PS 354 Exam 2

Nolo contendre/no contest plea

Defendant accepts punishment but doesn't admit guilt; Disadvantages include no chance of acquittal, meaning case is closed when you enter a no-contest plea and you have no chance to fight the charges, and you lose the potential of being found not guilty by a judge or jury

Alford plea

Plead guilty but publicly maintain innocence, benefit of possible reduced sentence; Not allowed in some state courts

Juveniles and pleas

Less able to understand plea-bargaining process, less able to consider factors relevant to acceptance of plea bargain, less able to explain rationale for decision to accept plea bargain, more likely than adults to accept plea bargain when they are innocent of crime and to be influenced by attorney advice

6th amendment

Guarantees rights of criminal defendants, including the right to a public trial without unnecessary delay, the right to a lawyer, the right to an impartial jury, and the right to know who your accusers are and the nature of the charges and evidence against you

7th amendment

Right to a jury trial for any civil case over property more than $20; Guarantees a minimum of six members for a jury in a civil trial

Venire

Random sample of potential jurors who actually show up at the courthouse

Voir dire

Vetting process to select jurors; Lawyers can use two types of challenges: challenge for cause, where a person is declared unlikely to be impartial because of bias/prejudice, and peremptory challenge, where lawyers dismiss juror without giving reason

% of people that don't show up for jury duty

20%

Impaneling

Selection and assignment of a jury for the purpose of deciding a case; Involves collecting the names of potential jurors in a random manner, selecting the individuals who will serve on the jury, giving potential jurors an opportunity to state the reasons why they should not serve on the jury, allowing the defense and prosecution to use their challenges to dismiss potential jurors, having jurors and alternate jurors sworn in

Sequestering

Jury isolated from public to prevent jurors coming into contact with media, other persons that might prejudice them; Typically housed in controlled conditions

Trial consultants

Assist in jury selection based on research conducted by social scientists; Data-driven approach; Use of mock jurors and shadow jury; Analyze supplemental juror questionnaires

Shadow jury

Group of people paid to observe a trial alongside the actual jury and provide daily, candid feedback to the legal team; Helps lawyers test their case strategy, identify weaknesses, clarify confusing points, and gauge how a real jury might perceive the evidence and arguments

Similarity-leniency hypothesis

Jurors who are similar to the defendant will empathize and identify with the defendant, less likely to convict, has mixed research support

Black sheep effect

Tendency to be more punitive toward members of one's group who violate the norms of the group

Forensic psychologists and jury selection

Coaching/preparing witnesses (more common in U.S. than in the U.K.); Jury-decision making researchers; Develop questioning strategies

Burden of proof

The duty of one party to prove its case

Beyond a reasonable doubt

Standard of proof used in criminal trials; To convict a defendant, jury or judge must be strongly persuaded (i.e., have no reasonable doubt) that the defendant is guilty; Prosecution bears the burden of convincing the jury or judge of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt

Summation

Closing arguments made by each party's attorney

Deliberation

Private process where jurors discuss evidence, review the law as instructed by the judge, and work to reach a verdict in a trial

Encoding

Gathering information and putting it in a form that can be held in memory

Storage

Holding encoded information in brain over time

Retrieval

Accessing and pulling out stored information later in time

Eyewitness misidentification and wrongful convictions

Eyewitnesses rely on memory; Errors in encoding, storage, and retrieval of information can occur; Memory traces deteriorate over time; Retrieval of information includes reconstruction; Most compelling type of evidence in court and most persuasive to a jury; Leads to more wrongful convictions than any other evidence

Recall

Retrieving information from memory without external cues

Recognition

Identifying information that has been previously encountered when presented with it; People better at this

Manson criteria

Five factors to determine reliability of eyewitness testimony: Witness's opportunity to view perpetrator, accuracy of description, level of attention, degree of certainty of witness, time between witnessing and identification; Difficult to apply with certainty

Cross-race effect/own-race bias

Harder for people to recognize faces of people outside racial group that those inside own group; Leads to more false alarms/false positives in eyewitness testimony

