Professional Documents
Culture Documents
This research was funded by a grant from the Office of the Provost, Florida International
University, to Brian Cutler. We thank Barry Crown, Irene Prager, and Albert and Carmen
Gayoso for assistance with the videotaped trial, and Soloman Fulero and David Kravitz for
comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. Address correspondence and requests for
reprints to Brian Cutler, Department of Psychology, Florida International University, North
Miami Campus, North Miami, FL 33181, or CUTLERBL@SERVAX.
165
0092-6566l92 $5 .OO
Copyright Q 1992 by Academic Press, Inc.
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
166 CUTLER, MORAN, AND NARBY
STUDY 1
A juror selection survey involves telephone interviews with community
residents wherein respondents listen to a case scenario, render verdicts,
and are then queried about their attitudes and demographics. While this
methodology is clearly limited in the realistic simulation of a trial, it does
provide an opportunity to sample from a wide variety of respondents.
Studies 2 and 3 retest the hypotheses using more realistic trial simulations.
The primary predictors examined in Study 1 are Kassin and Wrights-
man’s (1983) Juror Bias Scale, three single-item attitude measures (psy-
chiatrists, insanity defense, and death penalty), and demographic infor-
mation. In light of Gallun and Kassin’s results, we predict that high scorers
on the JBS, that is, subjects high in legal authoritarianism, are less likely
to acquit a defendant by reason of insanity than are low scorers. In the
case scenario adopted here, the psychiatric testimony is presented in sup-
port of the defendant’s plea of insanity. Therefore, we predict that subjects
with negative attitudes toward psychiatrists and the insanity defense, as
compared with subjects with more positive attitudes, will be less likely
to acquit a defendant by reason of insanity. Analyses of demographic
predictors are largely exploratory.
Method
The survey, The survey consisted of 39 questions that can be classified into four types of
individual difference variables: (1) a case scenario and verdict, (2) case-relevant attitudes,
(3) legal authoritarian attitudes, and (4) demographics. The format of the case scenario was
as follows.
The case involves a defendant who is charged with beating and stabbing his girlfriend to
death. The prosecution charged first degree murder and the defense pleaded not guilty by
reason of insanity. Other significant facts mentioned were: (1) After committing the crime,
the defendant disposed of the murder weapon and his blood-stained clothes; (2) A police
officer testified that 1 week prior to the murder, the victim called the police and told them
that her boyfriend, the defendant, had threatened to kill her if he found out that she was
seeing another man; (3) A distinguished psychiatrist, testifying for the defense, claimed that
the defendant had been seeing psychiatrists and psychologists since he was 15 years old and
that he spent 6 months in the mental health unit of a state hospital. According to the
psychiatrist, the defendant suffers from a delusional paranoid disorder, has a long history
of alcohol abuse, and was possibly experiencing alcoholic hallucinosis as a result of his
recent withdrawal from alcohol; (4) A friend of the defendant testified that he had been
with the defendant several hours before the murder. He claimed that the defendant was
acting strange. He could not carry on a conversation, he was sweating profusely, and he
complained that he was having terrible headaches; (5) A distinguished psychiatrist, appearing
for the prosecution, testified that while the defendant has a long history of alcohol abuse
and blackouts, he does not appear to be suffering from a major mental disorder. However,
there is some evidence to suggest that he may have had some type of paranoid disorder
prior to the offense. The scenario was 413 words in length. In order to maximize respondents’
attention and comprehension of the scenario, they were asked to render preliminary verdicts
five times within the scenario (after each new set of facts was presented). After hearing all
the evidence respondents issued final verdicts (NGRI or Guilty). As a method of counter-
JURY SELECTION 169
balancing two versions of the survey were used. In one version the prosecution evidence
was heard last, and in the other version the defense evidence was heard last. In an effort
to keep the survey brief, the legal definition of insanity and other information typically
available in judge’s instructions were not included.
