| Extant research has explored how jurors take account of a wide range of stimuli common to capital trials. There is, however, very little evidence of how capital jurors perceive the attorneys. This study sought to contribute to this literature by describing capital jurors’ perceptions of attorneys and identifying any differences in their impressions of the defense and prosecution. Transcripts of interviews conducted by the Capital Jury Project with 916 former capital jurors were reviewed and 1,864 separate references to the attorneys were identified and extracted. These extracts were analyzed using thematic analysis to construct a portrait of the jurors’ impressions of the attorneys they encountered at trial. Of the 1,864 total extracts, 990 cited the defense attorneys, 599 cited the prosecutors, and 275 directly compared both attorneys. Eight themes emerged from the extracts that referenced the defense attorneys: theatrics, personal characteristics, aggressiveness, competence, defendant testimony, defense arguments, forfeiting guilt, and relationship with defendant. The 599 extracts that cited the prosecutors contained five themes: theatrics, personal characteristics, aggressiveness, competence, and presentation style. Two themes emerged from the extracts that directly compared both attorneys: effort and jury selection. The findings suggest that capital jurors are biased in favor of the prosecuting attorneys. Three of the four themes that emerged from both the prosecuting and defense categories—theatrics, personal characteristics, and aggressiveness—conveyed a markedly more positive impression of the prosecutors than the defense attorneys. In several of these themes prosecutors garnered praise and defense attorneys were chastised for exhibiting the exact same type of behavior. Furthermore, the extracts that directly compared the two attorneys overwhelmingly favored the prosecutors. The specific dimensions of these biases and their practical and scholarly implications are discussed. |
