Brooke Butler

Institution Public Defender's Office of the Twelfth Judicial Circuit Current Position Forensic Coordinator and Mitigation Psychologist Highest Degree Ph.D. in Legal Psychology from Florida International University, 2000 Research Interests Applied Social Psychology Attitudes Attribution Group Processes Judgment/Decision Making Persuasion/Social Influence Prejudice/Stereotyping Psychology and Law Courses Taught Experimental Social Psychology Legal Psychology Psychology and Law Psychology of Juries Psychology of Women Research Methods in Psychology Social Psychology The Death Penalty   Brooke Butler Sarasota, Florida U.S.A. Dr. Butler’s research is highly applied, policy-oriented, and concerns the social psychological factors that jeopardize defendants' right to due process. Her areas of scholarship include prejudice, aggravating and mitigating circumstances, defense-attorney concessions, jurors’ decision-making processes, expert testimony, individual differences, the insanity defense, post-sentence-civil commitment, judges’ decision-making processes, defendant attractiveness, pretrial publicity, and the psychological pains of imprisonment. Dr. Butler has published book reviews, encyclopedia entries, and articles in the American Journal of Forensic Psychology, American Psychology-Law Society News, Behavioral Sciences and the Law, The Defender, the Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law, the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Law and Human Behavior, Psychology, Crime, and Law, Psychology of Women Quarterly, and The Jury Expert. In 2007 and 2008, she was the recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Research Award at the University of South Florida-Sarasota. Dr. Butler’s research has been funded by grants from the University of South Florida as well as the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (Division 9 of the American Psychological Association). Her research has also been cited by CNN, Court TV, the Death Penalty Information Center, The Economist, Inter Press Service News Agency, The New York Times, and U.S. News & World Report, as well as various state and local media outlets. Dr. Butler has conducted research for numerous high-profile trials, but currently devotes her litigation consulting practice to defense work. Her primary consulting foci are jury selection, change-of-venue, and mitigation expertise. Dr. Butler also serves as a consultant for The Innocence Project of Florida. Dr. Butler is a nationally-recognized expert on death qualification. She has provided expert testimony in the following capital trials: FL v. Davis, FL v. Henderson, FL v. Johnston, FL. v. King, FL v. Lugo, FL v. Murphy, FL v. Ross, FL v. Smith, and NH v. Brooks. Dr. Butler has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses at Florida International University, New College of Florida, the University of North Florida, and the University of South Florida-Sarasota. Journal Articles: Butler, B. (2008). Caveats of the death-qualified jury: Ways capital defense attorneys can use psycholegal research to their advantage. The Jury Expert, 20(1), 10-22. Butler, B. (2008). The role of death qualification in venirepersons' susceptibility to victim impact statements. Psychology, Crime, and Law, 14(2), 133-141. Butler, B. (2007). Death qualification and prejudice: The effect of implicit racism, sexism, and homophobia on capital defendants' right to due process. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 25(6), 857-867. Butler, B. (2007). The role of death qualification in capital trials involving juvenile defendants. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 37(3), 549-560. Butler, B. (2007). The role of death qualification in jurors' susceptibility to pretrial publicity. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 37(1), 115-123. Butler, B. (2006). Jurors' attitudes toward post-sentence civil commitment. American Journal of Forensic Psychology, 24(2), 21-30. Butler, B. (2006). NGRI revisited: Venirepersons' attitudes toward the insanity defense. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 36(8), 1833-1847. Butler, B. & Moran, G. (2009). Is “more” mitigation “better?” A comparison of the additive and averaging models in capital cases. American Journal of Forensic Psychology, 27(1), 57-70. Butler, B. & Moran, G. (2007). The impact of death qualification, belief in a just world, legal authoritarianism, and locus of control on venirepersons' evaluations of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in capital trials. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 25(1), 57-68. Butler, B. & Moran, G. (2007). The role of death qualification and need for cognition in venirepersons' evaluations of expert scientific testimony in capital trials. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 25(4), 561-571. Butler, B. & Moran, G. (2002). The role of death qualification in venirepersons' evaluations of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in capital trials. Law and Human Behavior, 26(2), 175-184. Butler, B. & Wasserman, A. W. (2006). The role of death qualification in venirepersons' attitudes toward the insanity defense. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 36(7), 1744-1757. Other Publications: Butler, B. (2008). Racial bias and the death penalty. In B. L. Cutler's Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Butler, B. (2008). Victim impact statements. In B. L. Cutler's Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Butler, B. (2006). Social science and the death penalty. [Review of the book Death by design: Capital punishment as a social psychological system]. American Psychology-Law Society News, 26(3), 12-13.

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