The Role of Death Qualification in Venirepersons' Attitudes Toward the Insanity Defense¹

Abstract

Three hundred venirepersons from the 12 th Judicial Circuit in Florida completed a booklet of stimulus materials that contained the following: one question that specified participants' level of support for the death penalty; one Witt death-qualification question; a case scenario that included a summary of the guilt and penalty phases of a capital case; verdict and sentencing preferences; a 16-item measure that required participants to rate their receptiveness to the insanity defense on a 6-point Likert scale; and standard demographic questions. Results indicated that deathqualified venirepersons, when compared to excludables, were more likely to endorse certain insanity myths, find the defendant guilty, and sentence the defendant to death. Legal implications are discussed.

The impact of death qualification, belief in a just world, legal authoritarianism, and locus of control on venirepersons' evaluations of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in capital trials

“…The present findings replicate an earlier body of research that concluded that the process of death qualification results in the seating of differentially partial jurors (Luginbuhl, 1992;Diamond, 1993;Wiener, Prichard, & Weston, 1995;Lynch & Haney, 2000;Butler & Moran, 2002;Butler & Wasserman, 2006). In addition, the current study extends previous findings by demonstrating that simply selecting a jury for a capital case systematically excludes certain personality types while systematically including others.…”

The role of death qualification and need for cognition in venirepersons' evaluations of expert scientific testimony in capital trials

“…The present findings replicate an earlier body of research that concluded that the process of death qualification results in the seating of differentially partial jurors (Butler & Moran, 2002;Butler & Wasserman, 2006;Diamond, 1993;Luginbuhl, 1992;Lynch & Haney, 2000;Wiener, Prichard, & Weston, 1995). In addition, the current study extends previous findings by demonstrating that simply selecting a jury for a capital case systematically excludes people who have the ability and/or motivation to effectively evaluate expert scientific testimony.…”

Measuring Attitudes toward the Insanity Defense in Venirepersons: Refining the IDA-R in the Evaluation of Juror Bias1

“…Given the high stakes (e.g., prison versus mental health hospital) associated with insanity verdicts, several studies have outlined variables that support negative opinions toward the insanity defense. These variables have included conservative political affiliations (Tygart, 1992), favorable opinions toward capital punishment (Butler & Wasserman, 2006;Poulson, Wuensch, Brown, & Braithwaite, 1997), and greater misperception of insanity defense use and success (Bloechl et al, 2007).…”