Amicus Brief: Frye Confessions

“It is difficult to prove a causal relationship between permissible investigative and interrogatory deception and testimonial deception.  Police freely admit to deceiving suspects and defendants.  They do not admit to perjury, much less to the rationalization of perjury.  There is evidence, however of the acceptability of perjury as a means to the end of conviction.  The evidence is limited and fragmentary and is certainly not dispositive” (Skolnick, 1982).

The Commonwealth of Virginia v. Allen (609 S.E.2d 4, Va. 2005) was a fascinating case. The case focused on two expert witness testifying for the state and the other for the defendant, and if they acted and behaved ethically during the proceedings. Successive information will be addressed to prove the thought process behind my opinion given in this case. The APA code of ethics and specialty guidelines will be used to support my reasoning. Furthermore, they will serve as a baseline of boundaries within the profession to determine the expert witness’ influences to the case as well as their behavior within the profession.

In this article, Richard Leo examines false confession cases, investigating the wonder of false confessions, the effect of confessional proof, and the reasons for false confessions. Police interrogations can be intimidating to people who are in desperate situations. Some people are bullied into making false confessions and end up getting convicted, even though they are innocent. If the Court convicts someone using testimonies and confessions, the defendant didn’t get the right to a fair trial.

In order to comprehend the contribution of psychology to areas of criminal investigation it is important to evaluate research into two of the following areas of criminal investigation: eye witness testimony and offender profiling as well as assess the implications of the findings in the area of criminal investigation. In addition, this essay, with reference to relevant psychological research, discuss how the characteristics of the defendant may influence jury behaviour as well as analyse two psychological influences on the decision making process of juries. In order to improve the efficiency of detection and successful prosecution of crime it is important to underline that in a previous administration, detection of serious crime was poor and eyewitness testimony appeared very unreliable, partly due to standard interview techniques yielding confusing results. It is therefore this essays primary focus is to provide the chief constable with a report explaining how psychologists might be able to improve this situation with a full evaluation of process and evidence.

Cassell, Paul G. "Protecting The Innocent From False Confessions And Lost Confessions - And From Miranda." Journal Of Criminal Law & Criminology 88.2 (1998): 497-556. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.

When questioning witnesses of a crime, detectives may choose a specific technique; one technique is the Reid Technique. The Reid Technique is a multi-step questioning method that pressures the witnesses or the accused to admit to the crime. It is used in North America. According to Professor Brent Snook, a psychologist at the Memorial University in Newfoundland, the Reid Technique is “Starsky and Hutch”, where two hot head detectives “beat up” their suspects to encourage them confess (http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/25/youre-guilty-now-confess-false-admissions-put-polices-favourite-interrogation-tactic-under-scrutiny/). This paper will examine the steps of the Reid Technique, as well as reveal substantial evidence that this technique should be banned. This technique has led to false confessions. Not only does this mean that someone has been punished that isn’t guilty, but it also means the real criminal has not been found and punished. The arguments against the use of this technique are the following:

Determining a false confession proves difficult due to the multitude of dimensions involved. According to Kassin and Wrightsman’s (1985) survey of the literature, there are three main types of false confessions—voluntary, coerced-compliant, and coerced-internalized. Unlike coerced false confessions, voluntary false confessions arise as a result of someone willingly turning themselves into the police with an account of their crime (McCann, 1998). Voluntary false confessions can result from multiple motives, including an internalized need for punishment or to save someone else’s face. In contrast, coerced false confessions directly result from police interrogations. While coerced-compliant confessions are made to avoid interrogation, escape the stressful situation, or achieve some other reward, coerced-internalized confessions emerge when a suspects begins to

Of the 121 participants, three primary areas were measured, whether or not the participant found the defendant guilty or not, to what degree the participant found the defendant guilty on a 1 to 7 scale, and the severity of punishment the participant thought the defendant should receive with 5 choices. This was done by the use of four different surveys, a black discredited witness, a white discredited witness, a black witness, and a white witness. Descriptives were done on guilt rating (M = 4.55, SD = 1.539) and punishment rating (M = 2.43, SD = 1.255). Then the descriptives were broken down even more into four categories for each dependent variable in regards to the independent variables, credible witness guilt rating (M = 4.88) and

