Defendant’s Mens rea or Attractiveness: Which Influences Mock Juror Decisions?

In order to improve our knowledge of how jurors come to make decisions, psychologists and criminologists have developed the ‘mock juror’ paradigm. Here the details of a mock (or real) criminal event are presented to a group of individuals acting as though they are jurors deliberating a trial. A number of mock jury studies have considered both evidential information, such as how the alleged perpetrator might be linked to the crime and non-evidential information (commonly known as ‘extralegal defendant characteristics’), such as physical and social attractiveness, gender and ethnicity. In theory, only evidential evidence should be considered when determining the probability of guilt. Technically, in court evidence presented should be in aid of ascertaining the two defining elements of a crime, the act itself or actus reus and the underlying culpable state of mind behind the act or the mens rea. Non-evidential evidence should play no role here [1]. The mock juror study paradigm enables researchers to look at the issue of mens rea as part and parcel of evidential information.