Author ORCID Identifier

Cynthia Najdowski: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3624-9188

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

2009

Abstract

Understanding jurors’ perceptions of juvenile defendants has become increasingly important as more and more juvenile cases are being tried in adult criminal court rather than family or juvenile court. Intellectual disability and child maltreatment are overrepresented among juvenile delinquents, and juveniles (particularly disabled juveniles) are at heightened risk for falsely confessing to crimes. In two mock trial experiments, we examined the effects of disability, abuse history, and confession evidence on jurors’ perceptions of a juvenile defendant across several different crime scenarios. Abused juveniles were treated more leniently than nonabused juveniles only when the juvenile’s crime was motivated by self-defense against the abuser. Jurors used disability as a mitigating factor, making 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. Implications for public policy and directions for future research are discussed. Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Comments

Publisher Acknowledgement:

This is the Author’s Original Manuscript. The version of the record appears here: Reynolds, C. E., Najdowski, C. J., Salerno, J. M., Stevenson, M. C., Wiley, T. R. A., & Bottoms, B. L. (2011). Public perceptions of registry laws for juvenile sex offenders. In N. A. Ramsay & C. R. Morrison (Eds.), Youth violence and juvenile justice: Causes, intervention and treatment programs (pp. 331-334). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

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