--- title: Death Sentences Are Doled Out Based on Looks description: A new study finds a disturbing pattern of jury bias against those with "untrustworthy" facial features. canonical: https://time.com/6548784/death-sentences-facial-bias/ author: Haley Weiss article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-12-19T12:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:03:30.193Z article:section: Health og:title: Death Sentences Are Doled Out Based on Looks og:description: A new study finds a disturbing pattern of jury bias. og:url: https://time.com/6548784/death-sentences-facial-bias/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcd43081e2e862c46/698a435d16d884f68bc3c982/GettyImages-523288592.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4825 og:image:height: 2714 og:image:alt: Empty Jury Box og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Death Sentences Are Doled Out Based on Looks twitter:description: A new study finds a disturbing pattern of jury bias. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcd43081e2e862c46/698a435d16d884f68bc3c982/GettyImages-523288592.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Death Sentences Are Doled Out Based on Looks > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=472bef84-5860-4f3b-9319-fc75b98709f2&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Biggest Moments In U.S. Politics From 2023 [Watch (HLS stream): The Biggest Moments In U.S. Politics From 2023](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/i9YDvYnh.m3u8) (10:27)  _Published 2023-12-18. Take a look at some of the biggest moments in U.S. politics from 2023 with TIME Senior Politics reporter Brian Bennett._  by [Haley Weiss](https://time.com/author/haley-weiss/)  ## Haley Weiss Dec 19, 2023 12:00 PM UTC  Guy Cali—Getty Images  by [Haley Weiss](https://time.com/author/haley-weiss/)  ## Haley Weiss Dec 19, 2023 12:00 PM UTC Though there are guidelines for when a convicted criminal merits the death penalty (in states that still have capital punishment), ultimately, the jury makes the decision. A [new study](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/09567976231215238?journalCode=pssa) finds that the facts of the case are not the sole determinant of whether or not a jury will issue a death sentence—based on the research, certain “untrustworthy” facial features appear to play a significant role in capital-punishment sentencing. According to the study, published Dec. 14 in the journal _Psychology Science_, people associate certain facial features such as down-turned lips and heavy brows with being untrustworthy. It’s one of the [earliest forms](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/desc.12218) of stereotype bias humans learn—[even babies](https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations%5F2/709/) prefer those without these traits—and scientists have found it affects outcomes such as who we [select as leaders](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103113001844), [who gets paid more](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00512/full), and [criminal-sentencing outcomes](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797615590992). “There's longstanding knowledge among practicing attorneys that jurors form impressions of defendants, oftentimes based on arbitrary unreliable characteristics,” says Craig Haney, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. For example, decades of evidence suggest that [Black defendants](https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/colhr51&div=21&id=&page=) generally and defendants of any skin color accused of killing [white females](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1088767903262445) are more likely to be sentenced to death. “Researchers have for decades used what's called counter-stereotype interventions to reduce things like racial bias, gender bias, etc.,” says Jon Freeman, an associate professor of psychology at Columbia University, and an author of the new study. “We’ve been wanting to apply those same kinds of principles and take a very different approach to understanding facial stereotype biases as learned and malleable.” In Freeman’s study, he shows for the first time that facial bias can be accounted for with a short training when the death penalty is at stake. To test this, Freeman conducted a series of four experiments using images of 400 inmates convicted of murder in Florida, all white males, some of whom received a death sentence and some of whom received life in prison. In the first experiment, more than 450 volunteers were shown the images and asked to score each on trustworthiness and attractiveness. Before the exercise, a portion of the participants were put through a short training module designed to break the association between facial features and trustworthiness, in which traditionally “untrustworthy” faces were shown with descriptions of positive behaviors, and vice versa. Across the board, men who were sentenced to death were more likely to be labeled as untrustworthy by participants in the control group, with attractiveness scores closely related as well. In the trained group, however, trustworthiness didn’t predict real-world sentencing outcomes. ### More From TIME The other three experiments included similar trainings with slightly different tests afterwards, including one where participants were asked to make sentencing recommendations assuming full guilt and another where they were asked to do the same after being given the full details of a case. In each experiment, participants who received the training were less likely to fall into the same associative patterns. **Read More:** [_What My Week of Jury Duty Taught Me About Race_](https://time.com/4448516/jury-duty-race/)[](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/washington-dc-police-isis.jpg?quality=85) That facial bias can be corrected so easily in the short term is really telling of just how unprepared jurors in the real world are, says Haney, who was not involved with the study. Jury selection is “a fairly crude process,” he says. “We really put jurors in the position of making profoundly important decisions, including the decision between life or death. And it's a role for which they receive no training whatsoever.” A fundamental philosophical shift happens when capital punishment enters a courtroom, says Haney. Rather than looking at evidence to determine how an event occurred, when a jury is considering the death penalty, their