Habla Ingles? The Effects of Language Translation on Simulated Juror Decisions1

Two studies were conducted in which college students, acting as simulated jurors, heard the testimony of a defendant in an assault case. The testimony was presented in English or in another language (Spanish in Study 1 and Thai in Study 2) which was translated into English by an interpreter. In Study 1, non-Hispanics judged the defendant to be more guilty than did Hispanics when the defendant's testimony was presented in Spanish than when it was presented in English. This bias was offset when the judge's instructions admonished the jurors to ignore the fact that the defendant's testimony was translated. Similarly, in Study 2, subjects (all non-Thai) judged the defendent more guilty when his testimony was presented in Thai than when it was presented in English. Again, this bias was eliminated by the judge's instructions to the jurors to ignore the fact that the testimony was translated. The increased guilty verdicts for defendants who did not testify in English appeared to be due to prejudice and language ethnocentrism, the belief that defendants in U.S. courts should speak English.     

Jurors Report that Risk Measure Scores Matter in Sexually Violent Predator Trials,but that Other Factors Matter More

After deliberating to a verdict, jurors (N = 462) from 40 sexually violent predator (SVP) trials completed a questionnaire asking them to rate the extent to which risk measure scores, diagnoses, expert witness testimony, and offender characteristics described during the trials influenced their commitment decisions. Jurors reported that offenders' sexual offending history, failure to change, and lack of remorse had the strongest influence on their commitment decisions. They reported that testimony about risk instrument scores (e.g., Static-99) and psychopathy had less influence on their decisions, but those who did report being influenced by instrument results were especially likely to view the offender as being at a high risk for reoffending. Overall, findings suggest that SVP jurors view risk measure results as important, but not as important as other offender, offense, and testimony characteristics, including some that have limited relevance to recidivism risk. Thus, findings also suggest that experts may need to better educate jurors regarding factors that do and do not relate to recidivism risk. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Special perspective: An immodest proposal: should treating mental health professionals be barred from testifying about their patients?

Notwithstanding ethical rules that address therapeutic and forensic role conflicts for psychologists and psychiatrists, overzealous patient advocacy by therapists, tightened reimbursement for therapy, and a growth market for forensic psychology and psychiatry, have led many therapists to appear willingly as forensic experts on behalf of their patients. Existing ethical rules, as well as other proposed approaches to address this problem, assume that it can be resolved by modest changes in existing practice that permit therapists to testify as long as their testimony avoids psycholegal opinions. This essay questions whether these modest changes can adequately address this problem and advances consideration of a more radical proposal to address this problem, prohibiting therapists from testifying about their patients. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Expert testimony in child sexual abuse cases: The effects of evidence,coherence and credentials on juror decision making

Psychological experts have been used increasingly to testify in child sexual abuse cases, yet little research has investigated what specific factors make experts effective. This study examined the potential effects that credentials, evidence strength and coherence may have on juror decision making. Sixty‐four mock jurors read cases of child sexual abuse, followed by experts' testimony and rated guilt of the defendant, effectiveness of the expert testimony and credibility of the victim. Evidence strength and coherence of the testimony affected all dependent variables, and the interaction was significant. Guilt ratings of the defendant were lower and the victim was rated as less credible when both evidence strength and coherence were low. The credentials of the expert, however, had negligible impact. These findings indicate that experts can be effective and impact jurors when testimony is either high in coherence or high in evidence. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reaction of mock jurors to testimony of a court appointed expert

A study was conducted to assess the impact of court appointed experts on the judgments of mock jurors. A civil proceeding was adopted for the experiment. Mock jurors heard testimony about a plaintiff's injury in an automobile accident. In some conditions, medical testimony for the plaintiff and defendant was provided by experts hired by each side. In other conditions, a medical expert appointed by the court testified in addition to the two adversarial experts. In one of these conditions, the court expert sided with the plaintiff; in another, the expert sided with the defendant. The plaintiff in the case was always an individual. The defendant was sometimes a corporation and sometimes an individual. The results showed that mock jurors sided with the court appointed expert in every condition except when the expert favored a corporate defendant. The results were discussed in terms of heuristic processing of persuasive information.     

