ArticlePloS one2025
Judges versus artificial intelligence in juror decision-making in criminal trials: Evidence from two pre-registered experiments.
Article in PloS one, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Evaluation of the level of responsibility in pedestrian crashes using machine learning algorithms.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Public Perceptions of Judges' Use of AI Tools in Courtroom Decision-Making: An Examination of Legitimacy, Fairness, Trust, and Procedural Justice.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundArtificial intelligence (AI) is anticipated to play a significant role in criminal trials involving citizen jurors. Prior studies have suggested that AI is not widely preferred in ethical decision-making contexts, but little research has compared jurors' reliance on judgments by human judges versus AI in such settings.
objectivesThis study examined whether jurors are more likely to defer to judgments by human judges or AI, especially in cases involving mitigating circumstances in which human-like reasoning may be valued.
methodsTwo pre-registered online experiments were conducted with Japanese participants (Experiment 1: N = 1,735, Mage = 48.4; Experiment 2: N = 1,731, Mage = 48.5). Participants reviewed two murder trial vignettes and made sentencing decisions (1 = suspended sentence; 8 = prison sentence) under two conditions: trials with and without mitigating circumstances. RESULTS AND
conclusionAcross both experiments, participants showed no preference for deferring to human judges' or AI judgments when making sentencing decisions. While suspended sentences were more common in cases with mitigating circumstances, this tendency was unrelated to the judgment source. These findings suggest that jurors do not inherently avoid algorithmic judgments and may consider AI opinions on par with those of human judges in certain contexts. However, whether this leads to improved decision-making quality remains an open question, as objectivity (a strength of AI) and emotional considerations (a safeguard for fairness) may interact in complex ways during juror deliberations. Future research should further explore how these factors influence juror attitudes and decisions in diverse trial scenarios, taking into account potential biases in existing literature.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.