analysis becomes about a person. “At that stage, they've been convicted,” Haney says, “Now, the question is, do they deserve the ultimate penalty or the next worst penalty? And that is very much a decision based on who \[a jury\] thinks the defendant is.” Any biases that jurors feel are more likely to bubble to the surface when making this more subjective moral evaluation. Still, training jurors before they sit in on actual cases just isn’t realistic yet, say Freeman and Haney. First, experts need to know more about how these different types of biases interact—trustworthiness, race, gender, and more all tend to be associated with one another in different ways that Freeman hopes to uncover by replicating his study with other populations of inmates. Even with all the information in the world, says Haney, it’s unlikely that widespread anti-bias training for juries would ever be supported across the political spectrum. “I can imagine differences of opinion about what the content \[of such training\] should be,” he says. Second, and perhaps the biggest non-political barrier than anyone attempting to design an anti-bias jury training would encounter, is that short-term trainings like Freeman’s don’t tend to correct biases for much longer than it takes to run an experiment. Trials for capital offenses are often weekslong, and in research settings, lasting changes in implicit bias require repeated, regular interventions. But learning that attitudes towards facial features can be changed at all is “quite striking,” says Freeman. “I think the larger point is that there are these biases, and there are things that can be done about them. And this is just one more way in which we don't really prepare jurors for the all important role that they're going to be asked to play,” says Haney. ## Transcript It's been quite a year in Washington. So let's remind the tape and look at the year the beginning of the year President Biden ended Federal government's covid-19 emergency measures then in February a Chinese spy balloon Traverse the entire United States President Biden have to decide what to do about it. Today, I was briefed on the Ballon d'Or in the Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday as soon as possible whole incident led to a major Rift between the US and China to nuclear Powers. They had to find a way back to diplomacy fighting that was she doing thing the Chinese president outside of San Francisco in November to try to re-establish the communication. Biden said that he and Ukraine and push for Congress to send more money for key to defend itself from Russian aggression. Now on Israel fighting came out very strong support of the Israeli government to hackers attacked by Hamas on October 7th in this moment of tragedy. I want to say to them into the world and the terrorists everywhere at the United States stands with Israel will make sure that they have the help their Citizens need and they can continue to defend themselves facing pressure within his own party to call for a ceasefire and Gaza. We need a permanent ceasefire now we need to end the mass murder of Palestinians have Palestinian children So to push forward on its support for Israel and Ukraine Biden, they too dangerous trips one. He took Night Train in the key key to still within rocket distance of Russian Artillery and met with Ukrainian President Vladimir zelensky inside Keith. And then also shortly after the October 7th attacks he flew into Israel to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This was also the year that President Biden announced that he was going to run for a second term. He announced his candidacy for Emily and April and he doesn't have any major challenges not Democratic primaries begin early next year that will create a major moment where Biden campaign will try to set up a contrast. Assuming the from President Trump is Republican nominee. Biden will try to describe the voters that he's been a steady hand and government for 4 years and that Donald Trump bring back a pattern of Destruction or let's talk about Congress this year Republicans took over the house at the beginning of the year and there's been a lot of infighting all year. He got off to a rocky start it took 15 rounds of voting for Kevin McCarthy. Do we elect the speaker in the first place? Not been elected speaker has not been elected not been elected not been elected not been elected. Not been elected. Not been elected not been elected. Well Republicans in the house finally elected as Speaker post-midnight early on Saturday after Kevin McCarthy acquiesce to the demands of the most extreme members of his caucus, but he was ousted nine months later. They were contentious speaker votes in October and Mike Johnson is now the Speaker of the House the car if he didn't even want to finish out his term and after 17 years in Congress said he would resign at the end of the year will be departing the house at the end of this year. I will never ever give up fighting for this country that I love so much and this is also a year when the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Ticketmaster and weather was acting like Monopoly who is Taylor Swift concert and the trouble that are fantastic getting tickets that forced to send it to take up this issue the Senators took that moment to use a lot of Taylor Swift song title funds as a load to Taylor Swift. I will say we know all too. Well, she's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers. Taylor Swift to have written a song about this very situation a few million Taylor Swift. This is why we can't have nice things people seem to think that somehow a solution. I think it's it. It's a nightmare dressed like a Daydream Ticketmaster Auto look in the mirror and say I'm the problem, it's me and may House Republicans threatened to let the US default on its debt and a lot of brinkmanship Republicans and the White House came to a deal that prevented the US from defaulting. They punted the ceiling fight two after the presidential election in the beginning of 2025 in September House Republicans decide to launch a formal impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden today. I am directing our house committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President. Joe Biden House. Republicans are trying to make the case that Joe Biden somehow profited from his son Hunter Biden's overseas business deal, but so far there hasn't been evidence of that. Also in September. Democratic senator Bob Menendez who represents