Academic report

Stress and the Capital Jury: How Male and Female Jurors React to Serving on a Murder Trial

By Michael E. Antonio / National Center for State Courts , on 1 January 2008



Previous research findings gathered by the Capital Jury Project showed that many jurors whoserved on capital murder trials experienced significant stress and suffered extreme emotionalsetbacks. The present analysis extends these findings by focusing on gender-specific variationsin responses given by male and female jurors as revealed through extensive in-depth inter-views. Findings from structured questions and juror narrative accounts about psychologicaland physical suffering revealed that more females than males reported generalized fear, feltan overwhelming sense of loneliness or isolation, and experienced a significant loss of appetiteduring the trial. While male and female jurors both mentioned becoming emotionally upsetabout the crime-scene evidence and trial testimony, experienced sleeping problems, and start-ed using prescription drugs or illicit substances, these issues were discussed more often byfemales.

  • Document type Academic report
  • Themes list Women, Fair Trial, Arbitrariness,



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