The Effects of Defendant and Juror Similarity on Sentencing

This study analyzes the ways in which personality, gender, type of crime, and defendant-juror similarity affect sentencing severity. In every jury trial, the selection of jurors is a crucial factor in determining the outcome of the case. The prosecution and the defense both attempt to assemble a jury that will be sympathetic to their arguments. Because attorneys have the opportunity to select the jurors, proper evaluation of each juror candidate is imperative. In many cases, the allocation of punishment is a responsibility given to the jurors. A variety of factors contribute to the decisions that individual jurors make concerning sentence severity. One of these factors may be the degree to which a juror is similar to the defendant. This study intends to analyze how the similarity between a defendant and a juror influences juror decision-making. The deep characteristic of personality and the surface characteristic of gender serve as the comparison between the defendant and jurors for this study. Furthermore, this study analyzes the way in which different types of crimes influence sentence severity.