Juror Trauma: The Added Cost of Capital Cases

When Chloe Beck was called for jury duty in ear­ly 2018, she ini­tial­ly viewed it as a poten­tial break from work. But she did not antic­i­pate that the case — involv­ing a nan­ny charged with the stab­bing deaths of two chil­dren — would have last­ing effects on her men­tal health. As an alter­nate juror in the sev­en-week tri­al, Ms. Beck was required to look at crime scene pho­tographs and hear tes­ti­mo­ny from the vic­tims’ par­ents. For Ms. Beck, the expe­ri­ence proved dif­fi­cult to process, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the restric­tions on dis­cussing case details dur­ing tri­al. ​“To this day, I see those images,” Ms. Beck told The New York Times. ​“The lit­tle orange tooth­brush hang­ing on the wall, cov­ered in blood.” She described feel­ing iso­lat­ed dur­ing the tri­al, unable to dis­cuss her reac­tions with oth­ers due to stan­dard juror protocols.

The psy­cho­log­i­cal impact con­tin­ued after the tri­al con­clud­ed. Ms. Beck report­ed avoid­ing activ­i­ties that remind­ed her of the case and a psy­chi­a­trist lat­er diag­nosed her with post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der (PTSD) in 2019. Her expe­ri­ence reflects a broad­er pat­tern found in research which indi­cates up to 50% of jurors in vio­lent crim­i­nal cas­es may expe­ri­ence symp­toms of trau­ma, such as sleep­less­ness and anx­i­ety. Ms. Beck’s expe­ri­ence illus­trates the men­tal health chal­lenges that can arise from jury ser­vice. Death penal­ty tri­als, often the most vio­lent of cas­es, often require jurors to process deeply trau­mat­ic evi­dence while also being asked to make crit­i­cal life-or-death sentencing decisions. 

Take the cap­i­tal case of Tim Jones, Jr. in South Carolina, who a jury sen­tenced to death in 2019 for the mur­ders of his five chil­dren. Just three months after Mr. Jones’ sen­tenc­ing, nine of the 18 select­ed jurors and alter­nates agreed to speak about their expe­ri­ences with a local news­pa­per. They report­ed suf­fer­ing pro­found psy­cho­log­i­cal effects from their expo­sure to graph­ic images, tes­ti­mo­ny, and argu­ment pre­sent­ed at tri­al. Proceedings in the 21-day tri­al were halt­ed ​“almost every day”, as jurors need­ed time to emo­tion­al­ly process the evi­dence. Like Ms. Beck, many of these jurors report­ed per­sis­tent intru­sive thoughts. One alter­nate juror told The State she thought about the case dai­ly, while describ­ing cry­ing in the bath­room dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings. ​“Many times dur­ing the tri­al, I went in the jurors’ bath­room and just wailed – cried my eyes out.”

University of Nevada psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor Monica Miller, in talk­ing with The New York Times, not­ed that jurors can devel­op sec­ondary trau­mat­ic stress, also known as vic­ar­i­ous trau­ma. This con­di­tion man­i­fests the same symp­toms as PTSD: sleep­less­ness, anx­i­ety, and intru­sive thoughts. ​“You might be at home and you’re mak­ing din­ner and all of a sud­den, you know, you hear your own child’s voice and it brings back the mem­o­ry of a child who was tes­ti­fy­ing,” Dr. Miller said. ​“Or you just might be dri­ving home and think­ing about the shop­ping list, and then all of a sud­den these intru­sive thoughts come in, and you can’t leave that behind.” Like most oth­er jurors, Ms. Beck was not offered any insti­tu­tion­al sup­port dur­ing or imme­di­ate­ly after her jury ser­vice. She lat­er sought ther­a­py on her own and tried var­i­ous cop­ing strate­gies, though she con­tin­ues to expe­ri­ence dis­tress­ing mem­o­ries years later. 

The dis­tress that jurors expe­ri­enced in Mr. Jones’ case could have been avoid­ed. Mr. Jones had repeat­ed­ly offered to plead guilty in exchange for mul­ti­ple sen­tences of life with­out parole, but local pros­e­cu­tors refused to agree. Had they accept­ed the plea, jurors would have been spared any risk of long-term trau­ma from their ser­vice. Jurors who heard the cap­i­tal case of Eric Hendon in Ohio in 2016 expressed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments. Months after the jury’s deci­sion to sen­tence Mr. Hendon to life with­out parole, rather than to death, sev­er­al jurors talked about how the case impact­ed them. One juror report­ed trou­ble sleep­ing for weeks after the tri­al, anoth­er was haunt­ed by the images of the crimes, and anoth­er said he devel­oped para­noia. One juror involved in Mr. Hendon’s case refused to speak to the press out of a desire not to relive the experience.

Jury trau­ma has begun receiv­ing more atten­tion from court sys­tems across the United States. A Philadelphia jury com­mis­sion has estab­lished a post-tri­al coun­sel­ing pro­gram that is mod­eled after a pro­gram for emer­gency med­ical work­ers who have expe­ri­enced trau­ma. Patrick Martin, who leads the pro­gram in Philadelphia, said jurors need to know they can get past their emo­tions and feel­ings regard­ing a case. The Philadelphia pro­gram pro­vides resources for cop­ing strate­gies and access to free coun­sel­ing ses­sions. Alaska, Massachusetts, North Dakota, and cer­tain coun­ties in California and Texas have also imple­ment­ed similar programs.