Johnson & Fredrickson study on emotions and facial recognition

Not only contact with other races that improves cross-race identification, but also the emotions involved with that contact; Researchers had participants perform a facial recognition task after they created either a happy, neutral, or fearful emotion in each participant; When the emotion was happiness, the participants' race bias was almost eliminated

Weapons effect

Witness focuses on weapon, not assailant, so the ability to recognize the assailant is impaired

Unconscious transference

Face seen in one context transferred to another

Leading/suggestive comments

Eyewitness recall shaped by wording of questions; Loftus study: How fast were the cars going when they contacted each other vs. how fast were they going when they smashed into each other influenced perceptions

Retrieval inhibition

People selectively retrieve only some aspects of a memory while inhibiting recall of other aspects, especially if no other questions were asked about these other aspects

Scripts/schemas

Beliefs about the sequence of actions in a case influence how we remember what we see

Cognitive dissonance

Person who has committed to a particular course of action will become motivated to justify that course of action

Witness confidence

Highly correlated with persuasiveness, weakly correlated with accuracy; Confidence can also be influenced by others; Confidence tends to increase over time

Post-identification feedback effect

Biased feedback distorts eyewitness memory

Culprit-absent lineup

True perpetrator absent from lineup

Culprit-present lineup

True perpetrator present in lineup

Simultaneous lineup

More commonly used; Several people are standing side by side, or several facial photographs are laid out next to one another

Sequential lineup

Eyewitness sees one person (or photograph) at a time, decides whether that person was the perpetrator, and then sees the next person

Cognitive interview

Procedure to relax witness; Reinstate context surrounding crime; Difficult for police to adopt this method; Increases the number of relevant details recalled without increasing the amount of incorrect information; Interviewer develops a rapport with the witness and then suggests to them a number of memory retrieval techniques

Supermarket robbery study

14 witnesses of an armed robbery at a supermarket were interviewed after 3 months; Witnesses' confidence in their memories only modestly correlated with accuracy; Witnesses who reported higher emotional impact tended to have more accurate memories; Free recall was more accurate than responses to specific questioning; Central details (e.g., robber's actions) remembered more accurately than peripheral details (e.g., minor objects on the scene); Memory of witnesses good after 3 months because coworkers talked about incident repeatedly; Reconstruction of robbery was broadcasted on television but no strong evidence it altered witness memories; Suggests that confidence should not be used as direct evidence of memory accuracy in court

Competency to stand trial (CST)/ability to proceed

Legal concept which refers to defendant's ability (not willingness) and psychological state at the time of a trial; Must have foundational competence: Ability to interact with/help attorney, and decisional competence: Understand court proceedings/make informed, independent decisions; Does not certify mental health functioning; Judge must be more than 50% certain defendant is incompetent; Most common evaluation by forensic psychologists

Dusky standard

Landmark US Supreme Court case in 1960, Milton Dusky, 33, was charged with the kidnapping and rape of a 15-year-old female; Psychiatrist testified that he was suffering from schizophrenia, but he was still found competent to stand trial and received a sentence of 45 years in prison, the decision was appealed; U.S. Supreme Court reviewed the case and overturned the conviction and sent the case back to the trial court for a new competency assessment; Case was remanded for retrial, and he was then sentenced to 20 years; Right to a competency assessment before trial

Functional elements of CST

Understand current legal situation, charges against them, pleas available, possible penalties if they are convicted, roles of the judge, defense counsel, and prosecutor; Trust and communicate with defense counsel; Help locate witnesses; Aid in developing a strategy for cross-examining witnesses; Act appropriately during the trial; Make appropriate decisions about trial

Incompetent defendant characteristics

28% of defendants found incompetent to stand trial (IST); History of mental illness, drug abuse, criminal behavior, psychological problems; Difficulty interacting with attorney and understanding court proceedings

Juvenile IST

Competence of juveniles is controversial: Immaturity, poor judgment, poor decision making, more apt to confess than remain silent, abilities may depend on the age of the juvenile (11- to 13-year olds have more problems with CST); Suggestion by Grisso et al. that CST should be evaluated when they are age 12 or younger, have a prior diagnosis of/treatment for a mental illness, low level IQ, or learning disability

