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Public opinion and the tax evasion trial of Reverend Moon
Author(s) -
Richardson James T.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
behavioral sciences and the law
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1099-0798
pISSN - 0735-3936
DOI - 10.1002/bsl.2370100106
Subject(s) - jury , tax evasion , public opinion , psychology , measure (data warehouse) , evasion (ethics) , law , social psychology , political science , economics , computer science , public economics , medicine , politics , immune system , immunology , database
This paper presents the results of a survey of a random sample of 1,000 people taken from the Southern Judicial District of New York to measure the amount of knowledge about and bias toward the Reverend Moon prior to his trial on tax evasion charges. The survey was completed as part of the pretrial preparation by Reverend Moon, and was used to support his motion for a bench trial, instead of having the case tried before a jury. The survey revealed very high levels of knowledge about the Church and Reverend Moon, as well as a strong negative bias toward both. Implications of these results and the outcome of the actual trial for the jury system and for religion and religionists is discussed.