Motivation and emotion/Book/2026/Empathy and jury decision-making

Empathy and jury decision-making:
How does empathy toward defendants and victims influence jurors' reasoning and verdict decisions?

Overview

Figure 1. Jurors only. Imagine this ... You have been summoned for jury duty. The defendant is accused of committing armed robbery in the presence of a shopkeeper. During the trial, you are presented with emotional perspectives of both the victim and the defendant. The victim has developed PTSD and is unable to return to work. The defendant had a traumatic childhood where their parents put immense pressure on them to continue the generational life of crime. Which will have a stronger impact on you?

This chapter discusses the influence of empathy, both towards jurors and victims and how this influences jurors reasoning and in particular, verdict decisions. This is essential to understand as if empathy influences juror decision-making, then this will impact jurors neutrality in the courtroom (Sjöberg, 2015). Understanding the psychology behind the influence this has on decision-making is essential to ensure that jury trials remain as unbiased as possible.

Focus questions What is empathy? How does empathy with victims influence jury decision-making? How does empathy with defendants influence jury decision-making? How do jurors balance empathy with victims and defendants as well as their role to remain neutral through emotional reasoning?

Empathy

The term "empathy" was first introduced in the English language by Edward Titchener in 1909, inspired by the German term "Einfühlung" (meaning "feeling into") (Titchener, 1909; Stueber, 2025). Titchener defined empathy as a process of projecting oneself into what one observes, or in colloquial terms "putting yourself into someone else's shoes" (Titchener, 1909; Stueber, 2025). Modern definitions of empathy differ but have in common the ability to feel and understand other's emotional states which typically results in behaving compassionately toward that person (Riess, 2017). Kahhale et al. (2026) proposed that individual differences influence how much empathy a person feels or can feel. In line with this, Garvey (2000) proposed empathy as a character trait.

Individual differences do not influence empathy:

	True
	False

Empathy with victims

• Evidence of the influence of victim impact statements is inconsistent. In studies conducted by Myers et al. (2002) and Luginbuhl & Burkhad (1995), victim impact statements influenced sentencing. Research by Phalen et al., (2021) also supports this notion. However, in studies conducted by Myers & Arbuthnot (1999) and Kahhale et al. (2026) victim impact statements did not influence sentencing.
• Having similar experiences to victims, such as sexual abuse, leads to higher empathy, a higher likelihood of finding the defendant guilty and harsher sentences (Kahhale et al., 2026).
• Having empathy with victims can lead to a higher emphasis on the harm suffered, and less notice taken of mitigating factors (Bandes, 1996).
• Jurors are more likely to feel empathy towards the victim when shown gruesome and graphic images (Bright & Goodman-Delahunty, 2006; Phalen at al., 2021).

Evidence clearly shows that victim impact statements influence empathy:

	True
	False

Empathy with defendants

• When jurors have higher levels of empathy with defendants, they are more likely to hand down more lenient verdicts. For example, seminal studies by Garvey (2000) and Sundby (2003) found that jurors who empathised with a defendant were more likely to hand out a life sentence rather than a death sentence. This was reiterated in Sjöberg's (2015) study, which despite finding weaker correlations than the earlier studies, deemed this to be explained by the fact that the study was conducted with a mock jury who did not get much information about the defendant's life and no information about what led the defendant to commit the crime in the first place.
• Jurors who have empathy with defendants are more likely to consider mitigating factors and associate lower culpability with the defendant (Sjöberg, 2015). In Plumm & Terrance's (2009) study, jurors perceptions of defendants changed when they were presented with empathy inducing statements. Haegerich & Bottoms (2000) found that where empathy was induced in a group of mock jurors, they found the defendant guilty less times than the control group. In fact, 30% of jurors in the first control group went so far as to say that the defendant's traumatic life justified that no punishment be given despite determining they had committed the crime.
• Interestingly, when being exposed to both the defendant and the victim's perspective, the impact of the defendant's perspective was significantly stronger than that of the victim and led to humanisation of the defendant (Kahhale et al., 2026).

