Does the Onset Controllability of Diagnostic Labels Affect the Perceived Appropriateness of an Insanity Verdict?¹

Abstract

The present study attempted to look at reactions to an insanity verdict by asking participants to rate the appropriateness of an insanity verdict already handed down by a jury. A sample of 196 adults read a short vignette describing the defendant's crime, a courtappointed psychiatrist's diagnosis, and a jury's verdict (guilty; or not guilty by reason of insanity, NGRI). Using Weiner's (1995) responsibility model, it was predicted and found that an insanity verdict was deemed less appropriate when the defendant was construed to have an onset controllable disorder. Path analyses indicate that onset controllability, responsibility judgments, and affective reactions do not account for the perceived appropriateness of guilty and NGRI verdicts in the same way.

Jurors’ reactions to recanted confessions: Do the defendant's personal and dispositional characteristics play a role?

“…Consistent with the current findings and with prior work showing greater perceived controllability over certain mental disorders than illnesses that are perceived as having genetic or biological roots ( Van 't Veer et al, 2006) and with work showing greater negativity to mentally ill defendants (Edens et al, 2004), especially those whose mental disorders were viewed as controllable (Doyon, 2000; see also Mitchell, 1999), it may be that people are harsher in their judgments involving factors that they believe they would not succumb to (e.g. someone's reactions to leading questions, repeated assertions of guilt, anxiety, offers of leniency, and sleep deprivation), whereas factors viewed as beyond an individual's control (e.g.…”

“…In addition, this study focused on only one main psychological vulnerability to false confessions, namely stress and anxiety, and thus the circumstances surrounding the confession that were manipulated were far from exhaustive of the many factors known to be involved in actual cases of false confessions. Future research is needed to investigate potential jurors' perception of factors in cases of disputed confessions such as the defendant's age (Drizin & Colgan, 2004;Owen-Kostelnik, Reppucci, & Meyer, 2006;Viljoen, Klaver, & Roesch, 2005), mental retardation (Brodsky & Bennett, 2005;Fulero & Everington, 2004;Redlich, 2004), personality variables such as antisocial tendencies and impulsivity (Gudjonsson, Sigurdsson, & Einarsson, 2004), as well as other mental disorders such as schizophrenia, psychotic disorders, and depression. Furthermore, the possibility that various mental conditions may differentially make one vulnerable to coerced confessions (e.g.…”

“…Attributing psychiatric problems to structural causes beyond a person's control and responsibility, such as genetic predisposition or other biological factors, alleviates some of the negative bias, but nonetheless many people believe the cause of mental disorders is often rooted in psychosocial factors over which individuals should be in control of and responsible for ( Van 't Veer, Kraan, Drosseart, & Modde, 2006). For example, mock jurors asked to judge the appropriateness of a 'not guilty by reason of insanity' verdict deemed the verdict less appropriate when a defendant's mental disorders were viewed as onset controllable (Doyon, 2000; see also Mitchell, 1999), and they viewed the risk of perceived dangerousness and future violence as greater in mentally ill individuals (Edens, Desforges, & Fernandez, 2004). Furthermore, a mental illness based defense has been found to be relatively ineffective in a study comparing different defense strategies on mock jurors' perceptions (White, 1987).…”