A recent Gallup poll found that Americans are twice as prejudiced against Muslims as we are against any other religious group. This poll was conducted between October 31^st and November 13, 2009 (with the Fort Hood shootings by a US-born Muslim military doctor occurring on November 5, 2009). However, the findings are not that far afield from negative attitudes toward Muslims found since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. ‘We’ don’t know many actual facts about the Muslim religion—but we don’t like or trust ‘them’.

Other recent reports include the finding that we are prejudiced toward migrants, in part, because they are awkward for us to think about. That is, thinking about someone who was born in one country and lives in another country now is tiring for us (and presumably we don’t like that).

Asian consumers reportedly thought their face-recognition cameras were faulty until they realized the camera thought they had their eyes closed because the cameras had apparently only been tested on white people. Similarly, surveillance cameras could not track the face of a black man but could track a white woman. Manufacturers say they are “looking into this”.

Racial bias emerges in many places you don’t expect it. And some where you do expect it. We’ve blogged about race and racism a lot: here and here and here. And a new study reports that racial bias also has relationship to how much help we think victims need.

Researchers at Kansas State University examined attitudes toward victims of Hurricane Katrina one year after the hurricane. They looked at measures of conservatism, empathy and racism. What they found is disturbing but not particularly shocking. In the study, the racial biases of participants led them to underestimate the help people need. In other words, the more racist the participant was, the less help they thought the victim deserved.

This has immediate applicability for litigators. When your client has been wronged, racist attitudes on the jury affect the verdict. We’ve seen this first-hand and we recommend this strategy among others. The bottom line is this: do not assume race doesn’t matter in your case. Race always matters. The question is how and in what direction. Don’t go to trial without knowing.

Vaughan Bell at Mind Hacks blog (one of our favorites) discusses an article in the APS Observer on the psychology and power of false confessions. The article itself is a good read that points out the many reasons for false confessions.  It then shifts to a discussion of how lay persons and experts modify their own opinions after learning about confessions. In brief (and you really do want to read the full article) they found that lay people (read ‘jurors’) and experts (read ‘expert witnesses’, ‘forensic experts’) change their evaluation of the non-confession evidence (the other evidence presented) and see it as stronger evidence against the accused.

Situationist Blog also comments on this research quoting the primary author saying ““the most common reaction I get from a lay audience is, ‘Well, I would never do that. I would never confess to something I didn’t do.’ And people apply that logic in the jury room. It’s just that basic belief that false confessions don’t occur.”

This is potentially deadly. We ‘see’ evidence differently if we know someone has confessed. The Innocence Project has hard data on the relationship of false confession to wrongful conviction. But what do you say to jurors?

• If you can’t keep the confession out via a motion in limine, you have an uphill climb.
• You can show them evidence of false confessions and how they are coerced.
• You can teach them about the powerfully biasing effects of a false confession.
• And you can tell them about the Innocence Project’s numbers on how often we wrongfully convict based on false convictions. Ask them to look at the evidence. If they didn’t have that confession, would they convict?