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Effects of Eyewitness Evidence on Plea‐Bargain Decisions by Prosecutors and Defense Attorneys 1
Author(s) -
McAllister Hunter A.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1990.tb01487.x
Subject(s) - plea , eyewitness identification , psychology , identification (biology) , criminal procedure , criminology , law , criminal law , social psychology , political science , botany , database , relation (database) , computer science , biology
The present experiment tested the relative impact of two types of eyewitness evidence (identification and non identification) on plea‐bargain decisions by prosecutors and defense attorneys. A hypothetical case involving a robbery was mailed to three prosecutors and three defense attorneys in each of 47 states. The subjects were randomly assigned to receive a case in which an eyewitness claimed: (a) the defendant was the criminal (identification), (b) the defendant was not the criminal (non identification), or (c) it was not possible to tell whether the defendant was the criminal (control). Similar to findings with jurors, both prosecutors and defense attorneys underutilized the non identification information in making their plea‐bargain decisions. In the case of the prosecutors, there was evidence that the underutilization of eyewitness non identification was at least partially mediated by the prosecutors' predictions of juror reaction to the evidence.