THE LAW AND INFORMATION-PROCESSING - IMPLICATIONS FOR VERDICTS IN RAPE CASES

This study investigated the effects of focus of attention (victim vs. defendant) and the ability to recommend a sentence in addition to rend ering a verdict versus rendering only a verdict on judgments in a rape case. Support was found for the hypothesis that participants would mo re often find the defendant guilty, and would be more confident in the ir guilty verdict when a sentence could be recommended in addition to the verdict, compared to those who only recommended a verdict. This pa ttern was especially prominent for females. This finding is discussed in terms of the standard of reasonable doubt that mock jurors may impo se on their verdict decision. Interactions between the independent var iables suggest that these factors may prompt mock jurors to selectivel y attend to particular types of information at particular times.