HYPE AND SUSPICION - THE EFFECTS OF PRETRIAL PUBLICITY, RACE, AND SUSPICION ON JURORS VERDICTS

We exposed some mock jurors to pretrial publicity (PTP) biased against the defendant a few days before they read the trial transcript and re ndered individual verdicts. Exposure to the PTP prejudiced the jurors toward voting ''guilty,'' unless they read information within the PTP that indicated that the defendant was African American and that raised suspicion about the racist motives underlying the PTP's reporting. In formation designed to raise more generic, nonracist suspicion did not have this effect, In addition, participants were less likely to vote t o convict the defendant if he was African American than if his race wa s unspecified and non-White participants were less likely to vote to c onvict the defendant than were White participants, We discuss these is sues and results in the context of the O. J. Simpson trial, specifical ly and of the psychology and law literatures more generally.