Lora M. Levett

Student Perceptions of Sexual Assault Resources and Prevalence of Rape Myth Attitudes

This study investigated whether students at a large, public university were receiving sexual assault resource information, whether the information was informative, and whether it was successful in dispelling commonly held rape myths. Findings suggest that students may not be receiving sexual assault information even though it was available on campus. If students reported receiving sexual assault information, they did not report much knowledge about its contents. In addition, knowledge of resources was not indicative of a lowered belief in rape myths. However, female students were less likely to believe in rape myths compared to male students. Students recommended innovative ways the university could disseminate information and these suggestions are discussed.

Caught in Their Own Speed Trap: The Intersection of Speed Enforcement Policy, Police Legitimacy, and Decision Acceptance

Empirical work examining the effects of police legitimacy has primarily focused on traffic stop procedures with less attention given to traffic enforcement policies. The current study takes advantage of a natural experiment in which a rural town with a strict speed enforcement policy was labeled a “speed trap” through the introduction of a billboard advertisement funded by the American Automobile Association. Drawing on theories of police legitimacy, we hypothesize the label will result in an abrupt-permanent increase in speeding citation contestation rates, despite the fact that the billboard actually increases predictability of citation issuance. Results of an interrupted time-series analysis indicate statistically significant abrupt-permanent increases in the speeding citation contestation rates for the intervention city. Further analyses reveal that significant intervention effects are confined to drivers with higher opportunity to contest tickets (in-state drivers) and to majority subgroups (Whites and men). The implications of these findings for policy and police–citizen relationships are discussed.

Deciding mental retardation and mental illness in capital cases: The effects of procedure, evidence, and attitudes

Abstract When finding unconstitutional the execution of defendants who were mentally retarded at the time of their crime in Atkins v. Virginia (2002), the US Supreme Court left the States to decide on procedures for deciding a defendants mental retardation. This has and will lead to substantial variation, and will include juries being responsible for these verdicts. Two studies are presented that test procedural, evidentiary, and attitudinal effects on mock juror verdicts as to a capital defendants mental retardation. Both studies show significant effects of procedural variables. Making the retardation and death decision at the same trial phase changed jurors’ interpretation of evidence, including severity of mental problems. Jurors were insensitive to differences in the burden of proof on mental retardation verdicts, although demanding proof beyond a reasonable doubt may make jurors more sensitive to retardation evidence when deciding on a death sentence. Areas for future research are outlined.

The Potentially Biasing Effects of Voir Dire in Juvenile Waiver Cases

An analysis of transcripts from cases in which a juvenile is adjudicated in adult criminal court showed that potential jurors may be questioned about their attitudes toward juvenile waiver during voir dire. If jurors express concerns about trying juveniles in adult criminal court, they are excused from the jury for cause (Danielsen et al., Paper presented at the meetings of the American Psychology-Law Society, 2004). We conducted a series of three studies to examine whether questions about juvenile adjudication practices and juvenile offenders during voir dire influenced jurors’ pretrial and post-trial judgments of defendant guilt. Jurors who viewed a juvenile qualification voir dire provided higher pretrial probabilities of defendant guilt than did jurors who watched a standard voir dire that did not contain juvenile qualification questions. However, this pretrial guilt bias as a function of voir dire type did not persist after the presentation of trial evidence. Jurors who viewed a juvenile qualification voir dire and jurors who viewed a standard voir dire did not differ in their post-trial judgments of defendant guilt. Implications for the abilities of juvenile defendants to receive a fair trial in adult court are discussed.

A novel paradigm for examining alibi corroboration and evidence interaction: Does a confession affect the likelihood of alibi corroboration for friends and strangers?

We examined the possibility that hearing about a confession could influence potentially exonerating information proffered by a familiar or unfamiliar alibi corroborator. College students (N = 268) brought a friend to a team building session. After the team building session, we asked participants to corroborate an alibi for either their friend or a stranger accused of theft. We also manipulated whether the suspect confessed and the timing of when the confession information was presented to participants. Friends were more likely than strangers to be alibi corroborators across multiple scales and dependent measures. Further, potential corroborators who heard about the suspect’s confession were less likely than those who did not know of the confession to be willing to serve as an alibi corroborator; hearing about a suspect’s confession after making an initial alibi corroboration caused participants to change their decisions. Qualitative analyses also suggest several possible motivations given by corroborators and noncorroborators. Implications for police procedure and research design are discussed.

Investigating predictors of true and false guilty pleas.

An estimated 90% to 95% of convictions are obtained via guilty pleas, and roughly 11% of individuals exonerated with the help of the Innocence Project falsely pleaded guilty (innocenceproject.org). Despite the prevalence of guilty pleas (and the existence of false guilty pleas), relatively little scholarship has examined what influences a defendant to plead guilty (Redlich, 2010). In this study, we investigated factors that affected whether guilty and innocent students who were accused of cheating pleaded guilty or took their case before the Student Conduct Committee in a hearing (analogous to a trial). Using social psychological literature on social influence (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004), we manipulated two legally and theoretically relevant factors: the attorney’s recommendation and the guilt of the defendant. Overall, guilty individuals were more likely to accept a guilty plea than innocent individuals. Advocate recommendation affected innocent and guilty participants’ plea decisions; however, the effect was stronger for innocent individuals. Innocent participants advised to go to trial were less likely to falsely plead guilty (M = 4%) compared with those without an advocate (M = 35%), those who were given educational information (M = 47%), or those who were advised to plead guilty (M = 58%). Overall, findings suggest that innocent individuals may be more vulnerable to the effects of social influence when considering advice from an advocate compared with guilty individuals.

Law and Society

The study of law and society is characterized by a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the interaction between legal institutions and our everyday lives. Researchers may use a variety of theoretical approaches (e.g., conflict theory, feminist legal theory, functionalism, critical race theory) and methodologies (e.g., survey research, experimental methods, historical analyses, comparative approaches) to study the intersection of law and society. Many areas of study fall under the broad umbrella of law and society, including (but not limited to) exploring legal actors in the criminal justice system, status differences, attitudes about the law and examining assumptions underlying legal decisions.