The Defense Dyad: Introducing a Concept for Attributional Bias in Legal Settings

The courtroom is a high-stakes environment where jurors and judges are expected to evaluate evidence objectively. However, well-established psychological biases from social cognition research may infiltrate legal decision-making processes. This paper introduces the Defense Dyad, a perceptual and cognitive phenomenon in which the defendant and their defense attorney are automatically perceived as a unified entity, leading to systematic attributional spillover—the unconscious transfer of perceived qualities from attorney to defendant. Drawing on empirically validated principles of entitativity (the perception of multiple individuals as a cohesive unit) and the halo effect (where impressions in one area influence judgments in unrelated areas), this concept highlights how attorney characteristics systematically influence defendant perceptions through representational dominance—a cognitive state where the more vocal, active attorney overshadows the defendant's individual characteristics in observers' mental representations. The paper outlines theoretical foundations, operational mechanisms, and implications of the Defense Dyad, emphasizing the need for empirical research to understand its effects and develop bias mitigation strategies. Policy implications include Trial Bias Screening protocols, enhanced jury instruction frameworks, and systematic courtroom procedure reforms to ensure evidence-based rather than bias-driven legal decisions.