Restoration of competency

Defendant held in a mental health facility; Determine if can be restored to competency in the "foreseeable future"; Restoration may include education and treatment w/antipsychotic medication; Use of antipsychotic medication is controversial; If non-restorable, charges may be dismissed but the person could be committed to a mental institution (difficult to do because of lack of space in facilities)

Competency Screening Test (CST)

Sentence completion task; Each answer scored 2 (competent), 1 (marginally competent), or 0 (incompetent); Score of 20 or below means need more evaluation

Competency Assessment Instrument (CAI)

Structured interview, lasting one hour that explores 13 aspects of competent functioning

Fitness Interview Test-Revised (FIT-R)

Includes questions on 3 topics - understanding proceedings, consequences, and defendant's ability to communicate w/counsel; Used as a screening device to assess fitness to stand trial in Canada

MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool-Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT-CA)

Most recently developed, measures a person's competence to proceed to adjudication - ability to plead guilty and ability to go to trial; Contains hypothetical situations

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

Most commonly used personality/psych test

Inkblot tests

Projective test; Uses colored inkblots that are interpreted by respondents

TAT

Projective test in which subjects look at and tell a story about ambiguous pictures

Malingering

Conscious fabrication or gross exaggeration of physical and/or psychological symptoms, done in order to achieve external goals such as avoiding a person or receiving monetary compensation; Indicated by exaggerated/dramatic account of symptoms, unusual carefulness in answering questions, mix of symptoms inconsistent with known diagnosis, general inconsistency, presentation of only most well-known and obvious symptom

Pathogenic malingering

People who are motivated by underlying pathology (are genuinely disturbed)

Criminological malingering

People with antisocial or oppositional motivation who fake mental illness to obtain an outcome they do not deserve

Adaptational malingering

Person who makes a constructive attempt to succeed in a highly adversarial or competitive situation

Insanity defense

State of mind at time of crime; Lack of moral responsibility and culpability for crime due to mental illness requires defendant should not be punished; Most controversial area intersecting psychology and law

Mens rea

Latin for "guilty mind"; If a suspect didn't know what they were doing at the time of the crime - because of insanity or drugs - they will be given TREATMENT rather than PUNISHMENT for doing it; Person didn't intend to commit the crime but accepts that they did it

Actus reus

Latin for "guilty act"; Action or conduct which is a constituent element of a crime, as opposed to the mental state of the accused

Andrea Yates

Drowned 5 children in bathtub; Experienced postpartum depression with psychotic features; Found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI)

John Hinckley

Obsessed with the actress Jodie Foster and tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan; Post Hinckley changes included sanity presumed, burden of proof on defense, experts barred from ultimate issue testimony, introduction of guilty but mentally ill verdict

Not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI)

Verdict stating that defendants are not guilty of committing a crime because they were insane at the time of the crime

Guilty but mentally ill (GBMI)

Guilty of crime and sentenced to prison for a period consistent with that verdict, but they are supposed to receive treatment for their mental health issues while in prison or be transferred to a secure psychiatric facility; Tend to receive longer sentences than their guilty but not mentally ill counterparts

M'Naughten rule

Daniel M'Naghten shot and killed Edward Drummond, the secretary to the Prime Minister, believing he was the Prime Minister; Led to development of cognitive test involving 3 components: Defendant is sane and responsible for crime, at moment of crime accused had a disease of the mind, defendant did not know nature and quality of act they were doing/didn't know what they did was wrong

Durham rule

An accused is not criminally responsible if their unlawful act was the product of mental disease or mental defect

Felonies

Serious criminal offenses such as kidnapping, rape, arson, murder, burglary, treason, etc.

Misdemeanors

Lesser crimes for which people are usually incarcerated for one year or less such as petty theft, prostitution, public intoxication, trespassing, etc.

