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Pretrial Attitudes and Their Influence on Interpretation of Case Evidence and Mock Juror Decision-Making in Insanity Defense Cases

Gonzales, Justine M. L.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1528310814095725

Abstract Details

2017, BA, Oberlin College, Psychology.
Pretrial attitudes (attitudes held preceding any case-specific information) towards the insanity defense are known to influence jurors’ decision-making about a case. However, the impact of pre-trial attitude on decisions across different types of evidence was an open question that the present study addressed. Through Amazon Mechanical Turk, participants indicated their pretrial support for the insanity defense. Participants served as mock jurors and rated the likelihood of giving the defendant not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) as well as perceived responsibility for the defendant’s actions; they gave these ratings after introducing seven different pieces of evidence (baseline case vignette, mother hospitalized for schizophrenia, defendant abused as child, defendant testimony to delusions, psychological evaluation diagnosing defendant with schizophrenia, comorbid substance abuse, brain scans supporting schizophrenia diagnosis). Pretrial attitudes had a significant effect on mock jurors’ ratings, with those in the low-support group being significantly less likely than the those with higher support to give the defendant NGRI. There was also a significant interaction between attitude groups and type of evidence. Both the effect of attitude group and the interaction between evidence type and attitude group were significant for responsibility ratings as well. The results of this study have important implications for insanity defense trials, and highlight the importance of how pretrial attitudes and different types of evidence, as well as how pretrial attitudes interact with types of evidence, influence the likelihood of a mock juror giving a defendant NGRI.
Patty deWinstanley (Advisor)
Cynthia McPherson Frantz (Committee Member)
Sarah Rabbitt (Committee Member)
41 p.
Psychology
Not guilty by reason of insanity; NGRI; insanity defense; legal insanity; fair trial; legal psychology; pretrial attitudes; juror decision-making; evidence type;

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Gonzales, J. M. L. (2017). Pretrial Attitudes and Their Influence on Interpretation of Case Evidence and Mock Juror Decision-Making in Insanity Defense Cases [Undergraduate thesis, Oberlin College]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1528310814095725

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Gonzales, Justine. Pretrial Attitudes and Their Influence on Interpretation of Case Evidence and Mock Juror Decision-Making in Insanity Defense Cases . 2017. Oberlin College, Undergraduate thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1528310814095725.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Gonzales, Justine. "Pretrial Attitudes and Their Influence on Interpretation of Case Evidence and Mock Juror Decision-Making in Insanity Defense Cases ." Undergraduate thesis, Oberlin College, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1528310814095725

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

oberlin1528310814095725
322
© 2017, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Pretrial Attitudes and Their Influence on Interpretation of Case Evidence and Mock Juror Decision-Making in Insanity Defense Cases by Justine M. L. Gonzales is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Oberlin College Honors Theses and OhioLINK.