Forensic psych exam 2

Who is Tom Sawyer and why is his conviction important?

Tom Sawyer falsely confessed to the murder of his neighbor because the police convinced him that since he was an alcoholic, he must’ve committed the crime without remembering it

What is the goal of interrogations?

eliciting confessions

“Lawlessness and Law Enforcement” (1931)

Interrogators couldn't do anything that left a mark or was incriminating which led to less obvious abuse, they could deprive people of sleep or isolate them though

Which types of coercion in confessions became inadmissible in court in 1961?

physical force, deprivation, prolonged isolation, and threats of violence

Miranda rights

Came from a 1966 case called Miranda vs. Arizona, and includes the following:

• You have the right to remain silent

• You have the right to an attorney present during questioning

• You have the right to an appointed attorney when you cannot afford them

• You have to acknowledge understanding of rights

Why would someone waive their Miranda rights?

if they want to be subject to an interrogation to prove their innocence, 80% of suspects do this

Fundamental attribution error

the tendency to attribute other people’s behavior to dispositional causes (traits, personality) and to dismiss the situational pressures acting on the person

Evidence ploy

citing real or fabricated evidence to suspects that clearly establishes their guilt

The Reid technique

• Involves a 9-step technique that represents the general flow of many interrogations and it's very effective

  • Confrontation

  • Theme development (good or bad)

  • Deflection (stopping denials, telling them without a doubt they committed crime)

  • Overcoming objections

  • Regaining attention (expressing empathy)

  • Reframing (alternative 'themes' that cast them in a better light)

  • Force the alternative

  • Repetition, eliciting a full confession

  • Documentation (sign something to bring to the judge)

Who is at risk of giving a false confession?

Young, inexperienced, naïve, submissive, on drugs, sleep deprived, terrified, low IQ

Interrogation-related regulatory decline

• breakdown of self regulation due to the stress of an interrogation (controlling thoughts, emotions, and behaviors)

  • Short-sightedness: relief from immediate pressure of interrogation (just thinking about the anxiety of the moment, not long-term)

  • Illusion of transparency: belief the false confession will be discounted

Instrumental false confession

falsely confess to achieve some goal (Henry Lee Lucas who falsely confessed to killing 3,000 people as a means to becoming famous is an example of a instrumental-voluntary confession)

Internalized false confession

falsely believe that you are responsible for this crime and confess to it (the case of Tom Sawyer is an example of an internalized-coerced confession)

Voluntary false confession

a false confession that is freely given (the Jon-Benet Ramsey case had many instrumental-voluntary false confessions and a few internalized-voluntary false confessions)

Coerced false confession

only confessed due to intense physical or psychological pressure

What is the most common type of false confession?

instrumental-coerced

England and Wales put the PACE act into effect in the 1980s, what protections does it include?

• Illegal for interrogators to lie

• Witness must be present (and adult support for vulnerable suspects)

• Interrogation must be audio recorded

• Intimidation is not permitted

• Results are unclear but:

  • Lower pressure tactics in official interrogation

  • No change in guilty pleas, no clear data about false confession prevalence

What are the pros and cons of recording interrogations on video?

• Pros: creates permanent record, improves interrogation methods

• Cons: can be manipulated like recording only the admission and not the interrogating, manipulating the camera angels, and only showing segments at trials and not the full video

What are the benefits of time limits for interrogations?

lengthy interrogations are common in false confessions, 4 hours or less is recommended

Information gathering method of interrogation

• Establish rapport, not control

• Use direct, positive confrontation, not psychological manipulation

• Employ open-ended, exploratory questions, not closed-ended confirmatory questions

• Primary goal is to elicit information, not obtain a confession

• Focus on cognitive cues to deception, not anxiety cues to deception

Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis

holds that a great leap forward in human intelligence was triggered by the need for humans to develop the essential social skills of manipulation, pretense, and deception

Lies of commission

lying via saying something that isn’t true

Lies of omission

lying via choosing to leave out important details

Spontaneous lies

white lies we say in the moment

Planned lies

elaborate lies planned in advance

Instrumental lies

lies we tell to help someone or hurt someone

In the study of lying during confessions comparing college students with police officers, who guessed better?

college students did better, police detectives were more likely to believe false confessions to be true and the researchers theorized that more job experience with lie detection makes a person worse at lie detection due to confirmation bias

What does the polygraph measure?

heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductance (sweat), and breathing patterns

Who created the modern lie detector and also Wonder Woman?

William Marston

Relevant irrelevant polygraph test (RIT)

compares non-arousing baseline questions to case-related questions (high rate of false positives)

Control question test/comparison question test (CQT)

• Logic: use irrelevant baselines that are also arousing (ex. "Have you ever done something dishonest?" Then "did you cheat on the exam?")

• The difficulty is you may not know whether the baseline was true

Positive control test (PCT)

• Relevant question is its own comparison

• Baseline: "did you cheat on the test?" "tell the truth"

• Experiment: "did you cheat on the test?" "tell a lie"

• The mental gymnastics might lead to a physiological response the polygraph can measure

What are some criticisms about lab studies of the polygraph?

