Jurors' Responses to Victims' Behavior and Legal Issues in Sexual Assault Trials

Abstract

Feminists argue that rape laws and their application are explained by social rules requiring women to conform to conservative sex-role norms and defining them as the sexual property of men. We operationalized and tested some of these arguments with data on 360 jurors who served in rape trials. Courtroom observations led us to distinguish trials in which the major issue was whether a sexual assault occurred (consent or “no sex” cases) from trials in which the occurrence of a sexual assault was not disputed (identification and diminished responsibility cases). Consistent with feminist views, we found that in the consent and no sex cases, any evidence of victims' drinking, drug use, or sexual activity outside of marriage led jurors to doubt the defendant's guilt. However, our measures of victim's sex-role behavior had little effect on jurors' judgments in the identification-responsibility cases. Moreover, measures of evidence did not affect jurors' reactions in the consent-no sex cases, but were paramount in the identificationresponsibility cases. By taking into account the specific legal issue disputed in sexual assault trials, our research specifies recent feminist arguments about rape.

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