New Hampshire's "Laurie Rule": The Impact of Using Police Officer Witness Credibility Evidence on Juror Decisions

• In Event: Eyewitness Testimony, Wrongful Conviction and Jury Decision Making

Abstract

The New Hampshire v. Laurie (1995) ruling allows for police officers’ professional record to be openly used in New Hampshire courts to attack their witness credibility. Officers who are found to have potential credibility issues are then placed on a “Laurie List” from which they cannot be removed. Despite the harm such a rule could inflict on officers’ careers, the impact of the Laurie rule on court decisions has never been examined empirically. The current study examined the effect of manipulating police officer witness reputation on verdict decisions. Participants watched a video of a case with a police officer eyewitness and received one of three reputation variations embedded in the cross examination (good, bad, neutral). A binary logistic regression was conducted to examine the effect of reputation on verdict decisions, controlling for demographics, pre-existing attitudes toward the police, and eyewitness evaluation variables. Results showed participants in the bad reputation condition were significantly more likely to render a guilty verdict than in the neutral condition, B = 1.77, AOR = 5.85, p = .001, or in the good reputation condition, B = 1.49, AOR = 1.87, p = .003. Findings suggest serious implications for policy concerning police officer eyewitness credibility information.

Authors

• Lindsey M Cole, University of New Hampshire

• Ellen S Cohn, University of New Hampshire