Cite as: 512 U. S. 573 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
open to debate 10—the jury in his case was instructed "to apply the law as [instructed] regardless of the consequence," and that "punishment . . . should not enter your consideration or discussion." App. A-27 to A-28. That an NGI verdict was an option here gives us no reason to depart from "the almost invariable assumption of the law that jurors follow their instructions." Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U. S. 200, 206 (1987). Indeed, although it may take effort on a juror's part to ignore the potential consequences of the verdict, the effort required in a case in which an NGI defense is raised is no different from that required in many other situations. For example, if the Government fails to meet its burden of proof at trial, our judicial system necessarily assumes that a juror will vote to acquit, rather than to convict, even if he is convinced the defendant is highly dangerous and should be incarcerated. We do not believe that the situation involving an NGI verdict should be treated any differently.
We also are not persuaded that the instruction Shannon proposes would allay the fears of the misinformed juror about whom Shannon is concerned. "[I]f the members of a jury are so fearful of a particular defendant's release that they would violate their oaths by convicting [the defendant] solely in order to ensure that he is not set free, it is questionable whether they would be reassured by anything short of an instruction strongly suggesting that the defendant, if found NGI, would very likely be civilly committed for a
10 We are not convinced that jurors are as unfamiliar with the consequences of an NGI verdict as Shannon suggests. It may have been the case in 1957 that, in contrast to verdicts of guilty and not guilty, "a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity ha[d] no . . . commonly understood meaning." Lyles v. United States, 254 F. 2d 725, 728 (CADC 1957) (en banc), cert. denied, 356 U. S. 961 (1958). Today, however, there is no reason to assume that jurors believe that defendants found NGI are immediately set free. See Fisher, 10 F. 3d, at 122 ("[H]ighly publicized cases, such as that involving John Hinckley, have dramatized the possibility of civil commitment following an NGI verdict"). See also Blume, 967 F. 2d, at 54 (Winter, J., concurring in result).
585
Page: Index Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007