THE FUSE

As a career prosecutor, I have previously written about whether “looks could kill” and the tendency within the criminal justice system to jump to conclusions about the guilt of a criminal defendant simply by looking.[i] In daily life, we make assessments as well about each new person we meet. Simply by looking at the face, we decide whether a person is positive and warm, or negative and potentially threatening; very important information. And we are apparently better at making these assessments than we think.