Description
Book SynopsisThirty years after it was first published, the issues raised in The Jury and the Defense of Insanity remain pertinent. Rita James Simon examines how motivated and competent juries are, how well jurors understand and follow judges' instructions, their understand-ing of expert testimony, and the extent to which their own backgrounds and experiences influence their decisions. Simon provides a rare opportunity to observe how jurors go about the process of deliberating and reaching a verdict by following them into the jury room and recording their deliberations. This pathbreaking study of jury room behavior provides compelling evidence of the effectiveness of our trial by jury system.
The Jury and the Defense of Insanity was the product of an experimental study con-ducted as part of the University of Chicago Jury Project. Over 1,000 jurors were chosen to participate, not as volunteers, but as part of their regular jury duty, in two experimental trials, on
Table of Contents
The Jury and The Defense of Insanity; Introduction to the Transaction Edition; I: History and Method; 1: The Defense of Insanity in English and American Courts: A Brief Review; 2: Experimental Juries— Method and Research Design; II: The Impact of the Experimental Variables on the Jury’s Verdict; 3: The Jury’s Response to Legal Rules in Defense of Insanity Trials; 4: The Jury’s Assessment of the Psychiatric Testimony; 5: The fury’s Response to the Commitment Instruction; III: The Influence of Social Status and Attitudes on the Jury’s Decisions; 6: Social Status Differences Among Jurors; 7: Jurors’ Attitudes Toward Mental Illness, Psychiatry, and Related Topics; IV: The Jury Deliberates; The Sound of the Jury; 1: A Look to the Future; 9: The Jurors’ Appraisal of Legal Rules; 10: Postscript: The Durham Rule in the Real World; 11: Summary and Concluding Remarks