The second section concerns respondents’ legal authoritarian attitudes. Items 7 to 23
consisted of Kassin and Wrightsman’s (1983) JBS (minus the filler items). The JBS has two
subscales. The Probability of Commission subscale (8 items) assessesthe tendency to assume
guilt based on the fact that the defendant is on trial (“If a suspect runs from the police,
then he probably committed the crime”). The Reasonable Doubt (9 items) subscale assesses
individual differences in the extent of doubt required in order to acquit a defendant (“A
defendant should be found guilty if 11 out of 12 vote guilty”). The subscales are highly
correlated but are separable via factor analysis (see Kassin & Wrightsman, 1983). Item 24
assessed attitudes toward the insanity defense: “Every sane individual is responsible for his
every action.” Item 25 assessed attitudes toward psychiatrists as expert witnesses: “I don’t
put much faith in the testimony of psychiatrists.” Responses to Items 7 through 25 were
recorded as strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, or strongly agree.
The third section assessed demographics and contained one attitude item. The questions
concerned age (Item 26), education (Item 27) political attitudes (liberal, slightly liberal,
slightly conservative, or conservative; Item 28) political party affiliation (Item 29) race
(Item 30), marital status (Item 31) number of children (Item 32), annual household income
(Item 33) employment status (Item 34) occupation (Item 35) spouse’s occupation (Item
36), membership in social organizations (Item 37), experience as a victim of crime (Item
38), and sex (Item 39).
Telephone interviewers. Students in an upper-level Legal Psychology course participated
as interviewers in exchange for extra credit applicable toward the course grade. Each
interviewer participated in a 2-h standard training session. The training session involved a
lecture about general survey research, explicit instructions about survey behavior, and prac-
tice with the survey instrument.
Sample. Interviewers were given an algorithm for randomly selecting telephone numbers
from their local directories in such a manner as to include unlisted numbers. Interviews
were completed with 150 persons.’
’ The characteristics of the sample (N = 150) are as follows: Sex: male = 43%. female
= 57%; Age: 18-30 = 39%, 31-40 = 24%, 41-50 = 4%, 51-60 = lo%, above 60 =
13%; Education: no high school = 3%, some high school = 7%, high school graduate =
21%, some college = 42%, college graduate = 15%, postgraduate degree = 13%; Political
Attitudes: liberal = 18%, slightly liberal = 29%) slightly conservative = 29%) conservative
= 23%; Political Party Affiliation: democrat = 46%, republican = 48%, other = 6%;
Race: white = 41%, black = 16%, hispanic = 40%, other = 3%; Marital Status: married
= 41%, remarried = 3%, divorced = 13%, separated = 3%, widowed = 5%, single =
35%; Number of Children: 0 = 43%, 1 = 19%, 2 = 24%, 3 or more = 15%; Income:
less than $20k = 23%, 20-30k = 26%, 30-50k = 21%, 45-60k = 16%, 60-75k = 6%.
more than 75k = 9%; Employment Status: full time = 77%, parttime = 11%. occasionally
employed = 2%, retired = 10%; Belong to Social Organizations = 20%; Previously Victim
of Crime = 41%.
170 CUTLER, MORAN, AND NARBY
TABLE 1
RE.wL~~ OF STEPWISE REGRESSION
Zero-order Semipartial
Variable r r
STUDY 2
Study 2 attempts to augment and extend Study 1 in three ways. First,
rather than using a survey, we created a videotaped enactment of an
insanity defense trial and used a mock-jury paradigm. While mock-jury
studies can still suffer from external validity, they are more ecologically
valid analogues of trials than is the survey methodology. Second, two
different measuresof legal authoritarian attitudes are employed and com-
pared. Third, multiple dependent measures are examined. While Study
2 improves on Study 1 with respect to external validity of stimulus ma-
terials, measuresof legal authoritarian attitudes, and dependent measures,
it is limited in its use of college undergraduates as subjects. The sample
3 With respect to race, one-way ANOVAs were first conducted and then single df contrasts
were formed based on inspection of the means.
172 CUTLER, MORAN, AND NARBY
Method
Subjects were 61 undergraduates enrolled in an introductory psychology course at Florida
International University who received extra course credit in exchange for their participation.
They first completed questionnaires containing, in this order, demographic and attitude
items (i.e., sex, age, race, marital status, number of children, level of education, political
party affiliation, political attitudes, and prior criminal and civil jury service), the JBS, and
Boehm’s (1968) Legal Authoritarianism Questionnaire (LAQ).’
