PSYC 3451: week 1

Forensic psychology: psychology which focuses on human behaviour related to all aspects of the law

History - Early Contributions

• not officially under forensic psychology

• building blocks of the field

• James Cattell (1895) United States

  • measurements of the accuracy of recollection (paper)

  • participants (eyewitnesses) sometimes inaccurate

  • relationship between accuracy and confidence is unreliable

• Alfred Binet (1900) France

  • la suggestibilité

  • presented children with series of objects (e.g., button glued to paper)

  • later interviewed them

  • free recall results highest accuracy

  • children were highly susceptible to suggestive questioning

• Europe:

• German physician Albert Von Schrenk-Notzing (1896)

  • provided testimony in court about effect of pretrial publicity on memory

  • case involving 3 sexual murders

  • claimed that the pretrial publicity could cause retroactive memory falsification (ppl confuse what they heard vs. experiencing it)

• Belgian psychologist Julian Varen Donck (1911)

  • called to be an expert witness of a murder of a young girl (Cecile; case involved child witness)

  • demonstrated that children can be easily led by suggestive questioning

  • asked children to describe a person who approached him in front of the children earlier

  • no such person existed

• Hugo Munsterberg

• student of Wilhelm Wundt

• involved in several criminal cases (not as an expert witness)

  • Richard Ivan (1906) intellectually disabled

  • confessed to murder and rape

  • Munsterberg and William James reviewed interrogation records and concluded confession to be false

• Harry Orchard (1907)

  • confessed to killing former governor of Idaho

  • Munsterberg tested Orchard and claimed confession was valid

• Ivens was found guilty, and Orchard was acquitted

• the press objected to his involvement

• Munsterberg

  • published “On The Witness Stand” (1908)

  • argued that psychology had much to offer the legal system

• John Henry Wingmore (1909)

  • respected law professor

  • responds with satire

  • through series of fabricated transcripts put Munsterberg “on trial”

• Criticized Munsterberg

  • lack of relevant research to back up claims

  • lack of applied forensic psychology research in general

• State v. Driver (1921)

  • case involved attempted rape of a young girl

  • court accepted expert testimony on juvenile delinquency

  • court rejected evidence that the girl was severely intellectually challenged and could not be believed

  • court stated that there are no tests to substantiate whether a witness is being truthfully

• Jenkins v. United States (1962)

  • break and enter with intent of sexual assault

  • Jenkins pled guilty by reason of insanity

  • jury was instructed to disregard testimony from psychologists

  • psychologists cannot speak on mental diseases

  • case appealed and overturned

  • APA provided report to the court

  • some psychologists may be qualified

• Contributions have been growing since mid 1900’s

  • 1940s: inmate classification officers begin to be employed in federal facilities many with training in social sciences (e.g., psychologist)

  • 1955: 1st federal correctional psychologist is hired at St. Vincent de Paul penitentiary (Laval institution) Quebec

  • 1980: Dr. Robert Hare publishes 1st version of psychopathy checklist. Revised version (2003) is “gold standard” for assessing psychopathology

  • 1994: in R v. Mohan, S.C.C defines criteria for determining when testimoney of expert witness will be admitted in court

  • 2001: APA recognizes forensic psychology as a specialty discipline. has important implications for the field both U.S and Canada

• Schuller and Ogloff (2001) argue that forensic psychology has marking of established evidence by:

  • more quality textbooks in the area

  • academic journals dedicated to the field

  • professional associations in the field have formed (American Psychology Law Society founded in 1968-69)

  • Canada → criminal justice section of CPA

  • new training opportunities in the field of forensic psychology

  • APA recognizes forensic psychology as formal discipline (2001)

Professional Roles:

• Clinical forensic psychologist

  • concerned with mental health issues and the law

  • work in hospitals, persons, and private settings

  • duties performed:

  • assess offender for risk

  • conduct divorce and custody mediation

  • provide expert testimony

  • conduct critical incident debriefing w/ police

  • facilitate treatment program for offenders

• Experimental forensic psychologists

• concerned with mental health issues and the law

• or any research issue that related to the law or legal system

  • for example

  • examining effectiveness of risk assessment

  • studying judicial decision making

  • developing best practice witness procedures

  • interviewing and eyewitness identification

  • studying efficacy of treatment programs

• Legal Scholars

  • psychologist may have both PHD in psychology and law degree

  • more informed about legal issues

  • work focuses on policy analysis and legislation

Relationship b/t psychology and law:

• Psychology and the Law

• psychology is viewed as separate to the law

• purpose is to examine and analyze various aspects of the law

  • what factors affect sentencing length?