Battered women/partner syndrome (BW/PS)

Behavior of women abused by partner; Characteristics include traditional sex-role attitudes, poor self-image, tendency to accept responsibility for abuse, social isolation, increasing dependence on abuser, hypervigilance, fear/terror, anger/rage, diminished alternatives, learned helplessness; Men more likely to seriously injure/kill female partners, male-against-female violence most likely to end up in court, women more likely to report abuse; Women may fight back against abuser as only means of escaping, used as legal defense; Does not extend to bystanders (such as child of parent abusing other parent)

Hypervigilance

Heightened attentiveness to abuser's behaviors

Learned helplessness

Become submissive and give up

3 factors to plead self-defense in BWS

Individuals who kill their partner after repeated abuse must show imminent bodily harm (severe harm in the immediate future), used reasonable and proportional force, no reasonable avenue of escape existed

BWS and the legal system

BWS defense most often used in homicide cases, jurors negatively inclined toward women who kill their partners, expert testimony does not appear to have powerful effect on verdicts; Problems include BWS is often not relevant to the central issues before the court, lacks a standard, reliably measured, and valid definition, does not reflect current research findings on victims of battering, may be unnecessarily stigmatizing for individual labeled with it

Mitigating factor

Reduce a defendant's blame or culpability for a crime; Case for BWS

Walker's 3 stage cycle of abuse

Stage 1 = tension building; Stage 2 = acute battering; Stage 3 = contrition (claim that abuser is sorry); Cyclical in nature

Rape trauma syndrome (RTS)

How women respond to trauma of rape; Characteristics include greater risk of divorce and unemployment, fear, anxiety, self blame, loss of sexual desire, loss of sense of safety, loss of control over environment, recovery based on personal/supportive resources of victim; Recovery from rape two stage process, acute crisis phase and reorganization phase; Can lead to PTSD which has some sway on jurors; Research findings about scientific validity often inconclusive or contradictory, unrepresentative samples, victim responses neither uniform or universal

Aggravating factor

Makes a crime more "serious", potentially leading to a harsher sentence; Case for RTS

Intimate partner violence (IPV)

One partner has complete control over the other and uses power to isolate them from family/friends

Situational couple violence

Most common form in young Western couples, involves mutual slapping, pushing, or other types that rarely result in injury and equally initiated

4 major criteria of PTSD

Reexperiencing traumatic event, avoidance of stimuli associated with the event, heightened arousal, persistent symptoms that last more than a month

PTSD vs. BWS as defense

Victims of repeated abuse can develop PTSD, using PTSD rather than BWS has advantages, PTSD has more established diagnostic category with tests and structured interviews to assess; Critiques include some specific battering symptoms not captured by more general category, door open to exploration of past traumas, unclear effectiveness if abuse victim does not meet PTSD criteria, not clear if the diagnosis of PTSD should replace BWS in the courtroom

Briefly explain the voir dire process. How effective is scientific jury selection? How are forensic psychologists or trial consultants involved in jury selection? What recommendations do you have to make the jury selection process more effective for all involved?

Group of jurors who reported to court in response to summons taken to courtroom, judge and attorneys ask jurors questions to determine suitability to serve on jury, some prospective jurors excused; Scientific jury selection does not make a big difference in most trials, it may make a difference in a subset of cases in which juror characteristics strongly influence the interpretation of ambiguous evidence; Forensic psychologists often give guidance on how to select a jury (and will tell lawyers when to make a challenge - why we need large jury pools before each trial); Jury consultants assist in jury selection based on research conducted by social scientists using a data-driven approach, mock jurors/shadow jury, supplemental juror questionnaires; To improve the jury selection process, attorneys should flag cognitive biases (such as the black sheep effect - jurors think a defendant has let down their ethnic group), potential jurors' exposure to pre-trial publicity, and juror characteristics that influence the interpretation of ambiguous evidence

There are several suggestions for improving eyewitness accuracy based on research. What do you think are the THREE most helpful ways to increase the accuracy of eyewitness memory, and provide some examples or research support for each of your suggestions?

