Juror perceptions of incentivized informant testimony

ABSTRACT

The limited existing research on how jurors evaluate informant testimony suggests jurors may not be appropriately responsive to cues that could signal informant unreliability. In particular, jurors may fail to account for and properly weigh evidence that an informant is testifying for an incentive when reaching a verdict. However studies in this area have some limitations in case type, materials used, and statistical power. The objective of the current study is to advance the research in each of these areas and provide new evidence about the impact of juror perceptions of informant incentives. This study used a novel fact pattern, video stimuli manipulations, and a large sample pool to test the impact of informant incentives on juror judgments. Participants who observed a highly incentivized informant, but not those who observed less incentivized informants, were more likely to acquit compared to participants who viewed an otherwise identical non-incentivized informant. Participants were also sensitive to incentive size in making situational attributions about the informant's motivation to testify. The results suggest that jurors may be capable of accounting for informant incentives in reaching a verdict, but only when the incentive size is substantial.

KEYWORDS:

• Juror perceptions
• informants
• incentives
• fundamental attribution error
• witness testimony

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The 8 options included: to keep a killer of the streets; to tell the truth; to get a sentence reduction; pressure from police/prosecutor; fear for safety; lack of care for the defendant; drug addiction; willingness to lie for personal gain.

2 We thank one of our anonymous reviewers for suggesting this possibility.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by American Psychological Association: [Grant Number NA]; American Psychology-Law Society: [Grant Number NA].