Same as It Ever Was? The Impact of Racial Resentment on White Juror Decision-Making

While a rich literature has developed around race and juror decision-making, little is known about the underlying reasoning and psychology informing these decisions. In this article, we argue juror decision-making and reasoning in cases featuring an African American defendant are moderated by a juro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Journal of politics Vol. 84; no. 2; pp. 1202 - 1206
Main Authors Rice, Douglas, Rhodes, Jesse, Nteta, Tatishe
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Chicago The University of Chicago Press 01.04.2022
University of Chicago Press
Subjects
African Americans
Decision making
Guilt
Juries
Jurors
Psychology
Race
Resentment
Respondents
juror decision-making
racial resentment
juror reasoning
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Summary:While a rich literature has developed around race and juror decision-making, little is known about the underlying reasoning and psychology informing these decisions. In this article, we argue juror decision-making and reasoning in cases featuring an African American defendant are moderated by a juror’s level of racial resentment. We present a survey experiment that subtly manipulates the race of the defendant and ask respondents to assess the guilt of the defendant and explain the reasoning for their decision. We find that racially resentful jurors exposed to a vignette featuring an African American defendant are more likely to see the defendant as guilty and to employ distinctive explanations for assessing their guilt. Additionally, we find whites with low levels of racial resentment exposed to an African American defendant are significantly less likely to view the defendant as guilty and also employ substantively different reasoning in relation to their decision.
ISSN:0022-3816
1468-2508
DOI:10.1086/715991