GRADE RELATED CHANGES IN YOUNG PEOPLES REASONING ABOUT PLEA DECISIONS

The present study examined the development of young people's ability t o reason about legal issues involved in a plea decision in a criminal matter. Forty-eight subjects in each of grades 5, 7, and 9, and 48 you ng adults participated in a semistructured interview containing four v ignettes, each depicting a young person who had committed a criminal o ffense, was charged, and retained a lawyer. Subjects received informat ion regarding the charge and the prosecution's evidence (weak in half of the vignettes and strong in the other half). Subjects were asked to decide what they would plead if they were in the defendant's shoes, a nd to justify their choices. Contrary to prediction, a majority of eve n the Grade 5 subjects based their plea decisions on legal rather than moral criteria. Nonetheless, there were significant grade-related cha nges both in legal reasoning scores and in the use of guilt-based plea justifications. In addition, according to a panel of lawyers, subject s' plea choices were rated as more reasonable when the evidence agains t the story character was strong (and thus congruent with ''moral'' gu ilt) than when it was weak. This difference diminished with grade as s ubjects became better able to separate moral from legal issues in thei r decision making.