Example projects

3. The Cost of Silence: The Right to Silence in Theory and Juror Bias in Practice

Abstract

The Fifth Amendment provides a critical legal safeguard for criminal defendants, including the right to remain silent during police interrogations and courtroom proceedings. A fundamental protection is that no guilt can be inferred from a defendant’s silence. Despite its legal importance, the consequences of invoking this right before a jury remain underexplored. This thesis integrates legal analysis and psychological theories of decision-making to examine how a defendant’s silence and gender influence jury judgments. A doctrinal analysis of U.S. case law explained the importance and scope of the right to silence, and an analysis of jury instructions highlighted efforts to mitigate bias. These legal insights informed the construction of a realistic and ecologically valid experimental scenario. Using a 2x2 between-subjects experimental design, participants (N = 357) read a mock case transcript in which the defendant was randomly assigned to be either male or female and either invoked their right to silence in response to a tangential yet potentially incriminating question or denied involvement. Results confirmed the presence of silence bias: defendants who invoked their right to remain silent were judged as more guilty and less trustworthy than those who denied the accusation. No gender bias or interaction effects were found. The findings underscore a troubling disconnect between the theoretical promise of the right to silence and its limited protection in courtroom practice. Recommendations for legal reform are discussed to help uphold the rule of law and protect fair trial rights.


This project focused on how invoking the right to silence and refusing to answer questions in the courtroom can influence the verdict issued to a defendant. Participants were randomly assigned to read a mock case transcript featuring the cross examination of a female or male defendant who responded to a tangential yet potentially incriminating question with either a denial or an invocation of their right to silence.

The main research question was: ‘How do a defendant’s invocation of the right to silence and their gender influence juror judgments of guilt and trustworthiness, despite the legal system’s formal efforts to safeguard this right?’ The principal hypotheses were:

  1. Invoking the right to silence will increase virtual jurors’ perception of guilt and reduce their judgements of the defendant’s trustworthiness.
  2. Female defendants will be judged as less guilty and more trustworthy than male defendants.
  3. The effects of invoking the right to silence as described in \(H_1\) will be more pronounced for male defendants.

Rough summary of the main measurement items and procedure

The study took place in Qualtrics and participants were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions:

  1. Female defendant issuing statement of denial in response to the tangential question
  2. Female defendant invoking the right to silence
  3. Male defendant issuing statement of denial
  4. Male defendant invoking the right to silence

The experimental texts featured a mock-up of an except from a cross-examination where the defendant had been accused of embezzlement. All variants ended with the defendant being directly asked by the prosecutor if they had embezzled funds, which the defendant firmly denied. After reading the transcripts, participants rated the guilt of the defendant on a scale from 0 (not at all guilty) to 100 (absolutely guilty), and indicated their perceptions of trustworthiness using the “Trustworthiness” subscale of the Witness Credibility Scale (Brodsky et al., 2010).

Associated files

Reference

Brodsky, S. L., Griffin, M. P., & Cramer, R. J. (2010). The witness credibility scale: An outcome measure for expert witness research. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 28(6), 892–907. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.917

4. Breaking the Silence: The Unspoken Truth of (Under)Reporting Discrimination Cases based on Sexual Orientation in the Netherlands

Abstract

Underreporting of discrimination cases and hate crimes based on sexual orientation is an evergrowing phenomenon in the Netherlands. Previous research has been conducted on general reasons for the underreporting of crimes and for police attitudes towards the queer community. Research, however, is missing on how queer victims perceive the enforcement of legislation by the police and how this impacts their reporting behaviour in discrimination cases. Furthermore, no research has been found evaluating alternative reporting agencies in the Netherlands and their function based on queer victims’ use. This thesis, therefore, aims at filling these gaps by answering the research question: How is queer victims’ propensity to report a discrimination case or a hate crime impacted by their perception of the enforcement of the legal framework around these crimes in the Netherlands by the police or by alternative reporting bodies? Through an interdisciplinary approach integrating law and psychology this research question is analysed via a mixed-method approach of doctrinal analysis and thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews. The thesis finds that queer victims in the Netherlands perceive the police as not acting fairly and respectfully in many situations involving queer victims and as having different values and interests at heart from the ones of the queer community. This results in non-reporting behaviour as the police is perceived as lacking legitimacy. On the contrary, perceptions of alternative reporting strategies are mainly positive, even though they lack visibility and, consequently, efficacy in their current way of functioning.


Associated files