Effect of Perceptions of Facial Maturity on Juror Decision-Making in Juvenile Transfer Outcomes

Abstract

One of the most prominent changes in the judicial system at the start of the 21st century was the implementation of juvenile transfer laws, aimed at facilitating the transfer of youth offenders to adult courts. Currently, much of the existing literature on legal case outcomes as a product of jury decision-making has focused on cases within the adult criminal court circuit. Many studies have analyzed a number of variables that affect decision-making processes in judicial proceedings, but the applications to juvenile transfer cases have not been as well-explored yet despite the number of youths who may be affected by similar flaws in judgment. This study focuses the existing literature about the effects of facial characteristics on judgment formation in court cases within the context of juvenile transfer cases. Testing the factors of facial maturity level and case severity, we conducted a study with 288 participants which aimed to determine if varying maturity facial cues of juvenile defendants and case severity affected how participants analyzed evidence and their decision-making processes. While the effects of facial maturity cues (mature or juvenile) and case severity (violent or non-violent) were not significant, this study highlights the importance of how we may potentially judge and perceive defendants differently as the result of a number of factors in juvenile transfer cases.