Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date

2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Counseling Psychology

Committee Chair

Suzanne Lease

Committee Member

Ashley Batastini

Committee Member

Eli Jones

Committee Member

Michael Vitacco

Committee Member

Sara Bridges

Abstract

Perceived expert witness credibility is one of many factors that can impact juror decision making behaviors. In cases where the insanity defense has been raised, an expert witness assess the defendant, and may later testify about the defendant’s criminal responsibility (CR). The use of videoconferencing (VC) software to complete forensic mental health assessments has increased. Yet, research examining how jurors perceive the practice of a videoconferenced forensic mental health assessment remains unclear. The present study addressed the dearth in the literature by examining whether the source of assessment (in-person vs. VC) used to conduct a criminal responsibility evaluation impacted perceptions of a forensic mental health expert’s credibility or their conclusions, and whether the severity of the defendant’s alleged crime (second-degree murder vs. aggravated assault) moderated the effect of assessment source on perceived expert credibility. Using a between-subjects factorial design and random assignment, 206 jury-eligible participants on CloudResearch Connect read about a mock case and watched a mock video of an expert witness’ testimony that involved a trial where the insanity defense was raised. It was hypothesized that when compared to a VC-CR evaluation, an in-person CR evaluation would be associated with (1) higher ratings of perceived credibility (using the Witness Credibility Scale) of the expert, (2) higher levels of participant agreement with the expert’s CR opinion, and (3) higher ratings of opinion accuracy. It was additionally hypothesized that relationships between assessment modality and perceived credibility of and agreement with the expert would be moderated by crime severity, such that relationships between VC-CR and decreased perceived credibility and agreement ratings would be stronger for higher crime severity. Finally, because attitudes towards the insanity defense have been shown in the literature to influence juror decision making behaviors, a multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was used for the analyses and the Insanity Defense Attitude – Revised (IDA-R) served as the covariate. When controlling for insanity defense attitudes, no significant effects for the source of assessment or moderation caused by crime severity emerged across conditions. However, greater IDA-R scores were related to lower credibility scores. The findings, implications, and limitations of the paper are discussed.

Comments

Data is provided by the student

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest.

Notes

Open Access

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