Through different tactics and implied emotions, police interrogations can lead to incorrect convictions. Kennis’s article goes into each individual reason suspects feel their only option is to admit to a crime they had no part in. Whether a sense of guilt or forced confessions, it explains just how these confessions occur. This article includes examples of crimes innocent people claimed to have committed for a variety of reasons. It explains each reason and helps readers better understand exactly how an innocent person could say they committed a crime. This article develops a full explanation that helps readers understand exactly what goes on inside interrogation rooms that lead to innocent people giving a false

For a society that is greatly influenced by Crime Scene Investigation, Criminal Minds and Bones, a confession of the offender is seen as an ultimate checkmate of the case because it implies the guilt of the confessor. Thus, a confession, especially the ones with detailed account and perfect representation of emotions (Leo, 2008), outweighs the evidences of innocence and stirs the case against the accused (Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985). People believe that they are open-minded about the possibility of false confession but in reality, the public, law enforcers and justice officials have biases that often infer guilt to the suspect instead of investigating for the truth, which leads to wrongful conviction. According to Leo and Drizin (2004), false confession is the primary cause of law miscarriage (Leo and Drizzin, 2004). False confessors lived many years in jail before being exonerated while others remain imprisoned (Leo and Drizzin, 2004).

Wrongful convictions are common in the court-system. In fact, wrongful convictions are not the rare events that you see or hear on televisions shows, but are very common. They stem from some sort of systematic defect that lead to wrongful convictions such as, eyewitness misidentification testimony, unvalidated or improper forensic science, false confessions and incriminating statements, DNA lab errors, false confessions, and informants (2014). Bringing awareness to all these systematic defects, which result in wrongful, is important because it will better adjust the system to avoid making the same mistakes with future cases. However, false confession is not a systematic defect. It does not occur because files were misplaced or a lab technician put one too many drops. False confessions occur because of some of psychological attempt to protect oneself and their family. Thus, the courts responsibility should be to reduce these false confessions.

Psychological research shows that eyewitness testimony is not always accurate, therefore it should not be used in the criminal justice system. Discuss.

Assessment psychology has examined individuals who are criminal offenders who were evaluated to determine their personalities to which they have a long history with. Approximately well over a century ago, Münsterberg, 1908, Vaccaro & Hogan, 2004 who are all psychologists has managed a improved study on criminal offenders that will allow us all to have an ambiguous understanding of how the process of his research in reference to the criminal offenders testimony in court cases. In the 20th century the personality assessment was established, which was generally exercised to govern a component for personality in criminals (Symonds, 1934). During court cases in 1942 adults and juveniles were introduced to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) which was disclosed that same year. Psychologists Archer, Stredny, & Zoby, (2006); Archer, Buffington-Vollum, Stredny, and Handel (2006); Borum and Grisso (1995); and Lally (2003) was flabbergasted to find how accurate the MMPI–2 presented itself, which was ultimately the most universally piece of equipment acknowledged and used as evidence for criminals, that calculated their personalities in forensic assessments. The MMPI was authenticated well in the 70’s which everyone employed extensively as solid foundation in correctional settings as well as the use in forensic psychologists.

False convictions are an incontrovertible flaw of the legal system, and the focus of most legal psychologists is to find a way to lessen the number of innocent people who are falsely convicted of crimes. Murder on a Sunday Morning follows the trial of Brenton Butler, a young African American teenager accused of robbing and murdering a tourist, the sixty-five-year-old Mary Ann Stevens, outside a Ramada in Jacksonville, Florida. Although Butler was ultimately found innocent of the crime, from a legal psychology perspective many details of the case (investigator biases, factors that may have led to false or inaccurate eyewitness evidence, and interrogatory factors that may have led to Brenton Butler’s false confession), under different circumstances may have led to a false conviction.

This paper discusses the different roles that are taken on by a forensic psychologist, and how those roles interact and affect each other and how the psychologist is about to do his/her job. It looks briefly at the history of the field. We discuss the forensic psychologist as the consultant, the therapist, the researcher, as well as the expert witness. This paper also discusses predicting dangerousness and whether or not an expert can predict dangerousness. Finally we look at conflicting roles and ethics in the field.