Running Head: NARCISSISTIC JURORS AND VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENTS 1

Narcissistic Jurors and Victim Impact Statements:

How Voir Dire Can Solve Apathetic Juries

Zakury Walters

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

NARCISSISTIC JURORS AND VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENTS 2

Introduction

In this paper the idea of increasing the receptiveness of a victim impact

statement presented to jurors will be analyzed through the lens of

narcissism. The focus on the voir dire process will be presented in this report

to assist in the selection of jurors that will be more receptive towards the

VIS. The emotions exhibited by potential juror during the voir dire process

better help isolate who is and who is not an ideal candidate for empathizing

with victim impact statements. Various methods for identifying narcissists

are explored, while one is decisively introduced as the most assured

measure.

Victim Impact Statements

Victim impact statements have been a relatively new phenomenon in court

cases over the past four decades. The validity and justification of victim

impact statements are still currently under a microscope to see if they help

or harm the criminal justice system in America. There have been moral push

backs due to what some defenders believe to be an unfair bias against the

defendant in cases where victim impact statements are used. The accuracy

of those concerns are still not unanimously supported by the social sciences

and have it split down the middle whether or not they can be proven.

Victim impact statements can have a significant role in determining

sentencing depending on how trusted and well behaved the victim is or was;

along with what kind of burden was put on the victim or their survivors. If a

NARCISSISTIC JURORS AND VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENTS 3

victim was a well-respected person within the community’s standards and if

the financial strain on their children is brought up during a victim impact

statement, the jury is more likely to look negatively on the defendant (Green,

1999).

However, even though the negative perception of the defendant may very

well be because of the victim impact statement, there is no conclusive

evidence that it has any effect on the actual sentence the defendant would

receive by that very same jury (Boppre & Miller, 2014). Which means that an

effect victim impact statement will only go so far when calculating what

sentence should be expected.

All of which lead to begging the question as to why jurors would be

emotionally connected with a victim and still make no difference in

sentencing the defendant. Jurors could take sentencing guidelines to heart

and completely disconnect emotions from rationale; which would be the ideal

situation according to the American justice system. Still, the ideal situation is

usually never the correct answer when critically thinking about what the

possibilities are. Another answer to this would be that jurors in all are more

likely to be narcissistic than righteous.

Narcissists

The conceptual definition of a narcissist is “a personality disorder that

distorts several areas of psychological functioning” (Sedikides et al., 2000).

Narcissists are primarily focused on themselves, they put their needs above

NARCISSISTIC JURORS AND VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENTS 4

others, and they see themselves in greater light than they see others. The

feeling of being special, unique, or entitled are all aspects of narcissism.

It is not uncommon for a narcissist to believe that others care about them

more than they care about others. Narcissists tend to have an illusion that

others exist for them. (Sedikides et al., 2000). Narcissists have a difficult

time empathizing with others and will tend to disassociate when someone is

explaining a troubling experience they’ve had. To a narcissist, others exist

for them, so anything happening to that person is trivial. The other is inferior

to the narcissist and therefore no action needs to be taken on behalf of that

individual.

Predictions

Given the information about narcissist existing in a state of mind that

revolves around themselves while disregarding others, it would be assumed

they will take this mindset into jury deliberations as well. They will be less

likely to care about the impact of a crime upon a victim or their survivors as

the narcissist will most likely be too self-involved to care. A narcissistic juror

will take the habits that they form in relationships and disregard the feelings

of others in favor of their own feelings. When a statement is made about

someone that is not the juror, they will likely pay no heed to a call for moral

and legal justice. This is to say that the narcissist on a jury will not care to

empathize with a victim or their kin and a victim impact statement will be

lost on the juror.

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The argument against that would be that while a narcissist will not care to,

they still have the ability to empathize. If a victim impact statement can go

around the shell of a narcissist’s ego, there is the possibility that the

narcissist will empathize even more than other jurors. With an empathetic

narcissistic juror on the side of the prosecution during sentencing

deliberations the argument for being able to convince the rest of the jury to

side with them would be great. They would feel as they were the victim and

have the mindset of “how dare they” and try harder to convince the rest of

the jury to also feel the same way.

