My Eyewitness Psych Notes

Expert witnesses are not “whores of the court”. This means they are not ____

biased/motivated by money

Judges screen expert testimony to _____

allow relevant info and keep out “junk science”

Microscopic hair analysis and bitemark evidence are examples of what?

Junk sciences

Federal rules of evidence are ____ _____ that should guide the admissibility of any evidence.

broad principles

4 principles of 702 Federal Rules of evidence

Fairness, Efficiency, Truth, Justice

4 Admissibility Criteria of Daubert

1. Provided by a qualified expert

2. Relevant and additional

3. Assists to provide beyond common knowlegde

4. Show scientific validity and reliability

4 Daubert Critera for expert testimony?

Must be qualified expert, relevant, outside the knowledge of the average juror and:

1. Testability of technique

2. Known rate of error

3. Peer review

4. Generally accepted in the relevant scientific community

What are latent prints? (Another word for them)

Invisible impressions left by the natural oils and sweat from the ridges of a person's fingers, palms, or feet onto a surface. Finger prints

Give a few examples of forensic identification evidence

1. DNA

2. Latent Prints

3. Hair

4. Tool Marks

5. Footprints

6. Ballistics

7. Handwriting analysis

In the example of Innocence Project US data, misapplication of forensic evidence contributed to about _____ of DNA exonerations to date.

half

What is source attribution?

Determinations that 2 items have/might have the same source

In source attribution, if inconsistent features are found it is called?

exclusion

In source attribution, if there is some consistent info but no or unexplainable differences found it is called?

A match or Inclusion

How many types of characteristics are there?

Two.

Class characteristics → e.g., blood type, bullet caliber

Individual characteristics -”Matches on features that should be completely unique to that person/sample” → Fingerprints

The 4 types of source attributions

1. Qualitative

2. Match

3. Match + Stats

4. Individualization

What is qualitative source attribution?

Subjective judgements without details on examinations and findings

“Probably have common source”

What is match source attribution?

Samples are consistent and “could have a common source”. Rarer the class of item = More significance the match has

What is Match + Stats source attribution?

Samples are consistent and could have come from the same source + info about probability of obtaining a match by random chance

Example of Match + Stats source attribution

DNA evidence - “Frequency of matching characteristics in population are 1 in 10,000”

What is individualization source attribution?

Samples have been “positively identified” as being from the same source

Which source attribution is debatable to be truly possible?

individualization

What is false positive error in DNA analysis?

errors in equipment, mishandling in lab, contamination, examiner errors in evaluating and interpreting results

True or False? Evidence for finger print inidivuality is weak.

True

Confirmation bias

Expectations guide evaluations of forensic evidence in a self-verifying manner

Tunnel vision

Tendency for individuals to focus on a particular case theory/perpetrators and to dismiss/undervalue evidence that contradicts that theory/perpatrator

Harmless error

If the mistake did not influence the verdict, it’s called a harmless error

When confessions are present, handwriting similarity _____.

increases

Prosecutor’s fallacy

“What are the odds that the matching items have a different source”

1. Assuming the person is innocent, what is the likelihood that his DNA would be a match to the sample from the crime scene? (random match probability)

2. Assuming that the DNA is a match, what is the likelihood that the person is innocent? (Source Probability)

What is something a defense attorney would say in their defense attorney fallacy?

“2 DNA samples are matched on a characteristic found in 1% of the population (that is still a lot of people so it is irrelevant)”

True or False? Most people are good at understanding probability.

False

Is the CSI Effect real?

There does not seem to be a link between CSI viewing and verdicts.

What is social frame work evidence?

True or False? It is reliably possible to distinguish between true and false confessions?

False

Confessions are _______ evidence.

very strong

Is Kassin et al. (2005), who gave higher accuracy in false confession detection? Why?

Students. Police officers were biased. Biased increased with interrogation training andn job experience.

A confession is proved to be coerced to a jury. This does not affect the jury.

It does affect the juryr to think they are guilty even if they dont actively believe so

True or false? Confessions can’t affect other independent evidence.

False

____ eyewitness are highly correlated with _____.

confident, persuasiveness

3 stages of memory?

1. Encoding

2. Storage

3. Retrieval

What is fuzzy-trace theory?

Memory relies on verbatim and gist.

Bias has little effect on target-____ lineups and strong effect on target-___ lineups.

present, absent