Jurors are more likely to have stronger empathy with the defendant's perspective:

	True
	False

Emotional reasoning

Figure 2. Jurors must balance their emotions and neutrality to come to a decision.

• Jurors are more likely to feel empathy towards people that they like and people who are like them (Phalen et al., 2025).
• Empathy shapes how people interpret the evidence presented, determine credibility of witnesses and can cause bias (Sjöberg, 2015). Jurors must balance their emotions with instructions to remain neutral (see Figure 1).
• Empathy can warp the principle of justice by establishing bias towards an individual which is problematic when one considers that empathy is more likely to be experienced towards people who are familiar, to favour in-group members and further privilege (Decety, 2021).

When empathy establishes bias, it can warp the principle of justice:

	True
	False

Through a practical lens Autism spectrum disorder Approximately 0.8% of the population has autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (World Health Organisation, 2025). Exact statistics of the amount of autistic people in the criminal justice system is unclear, but is estimated to be between 1%-23% (Chester et al., 2025). This begs the question of whether disclosure of an ASD diagnosis influences empathy in jury members. This has immense practical influence as to whether autistic people are judged fairly by jurors in the criminal justice system. A study by Blackhurst et al. (2022) examined whether disclosure of an ASD diagnosis influenced jury empathy and culpability rates. The study found that disclosure of an ASD diagnosis increased empathy in jurors. Interestingly, the effect of this empathy on decision-making had the biggest influence among people who had a limited understanding of ASD. These people tended to associate lower culpability, perhaps due to stereotypical misconceptions that people with ASD are not responsible for their actions. Contrastingly, people with deeper understandings of ASD were less likely to associate lower culpability due to the presence of ASD, presumably due to an understanding that ASD is a spectrum and does not necessarily mean that autistic people cannot control their behaviours. This provides an interesting perspective on the influence of an ASD diagnosis on jury empathy, and suggests that in cases with autistic defendants, it may be beneficial to educate the jurors on ASD to allow for empathetic consideration without bias.

Conclusion

Whilst jurors can feel empathy with both victims and defendants, Kahhale et al. (2026) found that the impact of a defendant's perspective on empathy tends to be significantly stronger than the impact of a victim's perspective.

It is unclear whether victim impact statements influence empathy and sentencing (Kahhale et al., 2026; Luginbuhl & Burkhad, 1995; Myers & Arbuthnot, 1999; Myers et al., 2002), however having similar experiences to victims and being shown gruesome or graphic images leads to higher empathy (Bright & Goodman-Delahunty, 2006; Kahhale et al., 2026). When jurors feel empathy towards victims, they are more likely to emphasis harm suffered and pay less notice to mitigating factors (Bandes, 1996).

Jurors who have empathy with defendants are more likely to consider mitigating factors (Sjöberg, 2015), associate lower culpability to the defendant (Haegerich & Bottoms, 2000; Plumm & Terrance, 2009) and hand down more lenient verdicts (Garvey, 2000; Sundby, 2003).

Jurors are more likely to feel empathy towards people they like who are similar to them (Phalen et al., 2025) and who are in the same in-group as them (Decety, 2021). This can cause bias on how evidence and witnesses are interpreted (Sjöberg, 2015). Empathy is also influenced by individual differences (Kahhale et al., 2026) and can be considered a character trait (Garvey, 2000).

Empathy clearly impacts juries' decision-making, but empathy for defendants is often stronger than that for victims (Kahhale et al., 2015). This must be considered by the justice system if justice is to be fairly delivered.

