Repressed Memories, Diminished Capacity, and Expert Testimony

Flashcards covering psychological concepts and legal terms discussed in the lecture, including repressed memory, expert testimony standards, legal mental states, and the Dan White trial defenses.

Repressed memories

Traumatic memories that an individual places into the unconscious so that they do not affect them, distinguished from ordinary forgotten memories.

Expert witness

An individual who possesses specialized knowledge and is called upon to give context to a case or evaluate a defendant's mental condition.

Daubert decision

A legal ruling establishing that expert testimony must be grounded in established science rather than unproven or emerging research.

Premeditation and deliberation

Elements of planning where a person thinks about committing a crime ahead of time and plans out how to accomplish it, which is necessary for a first-degree murder conviction.

Malice

A legal state of mind concerning whether an act was an accident or an intentional effort to hurt or kill a person, which differentiates murder from manslaughter.

Diminished capacity

A defense arguing that a defendant's mental condition rendered them incapable of harboring malice, premeditation, or deliberation at the time of the crime.

Insanity

A legal determination indicating that a person cannot be held criminally responsible for their actions due to their mental state; it is not a psychological diagnosis found in the DSM.

Twinkie defense

A media label given to the defense in the Dan White trial, stemming from testimony that his consumption of junk food was an indicator of his severe depression rather than the cause of his actions.

Party retained experts

Expert witnesses hired and screened by either the prosecution or the defense, whose testimony is typically presented only if it helps that party achieve a win.

Court appointed experts

Objective expert witnesses selected directly by the judge or court officers to provide neutral specialized information to the court.

Voluntary manslaughter

The reduced conviction Dan White received after the jury accepted his diminished capacity defense instead of convicting him of first-degree murder.