Mental health in the courtroom: how victim mental health status impacts juror decision-making in a rape case

ABSTRACT

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of victim mental illness on legal decision-making in a rape trial using a 3 (victim mental health status: schizophrenia, depression, no illness) x 2 (participant gender: female, male) between-subjects design. Participants (N = 270) read a rape trial summary in which the victim’s mental illness was manipulated. They were then asked to render a verdict and answer questions about their perceptions of the victim and defendant. The results indicated that participants were more pro-victim in the control and depression conditions compared to the schizophrenia condition. It was also found that victim mental health status indirectly affected verdict through perceptions of victim credibility, victim sympathy, and victim mental health severity. Female participants were also found to be more pro-victim than male participants. Lastly, the cognitive network models demonstrated that victim mental health status was a primary factor in participant decision-making in the schizophrenia condition for not-guilty verdicts. The results demonstrate that mock juror perceptions and decision-making were impacted more so by the type of victim mental illness, rather than the presence of a psychological disorder alone. Implications are discussed in terms of reducing stigmatizing attitudes towards those with mental illness in court.

KEYWORDS:

• Rape
• jury decision-making
• schizophrenia
• depression
• stigma

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University of Kentucky Institutional Review Board (approval number 43723) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Data availability statement

Study data and materials made may be obtained from the corresponding author upon request.

Notes

1 For the purpose of this paper, terms such as ‘mental illness,’ ‘mental health,’ and ‘mental disorder’ reflect their definitions in the individually cited papers. We define mental illness as any disorder meeting criteria for any Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5) diagnosis, including substance use disorders (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013).

2 It should be noted that the maximum phrase length that can be input into the software is three words.

3 Study data and materials may be obtained upon request from corresponding author.

4 Contact the corresponding author for figures of the victim sympathy and victim mental health severity indirect effects models.