The Insanity Defense: A Comparison of Verdict Schemas

Changing the legal test definition of insanity remains the remedy of choice when insanity outcomes appear problematic, despite empirical studies showing no significant differences among tests. An alternative strategy suggests changing the verdict schema, although critics contend that jurors will rea...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Law and human behavior 1991-10, Vol.15 (5), p.533-555
Main Author: Finkel, Norman J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adjudication
Criminal culpability
Decision Making
Defendants
Disabilities
Guilty verdicts
Human
Insanity Defense
Insanity defenses
Juries
Jurors
Legal judgments
Mental illness
Modeling
Schema
Statistical variance
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Summary:Changing the legal test definition of insanity remains the remedy of choice when insanity outcomes appear problematic, despite empirical studies showing no significant differences among tests. An alternative strategy suggests changing the verdict schema, although critics contend that jurors will reach compromise verdicts that are unconscionable and incoherent. Undergraduate subjects (N = 179) rendered insanity verdicts and ratings for four insanity cases using one of four different verdict schemas: a traditional two-choice schema, a three-choice schema (DR) without instructions, a three-choice schema (GBMI) with instructions, and a sequential schema proposed by Finkel (1988) that separately assesses different types of culpability. When internal consistency measures between verdicts and broad ratings and specific construct ratings of the defendant were examined, the sequential schema produced the highest internal consistency, reducing the most error variance and yielding the highest prediction criterion of any of the schemas.
ISSN:0147-7307
1573-661X
DOI:10.1007/BF01650293