ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of juror’s gender and the child victim’s age on the verdict and the punishment of defendant and whether the child victim’s statement credibility mediates these decisions. The participants answered questions measuring child sexual abuse knowledge, and read trial scenarios on sexual assaults on a child. The child victim's age was manipulated(age 4 vs. age 12), and answered questions related to child victim’s statement credibility, verdict against the defendant, guilty percent and sentence. The results suggested that female jurors gave higher guilty percents than male jurors. However, there was no difference on verdict and sentence. Moreover, mock jurors gave more guilty verdicts and higher the guilty percent but there was no difference in sentencing decisions when the child victim was younger. According to the interaction analysis, there was no significant difference in guilty percent and sentence. However the conviction was the highest in the ‘female jury×four-year-old’ condition and lowest in the ‘male jury×twelve-year-old’ condition. Next, there was mediated effects in the statement credibility on the relationship between the juror’s gender and the verdict and guilty percent. However, there was no mediated effects in the statement credibility on the relationship between the juror’s gender and sentence, the child victim’s age and the legal decisions.

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