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16 Law & Psychol. Rev. 201 (1992)
Jury Traumatization in High Profile Criminal Trials: A Case for Crisis Debriefing

handle is hein.journals/lpsyr16 and id is 205 raw text is: JURY TRAUMATIZATION IN HIGH PROFILE CRIMINAL TRIALS: A CASE FOR CRISIS DEBRIEFING? I. INTRODUCTION In May, 1988, an intoxicated driver of a pickup truck collided with a school bus, causing the tragic deaths by fire and/or smoke inhalation and asphyxiation of many of the children who were aboard.' Some of the survivors were permanently disfigured.2 This highly emotional murder trial that attracted nationwide media coverage lasted six weeks.3 Presiding Judge Charles Satterwhite, of the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit of Kentucky, instituted a novel pro- cedure in his court at the conclusion of the trial that has attracted the national spotlight. He engaged the services of a psychological debriefing team to work with the jury immediately after they ren- dered their verdict. Judge Satterwhite recognized from the outset that the trial, just by the nature of the accident and the fanfare of the national media attention, would be extremely emotional.' Be- cause he realized how the trial was affecting him personally, the Judge became very sensitive to the emotional needs of the jury as the trial progressed.' He even found it necessary to take frequent recesses because the jurors appeared visibly shaken and emotion- ally distraught. The Judge related an incident that happened one night, approximately one month into the trial:' I read an article that dealt with-not juries-but with the fam- ilies of victims who go through a traumatic crime and then have to relive that crime in a trial setting. The article talked about how sometimes the trauma brought about in a trial is as bad if not more so than the event itself. In reading that, a light bulb went on and I thought if ever a group is going to be trau- 1. Theodore B. Feldmann & Roger A. Bell, Crisis Debriefing of a Jury After a Murder Trial, 42 Hosp. & COMMUNITY PSYCHIATRY 79 (1991); Telephone Inter- view with Roger Bell, Ed. D., Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Louis- ville School of Medicine, Louisville, Kentucky (Nov. 1, 1991). 2. Telephone Interview with Roger Bell, Ed.D., supra note 1. 3. Feldmann & Bell, supra note 1, at 81. 4. Id. at 79. 5. Telephone Interview with Judge Charles Satterwhite, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit of Kentucky (Oct. 15, 1991). 6. Id. 7. Feldmann & Bell, supra note 1, at 79. 8. Telephone Interview with Judge Charles Satterwhite, supra note 5.

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