Unfair (66 page)

The implications of the research:
Benforado and Goodwin, Unpublished Experiment.

The bloody unfairness stains:
Carlsmith and Sood, “The Fine Line,” 192.

Change the color of the woman's skin:
Jennifer L. Eberhardt et al., “Looking Deathworthy: Perceived Stereotyping of Black Defendants Predicts Capital-Sentencing Outcomes,”
Psychological Science
17, no. 5 (2006): 383.

Numerous studies have shown:
Eberhardt et al., “Looking Deathworthy,” 383.

African Americans who end up:
John Donahue, III, “Capital Punishment in Connecticut, 1973–2007: A Comprehensive Evaluation from 4686 Murders to One Execution” (working paper, Stanford Law School, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 8, 2013): 8,
http://works.bepress.com/​cgi/viewcontent.cgi?​article=1095&context=​john_donohue
.

If we keep everything else:
Eberhardt et al., “Looking Deathworthy,” 383.

Black defendants are considerably:
One influential study showed that black prisoners make up 41 percent of the death row population. David Baldus et al., “Racial Discrimination and the Death Penalty in the Post-Furman Era: An Empirical and Legal Overview, with Recent Findings from Philadelphia,”
Cornell Law Review
83 (1998): 1652.

They also receive higher bails:
Ian Ayres and Joel Waldfogel, “A Market Test for Race Discrimination in Bail Setting,”
Stanford Law Review
46 (1994): 992; David B. Mustard, “Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Courts,”
Journal of Law and Economics
44 (2001): 300; Adam Benforado, “Quick on the Draw: Implicit Bias and the Second Amendment,”
Oregon Law Review
89 (2010): 28; Aneeta Rattan et al., “Race and the Fragility of the Legal Distinction between Juveniles and Adults,”
PLOS ONE
7, no. 5 (2012): 1.

Black juveniles are not only:
Rattan et al., “Race and the Fragility,” 1; Margaret C. Stevenson and Bette L. Bottoms, “Race Shapes Perceptions of Juvenile Offenders in Criminal Court,”
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
29 (2009): 1661.

This evidence of racial bias:
Tara L. Mitchell et al., “Racial Bias in Mock Juror Decision-Making: A Meta-Analytic Review of Defendant Treatment,”
Law and Human Behavior
29, no. 6
(2005): 629; Sandra Graham and Brian S. Lowery, “Priming Unconscious Racial Stereotypes About Adolescent Offenders,”
Law and Human Behavior
28, no. 5 (2004): 483.

Juvenile probation officers, for instance:
Graham and Lowery, “Priming Unconscious Racial Stereotypes,” 489–90, 496.

It appears to be largely:
That said, both implicit and explicit racism may have an effect. Rattan et al., “Race and the Fragility,” 2.

Scientists think that the ultimate:
Graham and Lowery, “Priming Unconscious Racial Stereotypes,” 485, 487.

These stereotypes provide a ready:
Graham and Lowery, “Priming Unconscious Racial Stereotypes,” 485.

And when the focus is on:
Graham and Lowery, “Priming Unconscious Racial Stereotypes,” 487, 499.

In one recent experiment, researchers had:
Rattan et al., “Race and the Fragility,” 2.

Participants were then asked:
Rattan et al., “Race and the Fragility,” 2.

The texts given to the groups:
Rattan et al., “Race and the Fragility,” 2.

Participants who had read about:
Rattan et al., “Race and the Fragility,” 1–2. This is particularly noteworthy because, as we touched on earlier, the evidence from neuroscience and psychology on the reduced cognitive development, moral reasoning abilities, and neurological capacities of young people as compared to adults had a large impact on the Supreme Court's decision to strike down sentences of life without parole in the context of an extremely similar case. Rattan et al., “Race and the Fragility of the Legal Distinction between Juveniles and Adults,” 4. The broader progress entailed in this 2010 case may be seriously undermined by the
influence of race and may, in part, explain the rise in transferring juveniles to adult courts. Rattan et al., “Race and the Fragility,” 1.