  • what factors are related to delays in disclosure of a crime?

  • what things are going on to cause victims to not come forward?

• Psychology in the Law

• involves use of psychological knowledge in the legal system

  • psychologist providing expert testimony in court

  • might testify on the quality of an interview

  • psychologists providing training on how to interview children

• Psychology of the Law

• use of psychology to study law itself

  • does the law amount to the crime

  • how effective has the Gladue report been at reducing discrimination against Indigenous people in Canada

Seven differences b/t Psychology and Law (Hess, 2006):

• Epidemiology

• psychologists assume objective truths are discoverable

  • in law the truth is defined subjectively and defined by who can provide most convincing story

• Nature of Law

• psychology aims to describe why things happen (descriptive)

  • law tells people how they should behave (prescirptive)

• Knowledge

• psychology is based on empirical nomothetical (group-based) data

  • law is based on idiographic analysis and court cases

• Methodology

• approaches in psychology largely nomothetic and experimental

  • law operates on a case by case basis, constructing narratives which covers the details of a specific case

• Criterion

• psychologists are conservative about what they accept (e.g., p > .05)

  • in law guilt is established using various criteria (e.g., beyond a reasonable doubt)

• Principles

• psychologists take an exploratory approach and encourages consideration of a multitude of explanations for a behaviour

  • lawyers adopt a conservative approach. An explanation predominates based on its coherence with the facts and precedent-setting cases

• Latitude of courtroom behaviour

• behaviour of a psychologist as an expert witness in the courtroom is much more limited than that of lawyers

Expert witness testimony - Functions:

• provide assistance to the triers of fact with an opinion based on specialized knowledge

• triers of fact are judges or jury members (role is as an educator not an advocate for either side)

• matter must be relevant to the case

• testimony must be deemed reliable and helpful to the court

Expert Witness Testimony - challenges:

• providing expert testimony is challenging

• there is a lot for the psychologist to know

  • about their area of expertise

  • about being in court

  • about facts of the case

Expert Witness Testimony - admissibility:

• Frye v. United States (1923)

  • court rejected requests to admit results from a polygraph (accused has passed)

  • on appeal - rejected the testimony of a polygraph expert to present evidence on Frye’s behalf

  • court indicated for new scientific evidence to be admitted if the procedures are generally accepted in the scientific community

  • general acceptance test

  • was long used in US and is still used in some states

  • has been criticized

  • can judges determine what is generally accepted?

• Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993)

  • Daubert thought his birth defects were from a drug his mother took for morning sickness

  • Daubert - experts testitifed Bendectin could lead to birth defects

  • Merell - experts testified Benedectin does not lead to birth defects

  • court rejected Daubert’s experts → methods were not generally accepted

  • Daubert appealed → because of court’s interpretation of general acceptance

• Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993) cont.

• US Supreme court responds stated scientific evidence must be

  • provided by a qualified expert

  • relevant

  • reliable (Daubert criteria)

  • research:

  • has been peer reviewed

  • is testable

  • has a recognized error rate

  • adheres to professional standards

Expert witness testimony - Admissibility:

• Canada

• R v. Mohan

  • paediatrician charged with sexual assault of several adolescent patients

  • expert to provide evidence that Mohan was not a pedophile and that the offender in this type of case would be a pedophile

  • judge ruled not admissible

• Mohan criteria

• on appeal S.C.C set the criteria for admitting expert testimony

  • evidence must

  • be reliable

  • be necessary for assisting the trier of fact

  • not violate other exclusionary rules

  • be provided by a qualified expert