Courts are increasingly recognizing juror trauma and offering help

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Jun 7, 2007 by Nora Lockwood Tooher

BOSTON, MA - A woman who served as a juror in the trial of a Kentucky doctor who decapitated his wife said that whenever she looked out her kitchen window she saw the head being picked out of the ground.

Roger Bell, a retired professor of psychiatry at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, reassured the woman that her reaction was a normal response to the trauma of serving on a jury in a trial about a gruesome murder.

Bell, who has counseled jurors in several trials, including the Jeffrey Dahmer case, said simply explaining to jurors that their reactions are normal can alleviate a lot of their stress.

"The traditional method is we give jurors a pat on the back and a thank you and let them go without ascertaining whether or not the events of that trial have had any impact," Bell said. "It makes a lot of sense just to take a little time and debrief the jurors, especially in high-profile, high-graphic cases."

Increasingly, courts are recognizing juror trauma as a concern and offering debriefing and counseling sessions to jurors who serve on trials involving horrific crimes.

The Texas legislature is considering a measure that would fund up to 10 hours of post-trial psychological counseling for a juror in a trial involving graphic evidence or testimony.

Sharon Cave, a Corpus Christi, Texas mother whose 21-year-old daughter was brutally murdered and dismembered, called for the legislation after she watched the anguished reaction of jurors during the trial of her daughter's killer.

Texas state Rep. Juan Garcia, who sponsored the bill, said jurors told Mrs. Cave after the trial about their own mental pain and the trouble they were having going back to work and focusing on their daily lives.

"We ask citizens to step away from their normal everyday work, to go and mete out justice and be exposed to this unimaginable horror and suddenly step into their world the next day," Garcia said. "Hopefully, this will help."

'Horrible, grisly evidence'

About 70 percent of jurors report experiencing some stress, according to Paula Hannaford-Agor, principal court research consultant at the National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg, Va.

Usually, it's just low-level stress from the disruption of their daily lives. When jury duty ends, the stress goes away.

But certain criminal trials can generate serious levels of stress among jurors that can last weeks or months after the trial is over, according to researchers. Capital felony trials, for example, "always generate high levels of stress," Hannaford-Agor said.

Other trials likely to trigger serious juror stress include homicides, sexual assaults and crimes against children.

"It really is those sensationalized cases where the victim is particularly vulnerable, or the person is someone they can find a parallel with in their lives," she explained.

Traumatizing evidence can include crime scene photos, autopsy photos and bloody clothing. Graphic descriptions of homicides, forensic testimony and emotional testimony from family members of victims can also be highly stressful for jurors.