Prosecutors and anti-intellectualism as a trial tactic: the cultural roots of scepticism towards expertise in capital cases

Abstract

Mentally ill defendants are regularly sentenced to death in Texas, the leading executioner in the United States. In this article, I explore the reasons for this phenomenon by analysing the arguments developed by prosecuting attorneys in capital punishment trials involving defendants who advance insanity or diminished capacity claims but are, nonetheless, sentenced to death. Based on the analysis of 27 trial transcripts spanning the past 100 years, I argue that one of the reasons for the phenomenon is that Texan prosecutors use anti-intellectual arguments that, by appealing to jurors’ scepticism of psychiatric expertise and populist approach to mental illness, discredit the mental disability evidence presented by the defence, encouraging the imposition of death sentences. Finally, I identify three cultural traits that help to explain why these anti-intellectual sentiments are so pronounced in Texan proceedings and why they seem to correlate with the regular imposition of death sentences.