The following quotes taken from Robert Cialdini (1988) Influence: Science and Practice (Second Edition) pages 160-163.

"Research has shown that we automatically assign to good-looking individuals such favourable traits as talent, kindess, honesty, and intelligence [...]. Furthermore, we make these judgement without being aware that physical attractiveness plays a role in the process. [...]"

"It now appears that, unless they have used their attractiveness to commit a crime (for example, a swindle), good-looking people are likely to receive highly favorable treatment in the legal system (Sigall & Ostrove, 1975). [...]"

Harold Sigall and Nancy Ostrove, Beautiful but Dangerous: Effects of Offender Attractiveness and Nature of the Crime on Juridic Judgment (Full Text PDF)

Journal ol Personality and Social Psychology

1975, Vol. 31, No. 3, 410-414

The physical attractiveness of a criminal defendant (attractive, unattractive,

no information) and the nature of the crime (attractiveness-related, attractiveness-

unrelated) were varied in a factorial design. After reading one of

the case accounts, subjects sentenced the defendant to a term of imprisonment.

An interaction was predicted: When the crime was unrelated to attractiveness

(burglary), subjects would assign more lenient sentences to the

attractive defendant than to the unattractive defendant; when the offense

was attractiveness-related (swindle), the attractive defendant would receive

harsher treatment. The results confirmed the predictions, thereby supporting

a cognitive explanation for the relationship between the physical attractiveness

of defendants and the nature of the judgments made against them.

"Other experiments have demonstrated that attractive people are more likely to obtain help when in need (Benson, Karabenic, & Lerner, 1976) and are more persuasive in changing the opinions of an audience (Chaiken, 1979). [...]"

"Research on elementary school children shows that adults view aggressive acts as less naughty when performed by an attractive child (Dion, 1972) and that teachers presume good-looking children to be more intelligent than their less-attractive classmates (Rich, 1975)."

Jordan Rich, "Effects of Children's Physical Attractiveness on Teachers' Evaluations"

Journal of Educational Psychology, 67, 5, 599-609, Oct 75

After viewing a photograph of an attractive or unattractive child and a vignette of possible misbehavior by that child, female teachers evaluated each student for blame, punishment and personality. Attractive children received better personality ratings than did unattractive. Unattractive girls were given more lenient punishments than unattractive boys.