• Low consequence for lying

• Limited or no subject experience or training in countermeasures (strategies for beating the polygraph test)

• Lies told in controlled studies tend to be more simple than convoluted lies told about real crimes

• May lead to inflated accuracy

Guilty knowledge test (GKT)/concealed information test

• Makes use of polygraph equipment but does not attempt to detect lies

• Infers guilty person will recognize crime information that innocent person doesn't, eliciting elevated physiological arousal

• Used in the OJ Simpson trial

What are the limitations of the GKT?

• Sufficient number of crime facts must be available

• Facts must not be widely publicized

• Details must be recalled by the guilty person

• Might not be applicable to a large number of crimes (ex. Contested rape cases where the accused thinks the act was consensual)

(still the most accurate of all polygraph techniques)

What are some weaknesses of the polygraph?

• Differential reaction of person being tested (e.g. guilty but stoic/unresponsive; innocent but reactive)

• Beliefs about validity can affect results (e.g. how nervous a guilty or innocent person might be)

• Requires deception

• Lack of standardization (e.g. question content, scoring)

• Use of countermeasures (e.g. using self calming strategies or self stimulating strategies to make your baseline responses similar to experimental responses)

What is the most common use of the polygraph nowadays?

it is often used as a coercion tool in interrogations as a way to pressure a confession (a type of evidence ploy)

Criteria-based content analysis (CBCA)

alternative to the polygraph that is systematic analysis of written statements (differences in logical structure, amount of detail- liars use superfluous details, and context)

Reality monitoring (RM)

alternative to the polygraph which relies on the clarity, realism, and emotionality of written accounts

Facial action coding system (FACS)

• Each emotion correspond to distinct muscle combination

• Expressions presumed to be a window into underlying emotion

• Identifies 43 sets of muscles which often work in tandem to facially express emotion

fMRIs in lie detection

• Measures blood flow

• Lies correlated with patterns of oxygenated vs deoxygenated blood in specific areas

• Limitations:

  • Not portable, expensive, and requires patient motionless behavior

  • Slow readout compared to actual speed of neural transmissions (blood flow change after a thought may take a few seconds, so it's hard to correlate it with just one thought)

EEGs in lie detection

• Unlike fMRI its easier to see a direct correlation of a thought and brain activity

• Lies correlated with electrical impulses times to certain questions/events

• Great temporal resolution (milliseconds)

• May detect intent to suppress truthful response and replace it with lie

• GKT + EEG dubbed "brain fingerprinting"

  • Limitations of brain fingerprinting:

    • Shares limitations of GKT

    • Lacks accuracy confirmations by other scientists

    • Statistical measurements not able to evaluate validity

    • We still don't know about potential countermeasures

    • Research on mental countermeasures during EEG:

      • Taught 2 strategies: 1) associate meaningful memories to the control items, making them more significant

      1. Focus on the superficial aspects of the item they were trying to conceal

      • Decreases lie detection by 20%

Functional near inferred spectroscopy (FNIRS)

• Cap shines bright inferred light into your brain and another electrode measures how much light comes back

• The more oxygenated blood, the more light will reflect

• Combined fNIRS polygraph system delivers much higher classification accuracy than that of a singular system

• Individual fNIRS or polygraph: 71.6 and 74.5%

• Combined fNIRS polygraph system: 81%

What do the 6th and 7th amendments grant?

The rights to a trial by an impartial jury in criminal and civil cases

What lists do jury commissioners use to select citizens for jury pools?

voter registration lists, licensed driver lists, and sometimes phone books

Venire

The group of prospective jurors that is chosen to show up to the court house for jury service

One day one trial system

potential jurors only need to make themselves available for 1 day unless they are chosen to serve on a jury (most people are not)

Vore dire

(to speak the truth): attorneys and judge interview potential jurors and ask questions, lawyers use "challenges" to eliminate jurors

Challenges for causes

you can't be on the jury for a case because you did something that is case-related (ex. If you're on a domestic abuse case but you were previously arrested for assault)

Peremptory challenge

can remove someone for any reason if they would potentially be unsympathetic to the client

Cognizable groups

• certain members of a group are recognized and protected from peremptory challenges, like:

  • Gender, race, LGBTQ status, etc.

  • Height, size, religious-based beliefs (religion itself is protected though), and moral beliefs are not protected

Jury consultant

•  assist in jury selection based on research conducted by social scientists

  • Data-driven approach, supplemental questionnaires

  • Use of mock jurors, shadow juries

  • Analyze supplemental juror questionnaires

  • Very expensive, usually paid for by a wealthy defendant

Similarity-leniency hypothesis

• jurors will be more lenient to the defendant if they share characteristics with the defendant

  • Only works when evidence is inconclusive and similar jurors outnumber dissimilar ones

  • Risk of boomerang effect: if strong evidence, similarity may cause jurors to be more harsh

  • Investigations have only addressed race and gender similarity

Opening statements

These statements are not considered evidence. Instead, they are meant to highlight the issues at stake and to provide jurors with an overview of evidence that will be heard.

Direct examination

When a lawyer calls a witness to testify

Cross-examine

When a defense lawyer asks questions to a witness

Redirect examination

When the lawyer who called upon the witness asks questions again

Recross examination

When the defense lawyer asks a second round of questions to a witness following a redirect examination

Which side goes first when giving closing statements?

the plaintiff/prosecution

Which side goes first when giving opening statements?

the plaintiff/prosecution