The Effects of a judge's Charge and Subsequent Re-Charge on Judgments of Guilt

The influence exerted by a trial judge through his comments to the jury was examined. Subjects read a summary of a robbery case, followed by either a neutral or strong charge (the judge's summary and comment upon the evidence in the case), in two of the conditions. In the remaining three conditions, the judge's strong charge was followed by a re-charge of the stronger comments initially made by the judge. The re-charge was causally attributed to the judge, a provision within the law, or no reason was given. It was hypothesized that the strong charge would influence subjects' evaluations of the evidence (and ultimately the guilt of the defendant) in the direction expressed by the judge and that the only re-charge that would be successful in eliminating the effects of the judge's earlier biasing comments, would be in the personal attribution condition. Both of these hypotheses were strongly supported by the data. The results of the present study suggest the need for procedural changes within the courtroom; several alternative procedures are discussed.