ABSTRACT
This chapter examines what many psychiatrists think is the more relevant variable: the quality of psychiatric testimony. It aims to report the principal business results of the jury’s reactions when both psychiatric testimony and rules of law were varied. The jurors were asked a number of questions about the psychiatric testimony on the post-deliberation questionnaire. Jurors who agreed with the psychiatrists — that is, jurors who believed the defendants were insane — were more willing to support a recommendation for a shift in responsibility, so that experts rather than laymen become the final arbitrators. The lawyer wants to expose the psychiatrist’s testimony to the adversary system because they are fearful lest the psychiatrist’s views of the human nature and their beliefs concerning the genesis of deviant or criminal behavior be too far removed from the legal orientation and tradition.
