How Defendants' Mental Illness Type and Juror Attitudes About Mental Illness Impact Case Verdicts

The Fifth Amendment protects due process, which ensures that everyone has a fair trial. When external factors influence verdicts, the integrity of the courtroom is at risk. The stigma surrounding mental illness may be an external factor impacting verdicts, which limits the fairness of the trial. The purpose of the study was to determine if the type of mental illness the defendant was diagnosed with had an impact on case verdicts, even if the insanity defense was not being plead. The study also investigated how mock juror stigma was related to perceptions of dangerousness and their desire to social distance from people diagnosed with mental illness. Three hypotheses were examined within the study: (1) defendants with schizophrenia and defendants with bipolar disorder will receive a higher percentage of guilty verdicts in comparison to defendants with depression and defendants with obsessive-compulsive disorder; (2) participants will report higher perceived dangerousness and desire to social distance from defendants with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder compared to obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression; (3) the participants perceptions of dangerousness and their desire to social distance from the defendant will be correlated with general stigma towards people with mental illness.<p></p>