Multinomial Logistic Regression Graph of Death Penalty Support and Predicted Probability of Referral Acceptance from Mutually-Exclusive Groups.

<p>The reference category is Willingness to Accept from Defense or Defense-and-Court Only (i.e., Reject only the Prosecution), which is labeled “Defense” here. “All” = willing to accept from all three referral sources, “Court” = willing to accept only from the court, and “None” = not willing to accept from any of the three referral sources. No participants reported they would accept from the prosecution only, and thus they are not represented on this graph. DPAS = score on the Death Penalty Attitudes Scale, with higher scores indicating greater support for the death penalty (range 1–9). The sample sizes for the red “all” and purple “none” lines are higher and thus are likely more stable representations of the underlying phenomena than the green “court” and blue “defense” lines that represent fewer points of data.</p

Are Forensic Experts Already Biased before Adversarial Legal Parties Hire Them?

<div><p>This survey of 206 forensic psychologists tested the “filtering” effects of preexisting expert attitudes in adversarial proceedings. Results confirmed the hypothesis that evaluator attitudes toward capital punishment influence willingness to accept capital case referrals from particular adversarial parties. Stronger death penalty opposition was associated with higher willingness to conduct evaluations for the defense and higher likelihood of rejecting referrals from all sources. Conversely, stronger support was associated with higher willingness to be involved in capital cases generally, regardless of referral source. The findings raise the specter of skewed evaluator involvement in capital evaluations, where evaluators willing to do capital casework may have stronger capital punishment support than evaluators who opt out, and evaluators with strong opposition may work selectively for the defense. The results may provide a partial explanation for the “allegiance effect” in adversarial legal settings such that preexisting attitudes may contribute to partisan participation through a self-selection process.</p></div

Death Penalty Support Multinomial Logistic Regression Results.

<p>Death Penalty Support Multinomial Logistic Regression Results.</p

Descriptive Statistics.

<p>Descriptive Statistics.</p

Multivariate multilevel models 3 and 4: Institutional trust and positive trustworthiness, and institutional trust and distrustworthiness.

<p>Multivariate multilevel models 3 and 4: Institutional trust and positive trustworthiness, and institutional trust and distrustworthiness.</p

The effects of Within-Person (WP) trustworthiness perceptions (top panel) and distrustworthiness perceptions (lower panel) on institutional trust over time, for the experimental and control groups.

<p><i>Notes</i>. Effects estimated based on slopes-as-outcomes models as described in the texts. Although patterns of differences in change over time were consistent with our hypotheses, only the difference in effects of WP Trustworthiness achieved statistical significance.</p

Institutional trust slope as predicted by governmental trust slope and dispositional trust slope for control and experimental groups.

<p><i>Notes</i>. Predicted values based on slopes-as-outcomes models (see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0175387#pone.0175387.s006" target="_blank">S1 Table</a>) which indicated a significant difference between the experimental and control groups for the relationship between governmental trust and institutional trust slopes (left panel), but not for the relationship between dispositional trust and institutional trust slopes (right panel).</p

Multilevel univariate models for primary outcome measures predicted by information manipulation.

<p>Multilevel univariate models for primary outcome measures predicted by information manipulation.</p

Within-Person (WP) deviation from predicted governmental trust ratings effect on trustworthiness slope over time, for control and experimental groups.

<p><i>Note</i>. Figure illustrates the marginal three way interaction between WP governmental trust, time, and experimental manipulation prediting change in trustworthiness perceptions over time (i.e., trustworthiness slope) as described in note 15 (see also <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0175387#pone.0175387.s007" target="_blank">S2 Table</a>).</p

Multivariate multilevel model 1: Institutional trust, dispositional trust, and governmental trust.

<p>Multivariate multilevel model 1: Institutional trust, dispositional trust, and governmental trust.</p