Are Celebrities Charged with Murder Likely to Be Acquitted

In 2007 Eric Dubin authored a book in which he presented "a formula that is virtually unbeatable" (p. 5) if you are a lawyer representing a celebrity accused of committing a serious crime. The formula for acquittal includes taking full advantage of the First Amendment--"have your defense lawyer utilize jury-tainting opportunities under the First Amendment before the trial even begins" (p. 5). In other words, get your version of the crime out to the public by secretly leaking information to the media. Secondly, as an additional part of that First Amendment abuse, make sure that the victim and any important witnesses for the victim get properly "bashed" in the media. This can be done by having your lawyer accuse the victim and anyone connected with the prosecution's case of wrongdoing, real or imagined. Third, have your lawyer hire top experts to take advantage of the "CSI Effect. " Because of the popularity of television shows like Law And Order and CSI, juries often expect to be shown scientific evidence in court (Shelton, Kim, & Barak, 2006), and may be unduly impressed by it (Patry, Smith, & Stinson, 2008). Fourth, before and during the trial have your lawyer blame the police and anyone connected with the prosecution for trying to become famous by taking advantage of a celebrity. The fifth and last part of the formula is arguably the most interesting as it seemingly flies in the face of conventional wisdom and research about jury trial strategy. It is to exercise the defendant's right to "take" the Fifth Amendment. Research shows that when non-media defendants "take the Fifth" they are perceived as being more likely to be guilty (McCutcheon, 2004), probably because they are perceived as having something to hide. Dubin argues that when a celebrity is the defendant, juries will simply assume that his high-powered lawyers advised him not to take the stand. According to Dubin (2007), this strategy "forces a jury to convict a beloved celebrity without hearing an answer to the most important question: 'Did you do it (p. 5)? '" This strategy "allows a celebrity's idealized body of work to be the only insight a jury has (p. 6). " We might be inclined to dismiss Dubin's seemingly dubious advice except for two facts of great importance: Eric Dubin is a lawyer who won a thirty-million-dollar verdict against actor Robert Blake on behalf of Bonnie Blake's children (she was allegedly murdered by Robert Blake, ironically famous for his portrayal of a detective on television). Secondly, some of his other pieces of strategy are supported by evidence from mock jury trials. For example, mock jury research shows that pretrial publicity does affect jurors judgments (Kaplan, 1982; Ruva & McEvoy, 2008; Ruva, McEvoy, & Bryant, 2007; see Studebaker & Penrod, 2005, for a review), and that both positive and negative publicity have predictable effects in opposite directions (Ruva & McEvoy, 2008). The present study was conducted partly for the purpose of testing what we will call "Dubin's defense hypothesis," these five intertwined bits of trial strategy that collectively are "virtually unbeatable" for winning an acquittal for a celebrity client. To test it we developed a trial transcript based on a real murder trial. In one version of the transcript the defendant is described as a famous movie star; in another he is described as a famous televangelist. In the third he is described as an office worker. Otherwise the transcripts are identical. One potential confound in Dubin's defense hypothesis is the wealth of the client. We see no reason why the first three parts of Dubin's defense hypothesis would not be equally successful with any wealthy client, even if the client is not a celebrity. For example, if you are wealthy enough, celebrity or not, you can have your lawyer present some scientific expert who is familiar enough with forensic evidence to raise some doubts in the minds of jurors. To control for this, we altered the original transcript further, such that our office worker, though unable to afford expensive legal representation, was lucky enough to have access to an experienced trial lawyer who headed a legal aid task force willing to take the case for free because they believed he might be innocent. …