Read more: 鈥�Judge Mental: Saving justice from the unreliable mind鈥�
Standing outside many courtrooms across the world, you will find a dignified figure known as Lady Justice, with a pair of scales in one hand and a blindfold often covering her eyes. They are symbols of the objectivity of courts, which are meant to weigh up the facts of a case regardless of the person鈥檚 identity.
It is surprisingly hard to achieve, and the effects are even more insidious than you might imagine. Racial prejudice is perhaps the best explored issue. Numerous studies have shown that both judge and jury can harbour implicit biases that could swing a conviction and sentence (). In one particularly comprehensive study, David Mustard at the University of Georgia in Athens considered more than 77,000 cases from the 1990s. Even when he controlled for all kinds of mitigating factors such as wealth, education and previous criminal record, race accounted for around 10 per cent of the differences in the length of a sentence ().
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The influence of bias can stretch to every aspect of a trial. For example, the prejudice might not be against the defendant, but an eyewitness. When , then at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, set up mock trials using videotaped eyewitness testimony, the jury perceived the same person to be less credible if they spoke with a foreign accent ().
See graphic: 鈥淪kin-deep justice鈥�
What can be done? Some suggest more extensive testing of potential jurors for implicit biases, though that option remains controversial. One surprising solution might be to simplify the language of the court. For instance, in some US states where a jury advises on the sentencing of the death penalty, the jurors鈥� instructions, which are meant to guide them through the decision, can be very hard for a layperson to understand. Confused, they often rely on gut instincts to make the choice, giving a freer rein to bias. Rewriting the instructions in plainer English reduced this tendency in a set of mock trials, so that the participants were equally likely to recommend the same sentence for a black or white criminal ().
Even so, some psychologists remain sceptical that we will ever be able to eliminate all the effects of prejudice. 鈥淥ur experiences, attitudes and beliefs always influence how we interpret things,鈥� says Greene.