Forensics Journal - Stevenson University 2010 | Page 21

FORENSICS JOURNAL

Incorrect or incomplete juror knowledge is also very dangerous when
potentially mentally ill defendants have been deemed competent to
stand trial, but assert a defense of “not criminally responsible due to
mental disease or defect.” Research has shown that although insanity
is a legal term, many people are surprised to discover that psychology
does not offer a definition of insanity upon which most psychologists
agree (Geiger & Weinstein, 2008, p. 990). Currently, at least seven
separate definitions of insanity exist, so when twelve individuals are
placed in a jury box and asked to determine whether or not a defendant should be acquitted due to insanity, it is very likely each juror is
working with a different idea and definition of what it means to be
insane. According to research, even if jurors are given a precise definition of insanity for use to judge the evidence and testimony they hear
during trial, their interpretation of the information presented is likely
to be influenced by the definition they bring with them to the courtroom (Geiger & Weinstein, 2008, p. 990). Since roughly 9.5 percent
of the population of American adults suffer from a mood disorder,
a sizeable number of potential jurors have their own personal working definition of mental illness (National Institute of Mental Health
[NIMH], 2009). If practicing psychiatrists and psychologists are
unable to determine whether or to what degree someone suffers from
a mental illness, there should be considerable concern about whether
a jury composed of lay persons would be capable of doing so.

This type of situation should be unacceptable to Americans, yet
the use of less than competent jurors on cases of all types is all too
frequent. The plaintiff and defendant in this particular computer
technology case should have been arguing their points to jurors who
at least had the potential to understand the very complicated and
nuanced material presented to them throughout the course of the
trial. The fact that a company’s future, and with it the futures of all
the firm’s employees and officers, could be in the very incapable hands
of an improperly trained or uneducated jury, is the very definition of
unfair and unjust.
The idea of professional juries is centuries old; what is new, however,
is the notion of using paid jurors, or jurors whose job it would be to
serve the Court and the judicial system as their full-time profession.
Teachers, police off