Admissibility of Prior Sexual History Evidence: Examining Its Impact on Mock-Jurors' Judgments When Gender and Race...

Rape shield laws restrict the admission of prior sexual history evidence (PSHE) in sexual assault trials in various countries, including Canada and the U.S. Despite such laws, admission of PSHE is often at the discretion of a trial judge. The current study examined the effect of PSHE (present, absent), victim and defendant gender (male, female), and victim race (White, Indigenous) on mock-juror decision-making. Undergraduate students (N = 484) read a mock-trial transcript depicting a rape case. Mock-jurors provided guilt ratings and perceptions of the victim and defendant. Mock-jurors assigned higher guilt ratings, held less favourable perceptions of the defendant, and more favourable perceptions of the victim, when PSHE was absent. Mock-jurors also were more likely to reach a guilty verdict when the victim was male (as opposed to female). Finally, mock-jurors perceived the defendant less favourably, and the victim more favourably, when the victim was Indigenous, as opposed to White.