The LAQ is used here as a 304tem unidimensional scale.’ Sample items are: “Too many
obviously guilty persons escape punishment because of legal technicalities” and “Citizens
need to be protected against excess police power as well as against criminals.” Each item
is rated on a scale ranging from “strongly disagree” (score of 0) to “strongly agree” (score
of 6). Higher scores indicate legal authoritarianism. The same coding procedure was used
for the JBS.
Subjects then viewed the videotaped trial. Like the survey’s case scenario, the defendant
was charged with murder and his defense was not guilty by reason of insanity. The fact
pattern differed substantially from the survey. The primary evidence against the defendant
was the testimony of the arresting officer, who read to the court, verbatim, the statement
given by the defendant at the scene of the crime. This statement was pretested so as to
appear ambiguous with respect to the defendant’s sanity. The officer’s testimony suggested
that the defendant was not insane at the time of the crime. A psychiatrist testified for the
defense. In accordance with federal law, the psychiatrist did not offer an ultimate opinion
about whether the defendant was legally insane. He diagnosed the defendant as suffering
from a delusional paranoid disorder and a long history of alcohol abuse and possibly ex-
periencing alcoholic hallucinosis as a result of his recent withdrawal from alcohol (the same
diagnosis used in Study 1). The trial followed the format of an actual trial, beginning with
opening statements, examination and cross-examination of witnesses, closing arguments,
’ The demographic breakdown of the sample is as follows: Sex: male = 2X4%, female =
72%; Age: 17-29 = 92%, 30-39 = 8%; Race: white = 30%, black = 13%, Hispanic =
56%, other = 1%; Marital Status: single = 90%, divorced = 5%, married = 5%.
’ The LAQ, as proposed by Boehm, consisted of three subscales (Authoritarianism, Anti-
authoritarianism, and Egalitarianism) and used a tripartite forced choice response format.
Each item consisted of one authoritarian, one anti-authoritarian, and one equalitarian item.
The subject then ranks the three items for level of agreement. Our experience with the
LAQ, in its original format, is that subjects find the response format difficult and frequently
rank items improperly. In contrast, when the statements are treated as separate items with
Likert rating scales and (scored as civil libertarianism v. legal authoritarianism) and aggre-
gated, they demonstrate internal consistency and correlate significantly with verdict (Moran
& Comfort, 1982; Moran & Cutler, 1989).
JURY SELECTION 173
and standard judge’s instructionsh It was filmed in the moot courtroom of the University
of Miami Law School. Local attorneys appeared in their roles. The psychiatrist was played
by an experienced forensic clinical psychologist from Miami. The judge, whose role was
ceremonial, was portrayed by a professor, and the remaining roles were played by colleagues.
The trial lasted approximately 30 min (no objections, recesses, etc.).
Immediately following the trial, subjects privately completed questionnaires containing
an item assessing verdict (Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity or Guilty) and 27 items measuring
juror reactions. These items were verdict confidence; credibility of the police officer; im-
portance of the defendant’s statement; the strength of evidence against the defendant; the
extent to which the psychiatrist was credible, convincing, understandable, and helpful; the
defendant’s degree of insanity; the extent to which the defendant’s behavior was a product
of mental illness; the extent to which he appreciated the nature and quality or the wrong-
fulness of his act; the extent to which the defendant understood the difference between
right and wrong; the extent to which the defendant should be blamed or held responsible
for the incident (separate items); sympathy for the defendant; helpfulness of the judge’s
instructions; how often the insanity defense is justified; and skills of the prosecution and
defense lawyers. Mixed in with these items were seven questions assessing memory for the
expert’s testimony and judge’s instructions. Questions about the psychiatrist concerned his
credentials, his diagnosis (two questions), and whether he gave an ultimate opinion. Ques-
tions about the judge’s instructions concerned whether the medical and legal definitions of
insanity are the same, whether the defense has to prove insanity, and, if so, the burden of
proof. Responses were recorded on 7-point (0 to 6) rating scales with appropriate anchors.
6 The judge’s instructions contained the following definition of the insanity defense: A
person is insane when the person is in a state of natural imbecility or has a disease of the
mind to the extent that renders him incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of an
act or omission or of knowing that an act or omission is wrong. A person who has specific
delusions but is “in other respects sane, shall not be acquitted on the grounds of insanity
unless the delusions caused him to believe in the existence of a state of things that if it
existed would have justified or excused his act or omission. Everyone shall, until the contrary
is proven, be presumed to be and to have been sane.”
