NCJ Number
79161
Journal
San Diego Law Review Volume: 14 Issue: 5 Dated: (1977) Pages: 1058-1082
Date Published
1977
Length
25 pages
Annotation
Findings are presented from a survey of jurors serving in trials that had insanity defenses to determine their perceptions of the consequences of a not-guilty verdict and the impact this had on their verdict decision.
Abstract
Questionnaires were mailed to all jurors who had deliberated on a not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity (NGI) plea in San Diego County, Calif., trials between August 1972, and August 1976. There were 10 such trials in the 4-year period. Of the 106 jurors who received the questionnaire, 52 responded. The overwhelming majority of respondents indicated that their jury had not discussed the NGI consequences, that the jurors' own beliefs about NGI consequences did not affect their individual judgments on the insanity issue, and that they did not know or did not believe that a consideration of NGI consequences affected the judgments of other jurors regarding the insanity issue. These findings, however, cannot be considered conclusive because of the ambiguity of the data. For example, in 7 of the 10 trials, jurors disagreed with each other on whether an NGI-consequences discussion had occurred. The data confirm the conclusion of a previous study that most jurors who have not been instructed on the NGI consequences assume correctly that the NGI verdict results in mental institution confinement. A significant majority of the respondents feel that jurors should not be informed of the NGI consequences and should not discuss this in deciding the insanity issue. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future studies in this area are discussed. Tabular data, 47 footnotes, and a sample questionnaire are provided.