RT Article
T1 Whose fault? Defendant perceptions of their own blameworthiness and guilty plea decisions
JF Journal of crime and justice
VO 47
IS 2
SP 241
OP 263
A1 Lee, Jacqueline G.
A2 Jaynes, Chae M.
A2 Patterson, Silas
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/188303762X
AB With the present paper, we seek to understand how defendants form of perceptions blameworthiness and to assess how these perceptions affect willingness to accept a plea offer. With an online vignette survey (N = 659), we randomized 1) guilt and 2) riskiness of victim behavior in a vehicular manslaughter case. We also asked respondents to rate the blameworthiness of themselves and their victims. First, results indicate that guilty respondents were more likely to accept a plea than those who were innocent. Second, those in the low-risk victim behavior condition viewed themselves as more blameworthy. Third, people who view themselves as more blameworthy, or their victims as less blameworthy, are more likely to take a plea offer. Lastly, the effects of guilt, victim behavior, and perceptions of victim blameworthiness are also at least partially mediated by perceptions of self-blame. Overall, victim behavior was a key predictor of self-blameworthiness, which was then a critical predictor of WTAP. Results also suggest that respondents viewed blame as a zero-sum game and made decisions about whether to accept a plea based on whether they think they were at fault in the situation.
K1 willingness to accept a plea
K1 victim behavior
K1 Culpability
K1 Guilty Plea
DO 10.1080/0735648X.2023.2263862