Victim Impact Statements: How Victim Social Class Affects Juror Decision Making

Although the Supreme Court has ruled that victim impact statements (VIS) should be allowed at trial, the concern voiced in Payne v. Tennessee (1991) and Furman v. Georgia (1972) was that VIS might enable jurors to make comparative judgments about the worth of the victim. This study examined the effect VIS and low and middle socioeconomic status (SES) victims have on jurors' decisions. Mock jurors listened to 1 of 3 audio recordings of the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial (no VIS, low SES VIS, or middle SES VIS) and were asked to sentence the defendant to either life in prison without parole or death. Results indicated VIS themselves did not significantly affect mock jurors' sentencing decisions. However, mock jurors who heard the middle SES victim VIS were significantly more likely to sentence the defendant to death compared to those who heard the low SES victim VIS. The results suggest that the concerns of the Supreme Court were valid. Mock jurors were impacted by SES information in the VIS and were more punitive toward the defendant when he killed a higher rather than a lower SES person.