Word: verdicts
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Earlier this year, TIME carried an article on Consumer Reports magazine [Feb. 1] that described a libel case brought by the Bose Corp. over an article criticizing the Bose 901 speaker. In reporting on the opinion in favor of the Bose Corp., TIME said, "The verdict... casts doubt on the magazine's credibility." A U.S. court of appeals has now overturned that decision in a unanimous opinion. We have always been proud of Consumer Reports' reputation for objectivity. More important, the ruling is a reaffirmation of the public's right to know and the media...
Allen S. Weiner ("An Insane Verdict," November 15, 1982) worries that a proposed guilty-but-mentally-ill verdict will encourage a jury to compromise unfairly to the detriment of the individual and of society. I agree with him. But, more fundamentally, I disagree both with the proposed guilty-but-mentally-ill verdict and with the insanity defense itself, which he accepts...
...verdict closed the government's case against Prime, but opened the door to some troubling questions. Did Prime work alone or did he have an accomplice? Are other Soviet spies still at large within British intelligence? How did he slip past four security checks within a ten-year period? Barred by British law from discussing the case during the trial, both the press and opposition members of Parliament last week demanded a full explanation from the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Scoffed the Daily Express: "Our surveillance system is reduced to a laughing stock. What has a Soviet...
...this theoretical framework does not fit the real picture, and the guilty- but-mentally-ill verdict often compels a jury to compromise inveterate legal tenets. It effectively converts the distinct (though subjectively determined) insanity threshold into a large gray area of rights violations. Jurors reluctant to risk setting a legally insane man free face the irresistible temptation of reaching the "middle ground" of guilty but mentally ill. Instead of finding a defendant guilty but mentally ill only after resolving the question of sanity, jurors would likely agree to return such a verdict at the outset of deliberations, sparing themselves both...
...requiring offenders ruled insane to prove they have recovered from their illness before permitting their release (as opposed to the present system, which requires that the government prove the defendant is still insane and should remain in stitutionalized) would be far less unjust than the guilty but-mentally-ill verdict, and certainly less disingenuous. If the insanity plea has in deed become a big courtroom game, the guilty but mentally-ill verdict does not encourage a change in the rules Rather, it encourages cheating...