The Rand Corporation conducted a study of criminal-investigation processes, reporting that the principal determinant of whether a case was solved was the completeness and accuracy of eyewitness accounts (Ronald Fisher, 1985). People learn things differently, so in a direct correlation, they tend to remember things differently as well. When it comes to witnessing an event, a crime being committed, or merely hearing someone say something; pieces of memory are going to be built that must be recalled later when asked by an investigator to provide a statement. If the memory of the event is extremely emotional, how that information is recalled can be quite difficult. If someone is personally involved, and the event was quite traumatic, recalling …show more content…
A hypnotic interview is conducted by a trained clinical specialist and places the subject into a relaxed, almost sedative state which theory says allows the subject to access more of a subconscious level of memory not normally recalled while completely alert or awake. A cognitive interview is similar to hypnosis as neither one is recommended over the standard police interview; but hypnotic interviews face strict guidelines in order to be conducted and admissible in …show more content…
Whitehouse, 2008). Due to its use, the courts have created restrictions on applicability and admissibility in court; creating such restrictive use that law enforcement has often looked toward other methods, to include the Cognitive interview, because the subject is awake, coherent, and not easily influenced by subjective interviewers. Within the scope of the cognitive interview, subjects can be allowed free expression in order to gain as many facts as possible, without interruption or suggestive input by the interviewer. Once rapport is gained, and the free story mode is complete, and interviewer can walk the subject back through their statement, filling in gaps, and quite possibly gaining new insight by examining another’s point of view. This is all done with the subject awake and aware, vice the hypnotic interview where the subject can be made to “remember” information input from the interviewer; thereby reduced validity and accuracy of data. The courts are much more receptive to the cognitive technique versus the hypnotic interview results; simply based on the restrictions of admissibility that have been
The counselor also judged that he should rely on the plea colloquy for evidence about respondent’s background and his claim of emotional stress. The counselor believed the plea colloquy provided sufficient information to the Court about these subjects. He also believed that by not introducing new evidence on these subjects, he prevented the State from cross-examining the respondent on his claim and from introducing its own psychiatric evidence. He also was successful in excluding other damaging evidence from the sentencing hearing, including the introduction of the respondent’s criminal history. He also judged that a pre-sentence report would likely be more damaging than helpful because it
PAPER 1: FALSE CONFESSION ASSIGNMENT Legal issues involved in the interrogation of criminal suspects are the leading cause for wrongful conviction of innocent individuals based off of false confessions. The primary motive for police officials is to close a case with a written and verbal confession from a possible suspect. Confessions override evidence if the confession is convincing enough to the jurors. Most people assume that people would not confess to a crime they didn’t commit, but due to the harsh interrogation circumstances, psychological coercion and situation factors, these can influence an innocent individual to confess to a crime they didn’t commit.
The description of the Lockerbie bombing may provide image on how lengthy and complicated an investigation and a trial process could be. Eyewitness would have to go through repeated interviews. The purpose of this procedure is to assess the consistency and accuracy of the testimony. Unfortunately, it is often not realized that repeated interview may also have a negative effect on the quality of the testimony given. A study by Sharps, Herrera, Dunn, and Alcala investigated the effect of repeated questioning in the format based of police procedure (2012).
How Accurate Children Are at Recognizing Faces Many criminal investigations rely on eyewitness accounts in order to identify a criminal. Some of these investigations require children to choose from a photograph who they believe the person they saw was. Children (ages 4-7) are less able to recall details of a situation, and are not yet able to descriptively describe events that happened to them. Adults however, are better at recalling than children (given optimal conditions).
Point 1. The collected evidence ought to be suppressed for failure to issue Miranda warnings during a custodial interrogation. Miranda warnings were made mandatory by the Supreme Court to protect the citizenry from hard police interrogation tactics and forced confessions. However, when a private citizen becomes the interrogator outside, the application of Miranda becomes less strict. The Constitution does not restrain a private citizen in the same ways as law enforcement, unless that citizen is acting as an agent of law enforcement.
