Juror Perceptions: How Alibis Become Unbelievable

Written By: Alondra Alamillo

The Job of a Jury

In the courtroom, jurors are presented with the daunting task of deciding a life-altering verdict for the defendant. Although evidence, charges, criminal history, pleas, eyewitness testimonies, the manner in which juror instructions are delivered, among many other factors are expected to be considered; alibis play a unique role in influencing the jury’s decision-making process. Evidence presented by a witness that provides an account of the defendant’s whereabouts in relation to the charges are alibis. While a strong alibi can demonstrate clear innocence, a weak one however can completely jeopardize the credibility of the defendant and the way in which they are perceived. What must be present in an alibi for jurors to identify it as strong versus weak? Could strong alibi evidence be enough to outweigh other forms of evidence jurors consider during deliberation?  

Credibility Factors 

Physical and person evidence are the two types of alibi evidence that may be used to corroborate, or support, a defendant’s testimony. However, due to how rare physical alibi evidence is in comparison to person alibi evidence, person corroboration is more heavily researched to understand the extent to which it is a factor in decision making and what makes them credible for juries (Allison & Kollar, 2023.) When investigating false alibi corroborations, (Marion & Burke, 2013) believed that for an alibi to appear believable to a jury it must include two important components. First, an alibi must be supported directly by the individual providing it to increase the chances of an innocent verdict (Pozzulo et al., 2015.) Additionally, preferably it should be delivered by a person who has a minimal or nonexistent relationship with the defendant. According to a study conducted by Allison & Kollar (2023), the relationship between the defendant and the individual providing testimony to corroborate their alibi is an important aspect of person alibi evidence. There is an overwhelming distrust in alibis that are supported by people who are socially or biologically related to the defendant. 

Corroboration 

The idea that jurors perceive alibi corroborations provided by people close to the defendant as disingenuous and weak evidence is well known. If a defendant has a close relationship with the person corroborating the alibi, jurors may categorize their testimony as unreliable evidence. Marion & Burke (2013) tested this idea further to investigate if people really would be willing to corroborate a false alibi (witness providing the alibi) for a person they like (the defendant.) During a collaborative task, the confederate- not a real participant, left the room and depending on the condition they either returned with evidence that they had stolen money or the evidence was absent entirely. When questioned by the experimenter about the missing money, the confederate provided them with a false alibi claiming that both them and the participant remained in the room throughout all of the tasks. Later, the participant was given the opportunity to either corroborate the false alibi or tell the truth. A self-report trust scale served as a pre-study measure for intrapersonal trust levels to help predict the participants decision. If high scores on the lie scale were found, then this predicted the likelihood of the participant valuing social desirability over truthfulness. This is a significant concern when making decisions about which alibis could be reliable (Marion & Burke, 2013). 

Unlike the researchers hypothesized,  participants did not often corroborate false alibis in general. However, findings do suggest that witnesses would be willing to lie for either those confederates they believed to be innocent due to the evidence absent cases or the disbelief that they would be dishonest regardless of the stranger or friend categories. When asked to explain their corroboration of a false alibi, many participants claimed they lied because they truly believed that the confederate was innocent despite them leaving the room. The willingness to confirm false wearabouts of the confederate could indicate serious consequences, as in an actual case this would be considered perjury. 

Similarly, those who rejected the false alibi did so because they believed the confederate was innocent and determined there was no need to support it. Although this found the self-report trust scale proved to reveal high levels of intrapersonal trust, it was found that it was not necessary for people to like each other in order to corroborate a false alibi. Instead if the participant saw evidence of the confederates guilt, then they told the truth despite any personal connection. The paradigm developed in this study to measure instances of false alibi corroboration suggests that this assumption can lead to harmful discernment of jury perceptions (Marion & Burke, 2013). The absence of a corroborated alibi is also a sign jurors may focus on, since having no evidence to support the defendant’s testimony can weaken it (Pozzulo et al., 2015).

Although current research does suggest some aspects of how jurors assess alibis before deliberation, one important thing to consider is that the mock studies do not test for violent crimes or serious felonies. Accounting for a variety of case circumstances could help bridge that gap.

References 

Allison, M., & Kollar, C. (2023). Alibi believability: Corroborator certainty, cooperativeness and relationship with the defendant. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 20(3), 228–242. https://doi.org/10.1002/jip.1618

Marion, S. B., & Burke, T. M. (2013). False alibi corroboration: Witnesses lie for suspects who seem innocent, whether they like them or not. Law And Human Behavior, 37(2), 136–143. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000021

Pozzulo, J. D., Pettalia, J. L., Dempsey, J. L., & Gooden, A. (2014). Juvenile offenders on trial: does alibi corroboration evidence and defendant age interact to influence jurors’ perceptions and verdicts? Psychiatry Psychology and Law, 22(2), 224–234. https://doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2014.937518