Behind the Veil of Juror Decision Making

DOI10.1177/0093854812436478
Date01 May 2012
Published date01 May 2012
666
CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, Vol. XX, No. X, Month 2007 666-XXX
DOI:
© 2007 American Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology
CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, Vol. 39 No. 5, May 2012 666-678
DOI: 10.1177/0093854812436478
© 2012 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology
BEHIND THE VEIL OF
JUROR DECISION MAKING
Testing the Effects of Muslim Veils
and Defendant Race in the Courtroom
EVELYN MAEDER
JULIE DEMPSEY
JOANNA POZZULO
Carleton University
Recent case law has considered whether a Muslim woman who wishes to appear in court should be allowed to testify wear-
ing a veil that covers part of her face (e.g., Muhammad v. Paruk, 2008, in the United States, R. v. N.S., 2009, in Canada). The
current research sought to test the influence of a victim’s wearing of a veil while testifying on juror decision making in a
sexual assault trial. In addition, the study tested for effects of defendant race using Middle Eastern and Caucasian as the
target races, given that there is a paucity of research comparing these races in the juror decision-making literature. Results
demonstrated that contrary to hypotheses, jurors were more convinced of the defendant’s guilt when the victim was wearing
a burqa or hijab to testify than when she testified wearing no veil. Defendant race did not have an effect on any of the depend-
ent variables in this research; however, mock juror gender was found to be influential. Potential reasons for these findings
and directions for future research are discussed.
Keywords: juror decision making; defendant race; religious veils; sexual assault trials
A
recent Canadian court case (R. v. N.S., 2009) brought forth an interesting conflict
between legal and religious rights. N.S., a Muslim woman from Toronto, was asked
by a judge to remove her niqab (a face-covering veil) prior to testifying in a sexual assault
trial. The defense attorney maintained that the veil should be removed so that the court
could observe her demeanor, but N.S., the complainant, wanted to wear the veil for reli-
gious reasons. The presiding judge in the original case eventually ruled that the complain-
ant must remove her veil to testify, stating that “although the decision was difficult . . . [h]er
religious belief was not that strong. It was open to exceptions and wearing the veil was a
matter of comfort.” The judge made this conclusion after learning that N.S. had posed for
a driver’s license photograph bare faced. This ruling was the subject of criticism, particu-
larly from feminist groups, one of which wrote in a factum for the subsequent appeal that
“the forced removal of her niqab as a pre-requisite to testifying in a sexual assault prosecu-
tion turns the metaphor of re-victimization at trial into a literal reality” (Women’s Legal
Education and Action Fund, 2010, p. 4). The ruling was overturned on appeal, and N.S. was
permitted to wear her veil during testimony.
AUTHORS’ NOTE: Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Evelyn Maeder, C566
Loeb Building, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6; e-mail: evelyn_maeder@
carleton.ca.

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