In chapter 4, Consulting and Testifying it explain how psychologists are needed in the courtroom in order to consult or testify with lawyers to the judicial process. The series of American Story Crime episode 5: “The Race Card”, there were examples and concepts of the structure and process in criminal and civil court with the legal system. While reading chapter 4, I learned that there are four stages of the judicial process which are pretrial, trail, disposition and appeals. Before heading to the court, preparation was done to assists the attorney during the trial by preparing the witnesses and making decisions about particular trail stages. During the opening statement, it included a judge and the jury in the room to hear from both lawyers
Psychological writers have argued that “children are the most dangerous of all witnesses” (Brigham, Van Verst and Bothwell, 1986, p. 296). The dependability of a witness’s recall of events should be of great importance to everyone;a person will never know when guilt or innocence may be dependant on how well a child can recall an event they have witnessed. A field
The Difference between cognitive, kinesic, and analytical interviewing are how they are used within an interview. Cognitive interviewing is a method of interviewing the eyewitnesses or even the victims about what they may remember from the crime scene which the primary focus is to make the person(s) be aware of all the events that took place at the scene. The only way that cognitive interviews do not work is when the person(s) being questioned is in a confabulation state of mind or to put it simply the begin to fabricating or even distorting the truth of what actually took place at the crime scene. Kinesic interviewing is basically the study of non-verbal body language. Police investigators use this method to watch for unspoken clues like gestures,
This week’s topic was very interesting to learn about how important eyewitnesses can be when a crime and accidents do occur. In the case that was presented in the 60-minute segment of Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson is exactly how legal system can fail us when it comes to the eyewitnesses’ identification testimony and how a person’s perception and memory can be altered. The aspect of psychology and law research from this week’s course material is most relevant to the topic of perception and memory. The memory has different stages the first is encoding the process of entering perception into memory.
When a suspect answers the questions he should provide an earnest, cooperative and resolute attitude. Last but not least, during the control questions, the suspect should try to have a breathing rate of around 15 to 30 breaths every minute. If the suspect has had previous training or can control his emotions properly, there is no way that a polygraph can tell the suspect is lying or
We tend to mistake or confuse people in our daily lives, if one witnesses a crime are they most likely to remember what happened and recognize who did it? Memory can be easily deceived and we can create false memories. In psychology, there are numerous studies that focus on memory and on how accurately someone is able to recall a crime and the perpetrator. For instance, Elizabeth Loftus (1974) comes in mind when we talk about eyewitness testimonies and how the leading questions influence what we remember about an incident. Sometimes misinformation that is given to us can alter what we recall from the incident.
From this experiment it seems that environmental cues are crucial in aiding the improvement of the accuracy and reliability of eyewitness testimony. The table and graph below illustrates the results reflecting Godden and Baddeley (1975) experiment on encoding specificity and the effect of environmental context on
To be a good interrogator it requires more than confidence and creativity although it does help, but interrogators are very well trained in the mental tactics of social impact. An interrogators task is to get someone to confess to a crime, but it is not easy. While it isn’t easy for them, sometimes they will end up with confessions from the innocent testifies because of the expertise in psychological manipulation interrogators have. The interrogation process has been manipulated over the years and they are using unethical approaches to gain information or a confession from suspects. But in the law of confessions, it is required that confessions are not coerced but be voluntary so that it is admitted into evidence.
Risk factors regarding interrogation techniques more commonly associated with false confessions include being young, suffering from a mental illness, cognitive impairment, and suggestibility. These are not factors police take into account or test for before they start an interrogation. The Reid technique has the interrogator telling the suspect they did commit the crime, gives them reasons why they would have done it, gives reasons that explain away the suspects denial, seeming to be sincere and understanding of the suspect, taking advantage of the suspects growing weary, and by having them choose a good reason to commit the crime. These procedures would increase the chances of obtaining a false confession from someone with a risk factor
B. Whether from evidence or a personal hunch, some interrogators interview suspects as if they are guilty, which causes an incorrect interrogation that leads to extensive stress and pressure. C. But if the investigator approaches the interrogation believing the detainee is guilty, the ensuing interrogation is more pressure-filled and coercive. This results in the innocent detainee (who is likely to waive their rights) being at increased risk for false confession due to the pressure of the interrogation process. (Keene) D.