ethnicities both before and after giving them a hypothetical scenario, to see if attitudes remain constant.

In conclusion, this research revealed that jurors are not more confident in finding a Middle-Eastern defendant guilty based solely on the ethnicity of the defendant. The findings have serious implications for arguments that seek to implicate juror media-induced bias against defendants based on ethnicity. As the majority of the mock jury was Anglo-American, it appears that the defendant being non-American did not significantly increase perceptions of guilt. Terrorism is currently a global problem, and the U.S.A. is considered a primary target by Middle-Eastern terrorists, however, it appears that potential attacks may not be considered to be politically motivated. Although no significant differences were found across ethnicities for religious terror acts, jurors were more confident in the guilt of a Middle-Eastern defendant in such an instance.

Such a view could have serious consequences, in that terror acts that are committed by Middle-Eastern terrorists may be more likely to be perceived as originating from religious dogma, and so their political discourses may be ignored. Further, as politics is the realm of social relations, media portrayal of terror attacks by non-Americans as religious-based may ignore crucial issues of social injustices, inequalities, and discrimination may be motivating the attack. It is anticipated that this research will contribute to understanding jury perceptions of media of terror attacks, and the influences this has on their perceptions of defendant guilt. Read More