A Moral Foundations Approach to How Jurors Weigh Aggravating Evidence

陪审员如何权衡加重证据的道德基础方法

• 批准号: 2116981
• 负责人: Logan Yelderman
• 金额: $ 34万
• 依托单位: Prairie View A & M University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-08-15 至 2024-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2116981&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Moral; Foundations; Approach; How; Jurors

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). Capital jurors who find a defendant guilty are subsequently tasked with making the decision on whether that person should live or die. This decision is arguably the toughest moral decision to make, and capital jurors have to make the decision and develop a justification for that decision. It is currently unclear what goes into this decision-making process and how capital jurors weigh different evidence that involves aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Though most research to date has assumed jurors' uniform interpretation of evidence, most jurors probably weigh evidence differently based on their own values, beliefs, and experiences. By assessing jurors'own moral beliefs and by mapping moral beliefs onto their interpretation of evidence and ultimately their death penalty recommendations, the current research provides a much more precise way of thinking about how people actually judge evidence. This research assesses both the inherent value of the evidence and the subjective value of the juror's appraisal of that evidence to better explain how and why jurors come to very different verdicts across similar cases and similar verdicts across very different cases. This research will extend research on moral decision-making and help address and explain some of the variability in evidence evaluation in the death penalty sentencing phase of capital trials. The current project applies moral foundations theory to mock jurors' moral evaluations of aggravating and mitigating evidence presented in death penalty trial vignettes to determine which aggravators represent more severe moral violations and subsequently impact death sentences, and if the influence of the aggravators on death sentences is contingent upon the jurors' moral beliefs and values. This is accomplished by using experimental designs and a multi-study approach to identify and isolate particular moral mechanisms triggered by the presentation of specific aggravators in the trial's sentencing phase. Each subsequent experiment extends the prior experiment by varying aspects of the defendant, evidence, and circumstances of the crime. This project provides the first experimental test of some of the underlying assumptions of moral inferences embedded in jurors' evaluations of aggravators and mitigators. Though moral justifications underlie the use of the death penalty, a proper theoretical moral framework has yet to be applied to jurors' evaluations of evidence during the sentencing phase of a capital trial, and this project fills this gap. Findings will be used to advance theory, and provide recommendations for attorneys and judges involved in capital trials. This project also contributes to the development of research opportunities at minority serving institutions through a collaborative research lab.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该奖项是根据2021年《美国救援计划法》（公法117-2）全部或部分资助的。裁定被告有罪的资本陪审员随后负责决定该人是否应该生存还是死亡。这项决定可以说是做出最艰难的道德决定，而资本陪审员必须做出决定并为该决定做出理由。目前尚不清楚这一决策过程中发生了什么，以及资本陪审员如何权衡涉及加重和缓解情况的不同证据。尽管迄今为止，大多数研究都假定了陪审员对证据的统一解释，但大多数陪审员可能会根据自己的价值观，信念和经验而对证据的权衡不同。通过评估陪审员的道德信念，并将道德信念映射到他们对证据的解释上，并最终将其死刑建议映射，当前的研究提供了一种更加精确的思考方式，以思考人们如何实际判断证据。这项研究评估了证据的固有价值和陪审员对证据的评估的主观价值，以更好地解释陪审员在类似案件中的判决以及在非常不同的案件中的类似判决中的判决非常不同。这项研究将扩展有关道德决策的研究，并帮助解决并解释资本审判死刑量量量判决阶段证据评估的一些可变性。当前的项目将道德基础理论应用于模拟陪审员的道德评估，即在死刑罚款试验中加重和缓解证据，以确定哪些加重者代表了更严重的道德侵犯，并影响了死亡判决，以及随后对死亡判决的影响对陪审员的道德判决的影响是陪审员的道德判决的影响，这是陪审员的道德判决。这是通过使用实验设计和一种多研究方法来识别和隔离特定的道德机制，这些机制是由在试验的量刑阶段中呈现特定加重者而触发的。随后的每个实验都通过不同方面的被告，证据和犯罪情况来扩展先前的实验。该项目提供了对陪审员对加重者和缓解剂的评估中一些道德推论的一些基本假设的首次实验测试。尽管道德上的理由是使用死刑的基础，但在资本审判的量刑阶段，尚未将适当的理论道德框架应用于陪审员对证据的评估，该项目填补了这一空白。调查结果将用于推进理论，并为参与资本审判的律师和法官提供建议。该项目还通过协作研究实验室为少数族裔服务机构的研究机会的发展做出了贡献。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响评估标准通过评估来获得支持的。