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The impact of illegal alibi activities, corroborator involvement and corroborator certainty on mock juror perceptions

Faculty Advisor

Date

2014

Keywords

alibi believability, criminal defendants, jury decision-making

Abstract (summary)

Undergraduate mock jurors (N= 360) received a mock police report and trial in which a suspect was accused of rape. The suspect offered one of three alibis: a sexually salacious and illegal alibi, a non-sexually salacious and illegal alibi, and a control condition. The corroborator either helped or observed him in his illegal alibi activities and was either 100 or 80% sure she was with him that night. Alibi salaciousness did not significantly affect alibi believability although it had a significant impact on views of the defendant's and corroborator's characters, corroborator believability, and verdict certainty. The non-sexually salacious alibi generally led to higher ratings on these measures in comparison with the control condition. Corroborator certainty had significant effects on perceptions of the corroborator.

Publication Information

DOI

Notes

Item Type

Article

Language

English

Rights

All Rights Reserved