If a person is to be included in a lineup, there should be grounds for suspecting they committed a crime, for example: Person fits a unique description given by eyewitness, self-incriminating statements, unique pattern to crime exhibited by suspect; Utilizing appropriate lineup fillers with similar physical characteristics to the suspect is integral, which is supported by one meta-analysis that found that biased lineups not containing appropriate fillers led to substantially higher rates of innocent suspects being wrongly identified; Avoiding the use of showups, or presenting a single suspect to a witness, according to research revealing that lineups produce more accurate identifications than showups, is another way to improve eyewitness accuracy

Compare and contrast the evaluation methods of determining whether a person is Competent to Stand Trial (CST) or 'legally' insane for the insanity defense and how forensic psychologists might be involved. What strengths and weaknesses for each do you find? What is malingering and how can it affect both of these types of evaluations?

Forensic assessment instruments (FAIs) such as the competency screening test and the MacSAC-CD are psychological tests specific to legal issues, general psychological tests such as the MMPI-2 are most commonly used to understand examinee's psychological distress, symptoms, and possible diagnosis; FAI tests focusing on legal competence have advantages over general tests including ability to assess understanding of specific legal issues and efficient assessment of CST; Forensic psychologists may explore competency at time of crime in order to determine CST, assess competency for execution, review person's mental health to assess if they can have a restoration of competency so the person could go to trial, providing expert testimony regarding diagnoses and treatment; Malingering is when a defendant fakes incompetence, which can be difficult to detect using psychological tests

Define the characteristics of BWS. What are the advantages of using PTSD over RTS and BWS in court? What are the problems associated with each syndrome?

Characteristics of BWS include traditional sex-role attitudes, poor self-image, tendency to accept responsibility for abuse, social isolation, increasing dependence on abuser, hypervigilance, fear/terror, anger/rage, diminished alternatives, learned helplessness; Victims of repeated abuse can develop PTSD, using PTSD rather than BWS or RTS has advantages, PTSD has more established diagnostic category with tests and structured interviews to assess; In the case of BWS, often not relevant to central issues before court, lacks a standard, reliably measured, and valid definition, does not reflect current research findings on victims of battering, may be unnecessarily stigmatizing; Scientific validity of RTS questionable, research findings often inconclusive, unrepresentative samples/no control groups/limited follow-up time, victim responses neither uniform or universal; Problems associated with PTSD include some battering symptoms not captured by more general category, door open to exploration of past traumas, unclear effectiveness if abuse victim does not meet criteria, not clear if diagnosis of PTSD should replace BWS in courtroom

True or false: The 6th amendment gives the right to a jury trial for any civil case over property more than $20

False, 7th amendment

What type of memory retrieval technique are you using to answer this question?

a. Recall

b. Recognition

c. Guessing

d. Encoding

b. Recognition

True or false: A person can be considered competent to stand trial, but still suffer from a serious mental illness like schizophrenia

True

True or false: Petit jurors may serve for extended terms of up to 36 months in the federal system

False, petit trial is a regular trial

The conscious fabrication or gross exaggeration of physical and/or psychological symptoms to achieve external goals:

a. Malingering

b. Flexible standard

c. Faking good

d. BWS

a. Malingering

Insanity refers to criminal's state of mind at this time:

a. Start of trial

b. At time of crime

c. End of trial

d. During sentencing

b. At time of crime

True or false: Lawyers and judges can exclude potential jurors by challenge for cause if they are unlikely to be impartial

True

Rogers et al. (1994) defined this malingerer as an antisocial who fakes mental illness to get an outcome they don't deserve:

a. Pathogenic

b. Criminological

c. Adaptational

d. Functional

b. Criminological

Which psychological assessment tool is MOST used in CST and insanity defense evaluations?

a. MacArthur Structured Assessment

b. Competency Screening Test

c. TAT

d. MMPI

d. MMPI

You celebrated a bit too much on Halloween and were arrested for public intoxication. What are you accused of?

a. Felony

b. Misdemeanor

c. Poor decision-making

d. Malingering

b. Misdemeanor

True or false: Men who are batterers are often diagnosed with schizophrenia

False

A group that matches the demographics of an actual jury:

a. Shadow jury

b. Petit jury

c. Consultant jury

d. Similarity jury

a. Shadow jury

She developed the three-phase cycle of abuse:

a. Lenore Walker

b. Elizabeth Loftus

c. Anna Freud

d. Nora Dusky

a. Lenore Walker