researchers have come to focus on behavioral measures
in the effort to assess the influence of race. This devel-
opment mirrors more general trends in social science
research: Many theorists have described contemporary
manifestations of racial bias as more subtle and
ambiguous than in previous eras, and few empirical
investigations today rely on self-report measures to
identify the influence of race.
Much current research on the issue of defendant’s
race addresses the question of whether White jurors
render different judgments in cases involving White
versus Black defendants. Presumably, this focus
reflects both the historical context reviewed above (in
which Black defendants have often received dispro-
portionately harsh treatment at the hands of a pre-
dominantly White legal system) as well as a more
general tendency in social science research to con-
sider racial bias in terms of the dichotomy of White
perceivers and Black targets. Literature reviews and
meta-analyses of experimental research report mixed
findings regarding the influence of race on White
mock jurors, but a general tendency emerges such that
Whites, often, are more conviction-prone and recom-
mend harsher sentences for Black versus White defen-
dants. A smaller number of archival analyses provide
converging evidence for this conclusion.
A great deal remains unknown regarding the influ-
ence of a defendant’s race, however. The case-by-case
variability of these effects suggests the importance of
determining precisely when and why a defendant’s race
colors legal judgments. Studies have identified a range
of factors that render defendant race more likely to
influence jurors, including when the evidence at trial is
ambiguous, when the crime in question is violent, and
in the face of incriminating inadmissible evidence or
inflammatory pretrial publicity. Further exploration of
these and other variables is needed, as are future exam-
inations involving defendants of races other than White
and Black. The race of the victim is another important
consideration because archival research on capital sen-
tencing indicates that the influence of a defendant’s
race is often greater for interracial versus same-race
murders; indeed, the “Baldus study,” an extensive
archival investigation discussed in the U.S. Supreme
Court’s McCleskey v. Kemp(1987) decision, indicates
that victim race is an even stronger predictor of capital
sentencing outcomes than defendant race.
Efforts to combat disparate legal treatment by race
would also be facilitated by a better understanding of
the psychological processes through which a defen-
dant’s race affects jurors. To the extent that hostileattitudes toward defendants of particular groups, in-
group/out-group effects, or overt motivations for race-
based jury nullification are responsible for such effects,
accurate identification of biased jurors during jury
selection becomes of paramount importance. But a
defendant’s race may influence even those jurors who
do not harbor explicit racial prejudices or motivations.
Cognitive associations between race and crime likely
impact legal judgments, either because jurors person-
ally endorse the belief that individuals of particular
racial groups are more likely to commit certain crimes
or through mere awareness of the race-relevant crime
stereotypes endemic to society and perpetuated by pop-
ular culture. The processes through which a defendant’s
race influences decision making merit additional
empirical attention.Race of Juror
As mentioned above, the majority of experimental
research regarding defendant race has focused exclu-
sively on the individual judgments of White jurors. A
smaller subset of studies has examined the judgments
of jurors of other races. The objective of such studies,
typically, is not to identify general between-race differ-
ences in juror verdict tendencies (e.g., non-White jurors
are more acquittal prone than Whites; Black jurors are
particularly skeptical of police testimony), despite the
fact that many legal practitioners and laypeople harbor
such across-the-board assumptions. Rather, most
studies examining juror race seek to determine whether
particular factors—such as defendant race—have dif-
ferent effects on jurors of different backgrounds.
On the question of the intersection between defen-
dant and juror race, many experiments have converged
on the conclusion that jurors are likely to be lenient
toward same-race defendants. In other words, the find-
ing that Black defendants tend to be judged more
harshly than White defendants is likely specific to
studies involving White jurors; the opposite pattern is
often expected for Black jurors. In fact, more than one
mock juror experiment has indicated that the influence
of a defendant’s race is more pronounced or consistent
among Black jurors than among White jurors.
However, the interaction between juror and defendant
race is complex, and a notable exception to this “same-
race leniency” tendency can be found in what some
researchers refer to as the “black sheep effect.” Studies
have demonstrated that in some instances, jurors tend to
be harsher in their judgments of a same-race defendant,
such as when the evidence against the defendant is668 ———Race, Impact on JuriesR-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:43 PM Page 668