PRETRIAL PREDICTORS OF JUDGMENTS IN THE SIMPSON,O.J. CASE

Five hundred seventy-eight community college and four-year state unive rsity students responded to questionnaires designed to assess judgment s regarding O. J. Simpson's guilt, beliefs surrounding the case, gener al attitudes,; and background information. Although African Americans were more likely to perceive Simpson as innocent than non-African Amer icans, correlation analyses revealed that, for the most part, the same predictors explained African Americans' and non-African American's ju dgments of guilt. Finally, set-wise hierarchical regression analyses i ndicated that case-related beliefs that Simpson abused Nicole Brown Si mpson and that the system was biased against him accounted for more si gnificant incremental variance than did demographic variables such as age and ethnicity, personal experiences, and general attitudes, The re sults suggested that the racial polarization emphasized in public poll s does not reflect the diversity of beliefs that existed within both A frican American and European American populations.