Most Say ‘Defendant as Victim’ Strategy Is Overused, Poll Finds

A majority of those questioned in a poll published today say they believe that the portrayal of defendants as victims, as in the Lorena Bobbitt and Menendez brothers cases, has gotten out of hand.

The findings are contained in a poll on public attitudes about crime published in the current issue of the National Law Journal. The survey of 800 people nationwide was conducted last month by Penn & Schoen Associates Inc.

The study showed that 59% of the respondents say they believe that the “defendant as victim” strategy is being overused, whereas 30% say many people legitimately commit crimes as a result of some suffering they have endured.

According to the poll, 51% said juries are being duped when they take into account all of the circumstances of an accused person’s life. A third said they believe that juries are doing a better job at administering justice by doing so.

Fifty-two percent of the poll respondents said they would have convicted Bobbitt of maliciously wounding her husband by cutting off his penis. Of those, 62% were men and 43% were women. Bobbitt was acquitted after the jury found she was temporarily insane.

In Lyle and Erik Menendez’s cases, 68% said they would have found the brothers guilty of murdering their parents.

Eighty-nine percent of the poll respondents said they believe that the most compelling argument to excuse someone for a serious crime is a mother protecting her children from an abusive father.