TY - JOUR
T1 - Is your own team against you? Implicit bias and interpersonal regard in criminal defense
AU - Avery, Joseph J.
AU - Starck, Jordan
AU - Zhong, Yiqiao
AU - Avery, Jonathan D.
AU - Cooper, Joel
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Taylor & Francis.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Racial disparities in conviction and incarceration have been lamentable features of legal systems for a long time. Research has addressed the attitudes and decisions of police, prosecutors, jurors, and judges in contributing to these disparities, but very little attention has been paid to defendants’ own team members—i.e., criminal defense attorneys. Researchers have specifically identified this as a “scholarly gap”. To address this, we conducted an empirical study of criminal defense attorneys practicing in forty-three U.S. states (N = 327). The attorneys completed both an implicit measure designed to capture racial bias (a race Implicit Association Test) and an explicit measure designed to capture interpersonal regard for clients. The results provided support for longstanding, but previously speculative, assertions of bias in criminal defense.
AB - Racial disparities in conviction and incarceration have been lamentable features of legal systems for a long time. Research has addressed the attitudes and decisions of police, prosecutors, jurors, and judges in contributing to these disparities, but very little attention has been paid to defendants’ own team members—i.e., criminal defense attorneys. Researchers have specifically identified this as a “scholarly gap”. To address this, we conducted an empirical study of criminal defense attorneys practicing in forty-three U.S. states (N = 327). The attorneys completed both an implicit measure designed to capture racial bias (a race Implicit Association Test) and an explicit measure designed to capture interpersonal regard for clients. The results provided support for longstanding, but previously speculative, assertions of bias in criminal defense.
KW - criminal defense
KW - implicit bias
KW - legal decision making
KW - racial bias
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85096945639&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85096945639&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/00224545.2020.1845593
DO - 10.1080/00224545.2020.1845593
M3 - Article
C2 - 33252317
AN - SCOPUS:85096945639
SN - 0022-4545
VL - 161
SP - 543
EP - 559
JO - Journal of Social Psychology
JF - Journal of Social Psychology
IS - 5
ER -