174 CUTLER, MORAN, AND NARBY
TABLE 3
CORRELATES WITH MEASURES OF LEGAL AUTHORITARIANISM
M SD PC RD LAQ
Predeliberation verdict 30 .41 .29* .06 .30*
Verdict confidence 4.44 1.36 -.I2 -.09 .13
Credibility of police officer 5.00 1.00 -.I9 -.16 .Ol
Importance of defendant’s statement 4.80 1.22 .12 .12 .25a
Credibility of psychiatrist 2.97 1.62 -.16 .04 - .26*
Understandability of psychiatrist 3.48 1.60 -.08 .oo - .22a
Convincingness of psychiatrist 2.31 1.65 -.18 -.02 - .29*
Helpfulness of psychiatrist 3.26 1.59 - .08 -.16 .05
Defendant’s degree of insanity 2.07 1.67 - .29* -.07 - .33**
Defendant’s behavior a product of mental 2.18 1.70 - .29* -.lO - .40**
illness
Defendant appreciate nature and quality 3.64 1.84 .08 -.04 .31*
or wrongfulness of his act
Defendant understand difference between 4.55 1.58 .26* -.05 .40*
right and wrong
Should defendant be blamed for incident 4.84 1.31 .38** - .Ol .34**
Should defendant be held responsible for 4.87 1.46 .32* SK3 .35**
incident
Sympathy for defendant 1.25 1.47 .02 - .28* -.12
Strength of evidence against defendant 4.23 1.67 .06 -.lO .03
Helpfulness of judge’s instructions 3.58 1.65 -.lO -.05 -.15
How often is insanity defense justified 2.97 1.18 -.31* -.13 - .35**
Skill of prosecution lawyer 4.18 1.31 -.I3 .Ol .03
Skill of defense lawyer 1.92 1.37 .02 -.15 - .29*
PC 24.47 6.74 .31* .25
RD 24.75 6.55 .43*
LAQ 95.47 17.45
Note. a = p < .lO; * = p < .05; ** = p < .Ol; PC, Probability of Commission Scale;
RD. Reasonable Doubt Scale; LAQ, Legal Authoritarian Questionnaire.
’ This finding can be interpreted as showing that a substantial proportion of our subjects
misinterpreted the psychiatrist’s testimony. Some clarification is therefore needed. The
psychiatrist in this trial did not offer an “ultimate opinion” meaning that he did not explicity
state his opinion on whether “the accused was capable of judging between right and wrong”
or whether “the accused acted under an insane delusion or was impelled by an irrepressible
impulse” (Rogers & Ewing, 1989, p. 359). Nevertheless, it is not difficult to infer the
psychiatrist’s opinion based on the content of his testimony. Thus, rather than concluding
that most subjects misinterpreted the psychiatrist’s testimony, it may be that most inferred
his opinion from his testimony but incorrectly recalled that the opinion was explicity stated.
176 CUTLER, MORAN, AND NARBY
tween the RD scale and the LAQ. Thus, it is questionable whether these
scales are assessing the same underlying construct.
Whether or not the different scales assessing legal authoritarianism are
measuring the same construct, the LAQ demonstrated the strongest pat-
tern of predictive relations with the dependent measures. We therefore
recommend it over the PC and RD scales for studies of insanity defense
cases. Further research geared toward construct validity might determine
which measure is more closely associated with the construct of legal au-
thoritarianism. It is also possible that a newly devised measure could
outperform both existing ones.
It is interesting to note that legal authoritarianism is more strongly
related to mock-juror decisions and inferences based on the trial testimony
than it is to memory for testimony. Indeed, there was no evidence that
legal authoritarian attitude was associated to memory for testimony. Thus,
to the extent that the effect of legal authoritarian attitudes on verdicts is
mediated through the processing of trial information, the nature of the
mediation is through the evaluation of, rather than attention to, trial
information. While data from Study 2 are suggestive that inferences drawn
from the trial information may mediate the relation between legal au-
thoritarianism and verdicts, they provide for a poor test in that the in-
ference measures were assessed after the verdict. Rather than inferences
affecting verdict, it may have been the case that inferences on the various
dependent measures were affected by the verdict rendered.