New Jersey was indicted on federal corruption charges prosecutor filed the charges. They also showed photographs of gold bars and stacks of cash. The prosecutors say were bribed the Menendez and then there's George Santa's the first-term Republican from New York was expelled from Congress in December. It took three votes to get there in the end 105 Republicans joined Democrats in the house to expel Santa's. There were concerns over him fabricating his resume lying about his past and also he faces federal charges for money laundering Dept of public funds and making false statements Santos denies wrongdoing and hundreds of requests record personalized videos on the website Cameo. My favorite song is definitely going to be trouble trouble when there are big changes in the Senate this year Senator Dianne Feinstein died after a groundbreaking Thirty years in the Senate California governor Gavin Newsom appointed laphonza Butler to fill her senate seat Butler's been a powerful Union organizer in the state and was ahead of Emily's List a group that works to elect women candidates who favor of abortion rights, Joe manchin said he wouldn't run for re-election. This is a big deal because the West Virginia senator is a Democrat winning in a largely Red State and his bowing out of the race in 2024 could lead to another Republican seat being out in the Senate the Senate is nearly to buy the right now and that could affect the balance of power. Also this year to campus debates over Free Speech came to Washington University have been criticized for failing to protect you as students from an increase in anti-semitic attacks during Israel's war and Gaza three University presidents were called to testify before the house education committee University of Pennsylvania president resigned under pressure after her response to questioning. Why does that Professor still have a job at your University? Very troubled by what you're describing Congressman that kind of spending it you allow these professors to teach at your college. You create a safe haven for this type of anti-Semitic Behavior. Here's a few cases to highlight from the Supreme Court this year bring for ruled that map of hearthstone abortion drug can remain on us markets. The decision is seen as a victory for the national abortion rights movement the court overturned Alabama election day in the state of diluted the power black voters by drawing a map with only one black District Court also ruled that race-conscious admissions processes at Harvard and North Carolina or unlawful. This could have sweeping impact on admissions at universities across the United States as universities try to find out how to have student bodies that reflect the makeup of the country without running afoul of Supreme Courts to do the court also ruled that a web designer has the right to refuse service to same-sex couples, which was a setback for lgbtq plus price. Supreme Court also dealt a blow to President Joe Biden's effort to forgive large amount of student loan debt. The Court ruled that the heroes act allow that President Biden was using to allow people to delay payments on student loans and forgive large portions of them did not Grant the president the right to do that. And so the president has had to go back to the drawing board and find new mechanisms within the role of the executive. We will probably just do approaching a different walk with my original plan for so-called higher education in a major story this year. The Supreme Court wasn't even about the ruling. It was about the Justice news reports show that Justice Clarence Thomas hadn't disclosed luxury trips with Republican donor Harlan Crow and other transactions going back twenty years. So that Justice is under pressure came up with the Netflix code that they released but there's no mechanism to enforce it. It's really on the justices themselves in an honor System to abide by then. And also this year former President Donald Trump walk into this court house and became the first former president to ever be formally indicted and arraigned on federal charges. He's facing charges here for trying to overturn the 2020 election and setting in motion a series of events that led to the January 6th violent assault on the US Capitol President Trump is also facing charges in three other courtrooms. Not one charge but 91 charges and the outcome of those cases that will play out over the next couple of years could very well determine Donald Trump's political future and how the justice system can deal with former president was also running for office and facing charges at the same time. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6548784/death-sentences-facial-bias/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6548784/death-sentences-facial-bias/"},"headline":"Death Sentences Are Doled Out Based on Looks","datePublished":"2023-12-19T12:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:03:30.193Z","description":"A new study finds a disturbing pattern of jury bias.","url":"https://time.com/6548784/death-sentences-facial-bias/","keywords":["Psychology","healthscienceclimate"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcd43081e2e862c46/698a435d16d884f68bc3c982/GettyImages-523288592.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Haley Weiss","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/haley-weiss/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcd43081e2e862c46/698a435d16d884f68bc3c982/GettyImages-523288592.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Empty Jury Box","caption":"Empty Jury Box","creditText":"Guy Cali—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/psychology/","name":"Psychology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6548784/death-sentences-facial-bias/","name":"Death Sentences Are Doled Out Based on Looks"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Biggest Moments In U.S. Politics From 2023","description":"Take a look at some of the biggest moments in U.S. politics from 2023 with TIME Senior Politics reporter Brian Bennett.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/i9YDvYnh/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2023-12-18T18:15:33.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/i9YDvYnh.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/6548784/death-sentences-facial-bias/","duration":"PT10M27S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/6548784/death-sentences-facial-bias/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```