The California Legislature has claimed that California is in a “state of crisis” because of the violent street gangs that terrorize peaceful citizens. In the criminal legal system, prosecutors can present gang evidence to help prove motive, rivalries, the defendant’s or a witness’s intent, or identity to help them convict suspected gang members of crimes.
Most jurors cringe at the word “gangs.” Therefore, the prosecution loves using gang evidence because it helps them secure convictions. If the prosecution alleges a defendant is a gang member and that the defendant committed the charged crime for the sake of their gang, they can present evidence about the gang activities to the jury. This is helpful for the prosecution because witnesses are often uncooperative because of their fear of gang retaliation. The prosecution can use the gang evidence to explain why a witness initially refused to come forward or why the witness has changed their story after initially implicating a gang member.
Researchers have studied whether or not juries are more likely to convict if the evidence shows the defendant has ties to a gang. Jurors are influenced by gang evidence the most when the evidence against the defendant is weaker. Weak cases could be cases where there is not any physical evidence tying the defendant to the crime, when the witnesses are uncooperative or not credible, or when there is no forensic testing to objectively place the defendant at the scene. Once the prosecution says the word gang, jurors, like any other person, are influenced by their biases and therefore filter any other information through that negative bias.
Studies have shown that guilty verdicts rise significantly when gang evidence is introduced, even when the evidence about a defendant’s association with the gang is weak, for example, if they were seen hanging around gang members. One study showed that the mock jurors voted guilty even when the researchers designed the case simulation to have insufficient evidence for a conviction and where reasonable doubt should cause them to vote for an acquittal.
The same study argued this is jury nullification in reverse. Jury nullification is a phenomenon where a jury will not convict a defendant despite clear evidence of the defendant’s guilt. Here, it seems that juries will convict even if there is a lack of evidence of the defendant’s guilt of the crime. Of course, some gang members are very dangerous and communities could be safer without them on the streets. However, when we are talking about the criminal legal system, convicting a person without evidence they committed the crime is a recipe for a wrongful conviction, and once a person is convicted of a crime, their conviction is extremely hard to reverse.
