The Effects of Gender of a Jury Member on Verdicts and Punishment

Abstract

This research addresses the understudied question of how the sex of a jury member, as well as the sex of the offender and victim, affects the decision-making process in the sentencing phase of a crime. I employ an experimental design on a convenience sample of U.S. adults and assess the impact of the sex of the offender, the sex of the victim, and the sex of the subject on the propensity to select the death penalty in a hypothetical murder scenario. Although the sex of those involved influences sentencing choices and preferences, the results suggest that the life sentence is preferred over the death penalty in most of the scenarios. The results are discussed in the context of two basic pertinent theories on the subject: “Chivalry Theory” and the “Evil Woman Theory”.