One interesting detail of the study is that liberals with low levels of prejudice showed the effects just like conservatives with high levels of prejudice. Jennifer L. Eberhardt and Aneeta Rattan, “The Race Factor in Trying Juveniles as Adults,”
New York Times
, June 5, 2012,
http://www.nytimes​.com/​roomfordebate/​2012/06/05/when-​to-punish-a-young-offender-​and-when-to-rehabilitate/​the-race-factor-in-trying​-juveniles-as-adults
.

In a real trial, race may:
Rattan et al., “Race and the Fragility,” 4.

Not everyone, though:
Margaret C. Stevenson and Bette L. Bottoms, “Race Shapes Perceptions of Juvenile Offenders in Criminal Court,”
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
39, no. 7 (2009): 1680.

For some people, describing a defendant:
John Hurwitz and Mark Peffley, “Playing the Race Card in the Post–Willie Horton Era,”
Public Opinion Quarterly
69, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 102, 109.

And there is some evidence to suggest:
Stevenson and Bottoms, “Race Shapes Perceptions,” 1663.

The broadness of a defendant's nose:
Eberhardt et al., “Looking Deathworthy,” 383–84.

The same dynamic is at work:
Eberhardt et al., “Looking Deathworthy,” 383.

One study found that felons with:
Eberhardt et al., “Looking Deathworthy,” 383.

Research shows that the handsomeness:
David A. Abwender and Keyatta Hough, “Interactive Effects of Characteristics of Defendant and Mock Juror on U.S. Participants' Judgment and Sentencing Recommendations,”
Journal of Social Psychology
141 (2001): 606–10; Paul H. Robinson, Sean E. Jackowitz, and Daniel M. Bartels, “Extralegal Punishment
Factors: A Study of Forgiveness, Hardship, Good Deeds, Apology, Remorse, and Other Such Discretionary Factors in Assessing Criminal Punishment,”
Vanderbilt Law Review
65 (2012): 770.

In essence, when you have a pretty face:
Robinson, Jackowitz, and Bartels, “Extralegal Punishment Factors,” 770.

But, in fact, psychologists have found:
Bruce W. Darby and Barry R. Schlenker, “Children's Reactions to Transgressions: Effects of the Actor's Apology, Reputation, and Remorse,”
British Journal of Social Psychology
28, no. 4 (1989): 353–64; Gregg J. Gold and Bernard Weiner, “Remorse, Confession, Group Identity, and Expectancies about Repeating a Transgression,”
Basic and Applied Social Psychology
22, no. 4 (2000): 291–300; Ken-ichi Ohbuchi, Masuyo Kameda, and Nariyuki Agarie, “Apology as Aggression Control: Its Role in Mediating Appraisal of and Response to Harm,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
56, no. 2 (1989): 219–27; Christy Taylor and Chris L. Kleinke, “Effects of Severity of Accident, History of Drunk Driving, Intent, and Remorse on Judgments of a Drunk Driver,”
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
22 (1992): 1641–55.

Indeed, when a person does not apologize:
Darby and Schlenker, “Children's Reactions to Transgressions”; Gold and Weiner, “Remorse, Confession, Group Identity, and Expectancies”; Ohbuchi, Kameda, and Agarie, “Apology as Agressions Control”; Taylor and Kleinke, “Effects of Severity of Accident”; Chris L. Kleinke, Robert Wallis, and Kevin Stalder, “Evaluation of a Rapist as a Function of Expressed Intent and Remorse,”
Journal of Social Psychology
132, no. 4 (1992): 525–37; Dawn T. Robinson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and Olga Tsoudis, “Heinious Crime or Unfortunate Accident? The Effects of Remorse on Responses to Mock Criminal Confessions,”
Social Forces
73, no. 1 (1994): 175–90.

In turn, this can lead participants:
Kleinke, Wallis, and Stalder, “Evaluation of a Rapist,” 533–34; Taylor and Kleinke, “Effects of Severity of Accident,” 1641; Mark Bennett and Deborah Earwaker, “Victim's Responses to Apologies: The Effects of Offender Responsibility and Offense Severity,”
Journal of Social Psychology
134, no. 4 (1994): 457–64; Alayna Jehle, Monica K. Miller, and Markus Kemmelmeier, “The Influence of Accounts and Remorse on Mock Jurors' Judgments of Offenders,”
Law and Human Behavior
33, no. 5 (2009): 393–404.