See also

• Death penalty motivation (Book chapter, 2019)
• Moral disgust and juror decision making (Book chapter, 2026)
• Risky shift motivation (Book chapter, 2019)

References

Bandes, S. A. (1996). Empathy, narrative and victim impact statements. University of Chicago Law Review, 63(2), 361- 412. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1248284

Blackhurst, T., Hartley, C., Turner, P., & Warmelink, L. (2022). Jurors’ judgements of an autistic defendant are influenced by awareness of autism, knowledge of psychological conditions and trait-empathy. Journal of Intellectual Disabilities and Offending Behaviour, 13(3), 90-101. https://doi.org/10.1108/JIDOB-09-2022-0007

Bright, D. A., & Goodman-Delahunty, J. (2006). Gruesome evidence and emotion: anger, blame, and jury decision-making. Law and human behavior, 30(2), 183–202. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-006-9027-y

Chester, V., Melvin, C., Bunning, K., Alexander, R., & Langdon, P. E. (2025). Autistic people within forensic psychiatric services and the criminal justice system: A systematic review. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 36(5), 711–773. https://doi.org/10.1080/14789949.2025.2558833

Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 113–126. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.44.1.113

Decety, J. (2021). Why empathy is not a reliable source of information in moral decision making. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 30(5), 425-430.

Garvey, S. P. (2000). The emotional economy of capital sentencing. New York University Law Review, 75(26), 26-73. https://nyulawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/NYULawReview-75-1-Garvey.pdf

Haegerich, T. M., & Bottoms, B. L. (2000). Empathy and jurors' decisions in patricide trials involving child sexual assault allegations. Law and Human Behavior, 24(4), 421–448. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005592213294

Jones, T. M., Bottoms, B. L., & Stevenson, M. C. (2020). Child victim empathy mediates the influence of jurors’ sexual abuse experiences on child sexual abuse case judgments: Meta-analyses. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 26(3), 312–332. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/law0000231

Kahhale, I., Hackel, L., & Zaki, J. (2026). Balancing emotional scales: Empathy and dehumanization in legal contexts. Emotion, 26(1), 97–112. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001559

Luginbuhl, J. & Burkhead, M. (1995). Victim impact evidence in a capital trial: Encouraging votes for death. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 20, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02886115

Myers, B., & Arbuthnot, J. (1999). The effects of victim impact evidence on the verdicts and sentencing judgments of mock jurors. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 29(3–4), 95–112. https://doi.org/10.1300/J076v29n03_05

Patry, M. W. (2008). Attractive but guilty: Deliberation and the physical attractiveness bias. Psychological Reports, 102(3), 727-733. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.102.3.727-733

Phalen, H. J., Bettis, T. C., Bean, S. R., & Salerno, J. M. (2025). Jurymen seldom rule against a person that they like: The relationship between emotions towards a defendant, the understanding of case facts, and juror judgments in civil trials. Behavioral Sciences, 15(7), 965. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15070965

Phalen, H.J., Salemo, J.M. & Nadler, J. (2021) Emotional evidence in court. In Bandes, S. A., Madeira, J. L., Temple, K. D., White, E. K. (Eds), Research Handbook on Law and Emotion (pp. 288-311). Edward Elgar Publishing,

Plumm, K. M., & Terrance, C. A. (2009). Battered women who kill: The impact of expert testimony and empathy induction in the courtroom. Violence Against Women, 15(2), 186-205. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801208329145

Riess H. (2017). The science of empathy. Journal of Patient Experience, 4(2), 74–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/2374373517699267

Sjöberg, M. P. (2015). The relationship between empathy and stringency of punishment in mock jurors. Journal of European Psychology Students, 6(1), 37-44. https://doi.org/10.5334/jeps.cr

Stueber, K. (2025). Empathy. In In E. N. Zalta & U. Nodelman (Eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2025 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2025/entries/empathy/

Sundbey, S. E., (2003). The capital jury and empathy: The problem of worthy and unworthy victims. Cornell Law Review, 88(2), 343-381. https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2906&context=clr

Titchener, E. B., 1909, Lectures on the Experimental Psychology of Thought-Processes, New York: Macmillan.

World Health Organisation. (2025). Autism. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/autism-spectrum-disorders

External links

• Jury decision making
• What happens during jury deliberation?