Publication Date

8-2025

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Christopher Peters, Robert Welsh, Amber Giacona

Degree Program

Department of Psychology

Degree Type

Master of Arts

Abstract

Despite the legal distinction between competence to stand trial (CST) and criminal responsibility (CR), the potential for jurors to conflate these constructs due to pretrial publicity (PTP) remains an under-examined issue in forensic psychology research. Therefore, the current study investigated whether exposure to PTP about a defendant’s CST influences jurors’ CR verdicts. A national sample of jury-eligible adults (N = 598) was recruited through Prolific. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of three mock PTP news articles: (1) the defendant was CST, (2) the defendant was previously found incompetent to stand trial (IST) but was later restored to competency, or (3) a control article omitting competency information. After reading the PTP article, participants read a condensed trial summary, rendered a dichotomous verdict (guilty or NGRI), and completed the Knowledge of the Insanity Defense Scale (KIDS; Daftary-Kapur et al., 2011) and the Need for Affect Questionnaire–Short Form (NAQ-S; Appel et al., 2012). Results revealed that participants exposed to the IST-restored condition were more likely to render a not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) verdict, while exposure to CST had no overall effect. However, jurors with low or moderate NAQ-S scores were more likely to render guilty verdicts in the CST condition. Additionally, higher scores on the NAQ-S and KIDS scales directly affected guilty verdicts across conditions. These findings suggest that PTP involving a defendant’s competency status affects jurors’ decision-making in CR trials. The results highlight how even subtle PTP exposure can influence juror narratives and verdicts, underscoring the need for enhanced pretrial procedures and ongoing research in forensic psychology.

Disciplines

Clinical Psychology | Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

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