STUDY 3
Study 1 showed that the single-item measure of attitudes toward psy-
chiatrists significantly predicted verdict but that the single-item measure
of attitudes toward the insanity defense was a nonsignificant predictor.
Results involving single-item measures, however, are suspect because their
reliability is unknown. In Study 3 we developed a lo-item measure of
attitudes toward psychiatrists as well as toward the insanity defense and
tested its internal consistency, factor structure, and correlation with ver-
dict. As in Study 1, we predicted that subjects with negative attitudes
toward psychiatrists and the insanity defense, as compared with subjects
having more positive attitudes, will be less likely to entertain a defendant’s
defense of insanity.
Method
Attitudes towardpsychiatrists and the insanity defense scale. A large pool of items assessing
both attitude dimensions was inspected, and 10 items that seemed most face valid were
selected. Four items related to attitudes toward psychiatrists (one negatively keyed) and 6
were face valid assessments of attitudes toward the insanity defense (one negatively keyed).
The attitudes toward psychiatrists item from Study 1 was retained as one of the scale items.
Item responses were recorded on 7-point scales anchored with “Strongly Disagree” (0) and
JURY SELECTION 177
“Strongly Agree” (6). A higher score indicates more negative attitudes toward psychiatrists
and the insanity defense. The scale is displayed in Table 4.
Subjects and procedures. Sixty-two undergraduates at Florida International University,
who earned extra course credit for their participation in this study, first completed a ques-
tionnaire containing the Attitudes toward Psychiatrists and the Insanity Defense Scale in
addition to some demographic items.’ Subjects then watched the videotaped insanity defense
trial described in Study 2 and rendered a verdict.
a The demographic breakdown of the sample is as follows: Sex; male = 37%, female =
63%; Age: 17-20 = 77%, 21-30 = 21%, 31-50 = 2%; Race: white = 40%, black =
18%, Hispanic = 23%, Asian = lo%, other = 10%; Marital Status: married = 5%, single
= 95%.
’ Unit weighting of the items creates a correlation of .54 between the factors.
TABLE 4
THE ATTITUDES TOWARD PSYCHIATRISTS AND THE INSANITY DEFENSE QUESTIONNAIRE:
STUDY 3
Note. (n), negatively keyed items. * = p < .05. Mean and standard deviation were 41.60
and 9.88 for the full scale, 13.50 and 4.09 for the Attitudes toward Psychiatrists Factor,
and 28.10 and 7.05 for the Attitudes toward the Insanity Defense Factor.
178
JURY SELECTION 179
GENERAL DISCUSSION
To summarize what we have learned thus far, Study 1 taught us that
legal authoritarian attitudes and attitudes toward psychiatrists are likely
to be important factors in insanity defense cases. Although Study 1 can
be credited with relying on a diverse population affordable through survey
methodology, it is limited in several important respects. It is unclear to
what degree telephone survey respondents’ evaluation of a brief crime
scenario corresponds to a juror’s task. Answering questions during a
telephone survey may not invoke similar normative and/or cognitive pro-
cesses as does evaluating trial evidence. Study 1 used only one measure
of legal authoritarianism and single-item measures of attitudes toward
” It is interesting to note that of the three items that had the corrected item-total cor-
relations that were less than .30 in magnitude, all three produced correlations above .20
and two produced significant correlations. This finding argues in favor of retaining these
items even if their corrected item-total correlations are somewhat lower than the others.
180 CUTLER, MORAN, AND NARBY
but will also allow for a greater opportunities for the attorney to educate
jurors about the charge and the law (Penrod & Linz, 1984).
In 1989 Alabama Senator Howell Heflin introduced legislation to re-
quire judges to allow attorneys at least 30 min to address and question
the jury during voir dire. The legislation was not passed. Perhaps through
further research more data can be brought to bear on the importance of
information obtainable in extended voir dire for identifying biased jurors.
The current research shows that extended voir dire would benefit de-
fendants in insanity defense cases, and other research cited above shows
that it would benefit defendants in a variety of other cases, as well. These
findings support that segment of the judiciary that encourages extensive
voir dire (Hittner, 1989).
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