Dateline: December, 2007, Issue 1
**previous research updates can be found in the Jury Research Kollectionn at www.kkcomcon.com
How do jurors respond to an entrapment defense?
One way to respond to criminal charges is by claiming that a defendant was induced to engage in illegal behavior by law enforcement.
Borgida and Park (1988) found that jurors have difficulty understanding judges' instructions on the entrapment defense, and rely mostly on evidence of the defendant's past criminal conduct to reach verdicts.
Lewis (1997) explored the role a defendant's past criminal conduct in an entrapment defense drug case, along with the amount of money an undercover officer offered a suspected drug dealer for drugs and the number of refusals to sell the drugs on the part of the defendant. This research found that:
(1) Jurors were largely unaware of, and lacked knowledge about, the entrapment defense.
(2) Jurors who were oriented toward due process rights were more receptive to the defense than jurors oriented toward crime control.
(3) Jurors carefully tracked information about the number of times that the defendant refused enticements from law enforcement. If the defendant initially turned down suggestions from law enforcement, the jury grew increasingly receptive to the entrapment defense.
An entrapment defense is most effective when (a) defendants lack a prior criminal record and refuse multiple times before being enticed, and (b) jurors are informed about the law and oriented toward due process rights. An entrapment defense is least effective when (a) defendants have a prior criminal record and agree with law enforcement's first enticement, and (b) jurors are uninformed about entrapment and oriented toward crime control.
Source: Borgida, E. & Park, R. (1988). The entrapment defense: Juror comprehension and decision making. Law and Human Behavior, 12, pp. 19-40.
Source: Lewis, E. W. (1997). A social psychological investigation of legal entrapment. Dissertations Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, 58(1-B), p. 0458.
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