Who Is Afraid of the Pink Elephant? Evidence on (Not) Ignoring Inadmissible Evidence and Debiasing Interventions
Christoph Engel et al.
Abstract
People are often unable or unwilling to ignore thoughts they should disregard. This issue is particularly problematic in legal contexts, where defendants should be judged on the merits of the case, not on prejudice, rumors, or evidence obtained through questionable methods. This is why criminal law of procedure regulates which information can be introduced in a trial. In a series of online vignette experiments involving 1432 US participants, we examine the biasing impact of two types of inadmissible evidence: prior convictions (character evidence) and wiretap confessions. We failed to show that character evidence biases jurors' judgments of the defendant's guilt, whereas wiretap evidence had a strong effect. We also assess the effectiveness of four debiasing interventions aimed at helping jurors ignore inadmissible evidence. While these interventions reduced bias, they did not fully eliminate it. These results provide nuance in the debate about information in the courtroom that should be suppressed.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.