How jurors construe "insanity."

Abstract

Historically and currently, jurors who have rendered verdicts in insanity cases have themselves been criticized and maligned--accused of being simplistic and biased, of lacking understanding, and of disregarding or nullifying the judge's instructions. Are the critics right? In this study, 263 mock jurors (141 adults and 122 students) were asked to decide four insanity cases without instructions, using their own best judgment, and to identify the determinative facts for them, and the meaning of those facts. Those determinative factors were then categorized, using a seven construct schema for NGRI and guilty verdicts. The results show that jurors do make discriminations among cases in terms of constructs, and that these constructs are relevant, complex, and flexible; furthermore, the jurors' lay constructs of insanity are more complex than the legal constructs of insanity. The "simplism," it seems, lies not with the jurors but with the insanity tests.

Victim Blame in a Hate Crime Motivated by Sexual Orientation

“…Also of importance is the fact that the mock jurors used in this study were young college students, who may be more liberal in their decision making for these types of crimes than older individuals. However, in several experiments comparing judgments of student and nonstudent samples, Finkel and colleagues (c.f., Finkel & Duff, 1991;Finkel & Handel, 1989;Finkel, Hughes, Smith, & Hurabiell, 1994;Finkel, Hurabiell, & Hughes, 1993a, 1993bFinkel, Meister, & Lightfoot, 1991) found that although nonstudent samples tended to be older and more heterogeneous demographically, there were typically no differences in verdict or other factors at trial between student and non-student samples in jury simulation paradigms. Furthermore, all participants made statements regarding the facts of the case and none were excluded for containing incorrect information pertaining to the manipulations of the independent variable (i.e., participants understood the facts of the case).…”

Reputation and behavior of battered women who kill their partners: Do these variables negate self-defense?

“…Subjects were not selected randomly from juror lists due to the expectation that the questionnaire return rate from such a sample would be very low. Additionally, there have been a number of studies investigating questions about jury decision-making which have used both college students and adult populations, and which have not found differences between them (e.g., Finkel and Handel, 1988;Finkel and Handel, 1989;Fulero and Finkel, 1991;MacCoun and Kerr, 1988;and Roberts and Golding, 1991). Based on those findings, it was expected that judgments of the college students would be similar to jurors for this study.…”

The effects of neuroimaging and brain injury on insanity defenses

“…For example, jurors tend to use their own construct of what insanity is rather than the legal definition, with many focusing on the defendant's ability to understand the nature of their actions (Finkel & Handel, 1989;Roberts, Golding, & Fincham, 1987;Skeem & Golding, 2001). Jurors also focus on the ability of the defendant to discern moral right from wrong (Skeem & Golding, 2001).…”