Ohio DUI Attorney: Is It A Just World?
As an Ohio DUI attorney, I often observe a bias that people carry toward those accused of drunk driving. Psychologists call this phenomena the “Just World Hypothesis.”
The belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get, which was first theorized by Melvin Lerner in 1977. Lerner, M.J. & Miller, D.T. (1977). Just-world research and the attribution process: Looking back and ahead. Psychological Bulletin, 85, 1030-1051. Attributing failures to dispositional causes rather than situational causes, which are unchangeable and uncontrollable, satisfies our need to believe that the world is fair and we have control over our life. We are motivated to see a just world because this reduces our perceived threats,Burger, J.M. (1981). Motivational biases in the attribution of responsibility for an accident: A meta-analysis of the defensive-attribution hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 496-512, Walster, E. (1966). Assignment of responsibility for an accident. Journal of Personality and Social, 31, 73-79, gives us a sense of security, helps us find meaning in difficult and unsettling circumstances, and benefits us psychologically. Gilbert, D.T., & Malone, P.S. (1995).The correspondence bias. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 21–38.
Unfortunately, the just-world hypothesis also results in a tendency for people to blame and disparage victims of a tragedy or an accident, such as victims of rape (See Abrams, D., Viki, G.T., Masser, B., & Bohner, G. (2003). Perceptions of stranger and acquaintance rape: The role of benevolent and hostile sexism in victim blame and rape proclivity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 111-125;Bell, S.T., Kuriloff, P.J., & Lottes, I. (1994). Understanding attributions of blame in stranger-rape and date-rape situations: An examinations of gender, race, identification, and students’ social perceptions of rape victims. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24, 1719-1734) and domestic abuse (See Summers, G., & Feldman, N.S. (1984).Blaming the victim versus blaming the perpetrator: An attributional analysis of spouse abuse.Journal of Applied Social and Clinical Psychology, 2, 339-347) to reassure themselves of their insusceptibility to such events. People may even go to such extremes as the victim’s faults in “past life” to pursue justification for their bad outcome.(Woogler, R.J. (1988). Other lives, other selves: A Jungian psychotherapist discovers past lives. New York: Bantam.)
The just world phenomena is observed in DUI trials as a bias that can cause a jury to overlook the evidence and blame the accused driver for putting himself or herself in a position where an officer could arrest them. When you combine this inherent bias with a society that stigmatizes drinking drivers (Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk, Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over), you are left with a turbulent trial scenario for your attorney to face. An experienced Ohio DUI attorney will make allowances for the juries unknown bias by addressing it in the void dire and in a closing argument. Often, simply addressing the bias is enough of an inoculation to allow the jurors to focus on the evidence.
Ohio DUI attorney Charles M. Rowland II dedicates his practice to defending the accused drunk driver in the Miami Valley and throughout Ohio. He has the credentials and the experience to win your case and has made himself Dayton’s choice for drunk driving defense. Contact Charles Rowland by phone at (937) 318-1384 or toll-free at 1-888-ROWLAND (888-769-5263). If you need assistance after hours, call the 24/7 DUI Hotline at (937) 776-2671. You can have DaytonDUI at your fingertips by downloading the DaytonDUI Android App or have DaytonDUI sent directly to your mobile device by texting DaytonDUI (one word) to 50500. Follow DaytonDUI on Facebook, @DaytonDUI on Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, Pheed and Pintrest or get RSS of the Ohio DUI blog. You can email CharlesRowland@DaytonDUI.com or visit his office at 2190 Gateway Dr., Fairborn, Ohio 45324. “All I do is DUI defense.”
Find information on Ohio DUI attorney Charles M. Rowland II on this blog, or check these city-specific sites at the following links:
Fairborn, Dayton, Springfield, Kettering, Vandalia, Xenia, Miamisburg, Springboro,Huber Heights, Oakwood, Beavercreek, Centerville
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