That counter argument assumes playing with fire is safe. While the rewards

for convincing a narcissistic juror seem otherworldly, the downside is

allowing too many narcissists onto a jury and not being able to convince any

of them. The threshold to convince a narcissist to feel empathy can be high

and therefore not worth the cost of expelling a potential non-narcissistic juror

whose threshold to feel empathy is much lower.

Existing Measures

Some existing measures to

determine whether or not a person is

a narcissist exist within the realm of

psychology. A form of a Likert scale

is utilized when questioning a

possible narcissist. On such example

NARCISSISTIC JURORS AND VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENTS 6

utilized by Robert Emmons at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

is included to the right.

The Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) is utilized to determine less

extreme forms of narcissistic personalities. While other scales exist to

determine pathological narcissism on more extreme scales, they are not

practical when questioning a potential juror during the voir dire processes.

There would be some difficulty in asking questions directly off of the NPI

during voir dire, however it could be integrated with other standard

questions.

Alternative Measures

The possibility of asking all of the questions used in the NPI or other

narcissistic questioning guidelines would be impossible for every potential

juror. Instead, having a select few questions added into voir dire questioning

that have the most predictability when it comes to narcissism is what is

recommended. By doing this easy step the collection and analysis of data

can be integrated with present jury questioning procedures.

Other measures to figure out the narcissism of a juror would be to look into

their social media and see how self-appreciating they come across. Analyzing

the perceived self-importance of a person is easy enough to do. Narcissists

tend to be more open about how they feel about themselves. The lack of

empathy towards others is another indicator that someone is a narcissist.

Viewing an online profile and seeing no pictures of others, or others playing

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supporting roles in pictures and videos can be construed as narcissistic

behavior.

Supplemental Suggestions

It is suggested through out this analysis of narcissism that those afflicted

with it be excluded as potential jurors to the best ability of the attorney.

Narcissists hold a high risk and reward when it comes to being jury

members. The reality of being able to exclude all narcissistic persons from a

jury may not be possible. Narcissism is a spectrum rather than a complete

diagnosis. Some can be more or less narcissistic than others, which makes it

nearly impossible to exclude them all. Selecting those who show fewer

narcissistic signs is preferable to those who show major signs of narcissism.

During victim impact statements, it is recommended by Green that financial

hardships be highlighted. Another suggestion for making victim impact

statements more sound is to make sure that the statements given do not

anger jurors. It has been seen that when jurors are angered, they are less

likely to carefully listen to detailed information. Instead, jurors that are

saddened by the victim impact statement are the preferred reactions. In

these instances, individuals are more susceptible to victim impact

statements and will carefully process the information (Myers, 2006).

Conclusion

Victim impact statements still require further research into the usefulness in

sentencing. Most research conducted on victim impact statements deal with

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the usefulness in helping victims or their survivors. While other research

takes a more philosophical approach in determining if VIS should be used at

all.

This paper introduces the idea that narcissism is a variable that has not yet

been properly studied in the role of jurors’ views of victim impact

statements. The aim for future research should be to identify narcissism on a

spectrum and how it plays a role in the willingness to empathize with victims

and their survivors and if it will play a role in sentencing arguments.

I conclude that my hypothesis is that it will, but only rare occasions. For a

greater response to victim impact statements, those not afflicted with more

severe narcissism should be excluded from serving on juries where a VIS will

be utilized during sentencing arguments.

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Bibliography

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statements affect mock jurors’ perceptions, emotions and verdicts.

Victims and Offenders, 9, 413-435.

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3. Greene, E. (2008). The many guises of victim impact evidence and

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4. Myers, B., Weidemann, E., & Pearce, G. (2006). Psychology Weighs in

on the Debate Surrounding Victim Impact Statements and Capital

Sentencing: Are Emotional Jurors Really Irrational? Federal Sentencing

Reporter, 19(1), 13-20. doi:10.1525/fsr.2006.19.1.13

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