We see this in the real world:
Scott E. Sundby, “The Capital Jury and Absolution: The Intersection of Trial Strategy, Remorse, and the Death Penalty,”
Cornell Law Review
83, no. 4 (1998): 1558.

Prosecutors often hammer on:
Sundby, “The Capital Jury and Absolution,” 1558.

And the hard data seems to suggest:
Sundby, “The Capital Jury and Absolution,” 1558, 1563–66.

One recent study showed that:
Martin V. Day and Michael Ross, “The Value of Remorse: How Drivers' Responses to Police Predict Fines for Speeding,”
Law and Human Behavior
35 (2011): 221, 228.

We've been focusing on Pete's:
Jamie Arndt et al., “Terror Management in the Courtroom,”
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law
11, no. 3 (2005): 432.

The tragic attack in Canada:
Arndt et al., “Terror Management in the Courtroom,” 407–08. For those interested in gaining more background on mortality salience and terror management, see Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, and Sheldon Solomon, “The Causes and Consequences of a Need for Self-Esteem: A Terror Management Theory,” in
Public Self and Private Self
, ed. Roy F. Baumeister (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1986), 189–212; Jeff Greenberg et al., “Role of Consciousness and Accessibility of Death-Related Thoughts in
Mortality Salience Effects,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
67, no. 4 (1994): 627–37, doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.67.4.627; Jamie Arndt et al., “Subliminal Exposure to Death-Related Stimuli Increases Defense of the Cultural Worldview,”
Psychological Science
8, no. 5 (1997): 379–85; Tom Pyszczysnki, Sheldon Solomon, and Jeff Greenberg,
In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror
(Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2003); Brian L. Burke, Andy Martens, and Erik H. Faucher, “Two Decades of Terror Management Theory: A Meta-Analysis of Mortality Salience Research,”
Personality and Social Psychology Review
14, no. 10 (2010): 155–95.

Humans occupy a strange place:
Arndt et al., “Terror Management in the Courtroom,” 432–33; Jeffrey Kirchmeier, “Our Existential Death Penalty: Judges, Jurors, and Terror Managment,”
Law and Psychology Review
32 (2008): 66.

It is terrifying to think:
Arndt et al., “Terror Management in the Courtroom,” 408.

Luckily, we have developed:
Arndt et al., “Terror Management in the Courtroom,” 409.

Religions, for example, commonly:
Arndt et al., “Terror Management in the Courtroom,” 409.

Our legal institutions offer:
Arndt et al., “Terror Management in the Courtroom,” 409.

The more terror we feel:
Arndt et al., “Terror Management in the Courtroom,” 432–33.

A number of experiments have:
Arndt et al., “Terror Management in the Courtroom,” 432–33.

In one study, researchers asked a group:
Abram Rosenblatt et al., “Evidence for Terror Management Theory I. The Effects of Mortality Salience on Reactions to Those Who Violate or Uphold Cultural Values,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
57, no. 4 (1989): 681–90; Stephen Cave, “Imagining the Downside of Immortality,”
New York Times
, August 27, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/​2011/​08/28/opinion​/sunday/torchwood-gives-glimpse​-of-eternal-life.html?​_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
.

Before considering the facts:
Rosenblatt et al., “Evidence for Terror Management Theory I,” 682; Cave, “Imagining the Downside of Immortatlity.”

The judges who had been subconsciously:
Rosenblatt et al., “Evidence for Terror Management Theory I,” 682.

The researchers theorized that:
Rosenblatt et al., “Evidence for Terror Management Theory I,” 683; Arndt et al., “Terror Management in the Courtroom,” 420.

Had this been a real case:
Kirchmeier, “Our Existential Death Penalty,” 68–70.

While subtle reminders:
Arndt et al., “Terror Management in the Courtroom,” 422; Kirchmeier, “Our Existential Death Penalty,” 68–70.

Those with very high self-esteem:
Kirchmeier, “Our Existential Death Penalty,” 70.

And some people simply do not:
Kirchmeier, “Our Existential Death Penalty,” 68–70.

In fact, when an offense:
Arndt et al., “Terror Management in the Courtroom,” 421–27.

An external event like:
Arndt et al., “Terror Management in the Courtroom,” 427–28.