Ugly People Receive Harsher Jail Sentences
According to a recent study conducted by researchers at Cornell University, physically unattractive defendants tend to receive harsher sentences than do more attractive defendants. Indeed, ugly defendants spend an average of twenty-two more months in prison than do their more attractive counterparts. In the study, 169 Cornell psychology undergraduates completed an online survey during which they were shown photographs of actual defendants, presented with general information about the defendant and the case, allowed to listen to the actual closing arguments heard in the case, and given the same jury instructions as those actually given to the jury. The Cornell undergraduates were then asked whether they would convict or acquit the defendants.
The study identified two kinds of potential jurors: those who made decisions rationally and those who made decisions emotionally. Those jurors with a more rational decision making process placed less emphasis on the physical appearance of the defendant than did their more emotional counterparts. Those jurors who made decisions more emotionally and / or intuitively were more likely to say that a defendant seemed like the "type" of person to commit the alleged crime. Physical appearance was not as important in very serious cases or in cases with very strong evidence, but it seems to have been a significant factor for the emotional jurors in more minor cases and in cases in which the evidence was ambiguous.
It is no secret that attractive people have many advantages over the unattractive, but we should take great pains to avoid turning the legal process into a beauty pageant. Physical appearance is not an appropriate basis for convicting or acquitting a defendant, and we will never have a fair legal system until jurors develop the capacity to make their decisions in a rational manner. Perhaps jurors simply need to be reminded of their duty to make their decisions strictly on the strength of the facts of the case. I suspect that some members of the jury pool are simply incapable of such rational thought, and I would maintain that such people have no business serving on a jury. We should modify the jury selection process to weed out these overly emotional people. In the meantime, those of you who doubt your looks might want to think twice before exercising your "right" to a a jury trial.
The results of the study will be published in a forthcoming issue of Behavioral Sciences and the Law. See the Cornell Chronicle for an overview of the results. (hat tip to the WSJ Law Blog).
The 2011 Discretionary Budget
This is a nice visual representation of discretionary portion of the 2011 Federal Budget. Note that it DOES NOT include non-discretionary items such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. To get an idea of the size of the discretionary portion of the budget in relation to the rest of the budget, look at the graphic at in the lower-right hand corner of the chart. Note that the black space on the penny represents the current federal budget deficit. To order a copy of the chart as a six foot poster, go to http://www.deathandtaxesposter.com/.