Bias and expert testimony of mental health professionals in adversarial proceedings: A preliminary investigation

The role of mental health professionals testifying as expert witnesses has been the subject of increasing criticism. Cases in which opposing experts reach different conclusions are dismissed as “battles of the experts” and psychologists and psychiatrists are described as “hired guns.” This preliminary, analogue study examined the degree to which the opinions and testimony of mental health professionals may differ according to which side retains the expert. Results provided some support for the proposition that mental health professionals' testimony may vary according to the side by which they are retained.     

Judge's Instruction on Eyewitness Testimony: Evaluation and Revision1

Studies of the reliability of eyewitness identification show that such testimony may frequently be inaccurate; because of this inherent unreliability, the law has established certain safeguards to the use of eyewitness evidence. One safeguard has been the development of an instruction that a judge may use to focus jurors' attention on the eyewitness issue. The effectiveness of this instruction has never been assessed, although other studies confirm that jurors frequently misunderstand or incorrectly use instructions they get from the judge. The purpose of these studies was to evaluate comprehension of this instruction in the context of a videotaped trial and to develop a simplified instruction that would be easier for jurors to understand. Compared to jurors who heard the existing instruction, those with the revised version were more knowledgeable of the factors to consider when listening to eyewitness testimony and were less likely to convict the defendant. A sample of superior court judges in the U.S. thought the simplified instruction was more effective than the existing version at conveying the intended legal concepts to the jury, but also rated it as more strongly biased toward the defense.     

Juror decision-making in a mock sexually violent predator trial: gender differences in the impact of divergent types of expert testimony

Despite widespread use of mental health testimony in cases where violence risk is at issue, relatively little is known about the impact of such information on juror decision-making. This study addressed the effects of testimony based on three types of risk assessment instrument or method (clinical opinion, actuarial assessment, and ratings of psychopathy) to examine whether they would have differential impact on jurors' perceptions of the defendant. In a mock sexually violent predator civil commitment trial, 172 undergraduates were presented a case summary that included prosecution and defense expert testimony related to violence risk based on one of the three methods noted above. Consistent with earlier research, the hypothesis that a defendant described as a "high risk psychopath" by the prosecution would be judged more severely than a defendant judged as "high risk" based on other evaluation procedures was supported, but only among female jurors. Unlike prior studies, little support was found for the hypothesis that clinical opinion testimony would be more influential than actuarially based testimony for either gender. Mechanisms that may underlie the observed gender differences are discussed, as are the potential implications of these findings for civil commitment proceedings.     

Legal and psychological bases of expert testimony: Surveys of the law and of jurors

This article reviews the basic rules of evidence and procedure that provide the basis for the introduction of expert testimony into court. Second, it reviews some of the findings of social psychology regarding expert testimony, primarily the ways in which the structure of society affects what information will reach the court and what is the readiness of the factfinder to deal with that information. Finally, it reports original data on jurors' assessments of a variety of witnesses (viz. physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, chemists, document examiners, polygraph examiners, police, eyewitnesses, firearms experts, and accountants and appraisers). Jurors' differential assessments of the different experts and differences among juror subgroups are reported and some explanations for a few of those differences are tested.     

The admissibility of expert testimony regarding malingering and deception

This article discusses the legal admissibility of expert testimony and the ability of mental health professionals to detect malingering and deception among defendants. A legal analysis of the admissibility of expert testimony regarding malingering and deception in formal legal proceedings is presented. Some guidelines are provided to help mental health professionals and attorneys determine the admissibility of evidence they intend to introduce. Although psychologists and psychiatrists currently have a limited ability to identify accurately malingering and deception, expert testimony about the genuineness of a defendant's mental illness is likely to be held admissible for both practical and evidentiary reasons. In contrast, evidence about a witness' credibility is rarely admissible. In addition, psychologists are ethically obliged to recognize their limitations in making representations about their skills.     

A Lay Perspective on the Accuracy of Eyewitness Testimony1

To understand more about what laypeople think they “know” about eyewitness testimony, 276 jury-eligible university students were asked to indicate what factors they believe affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. In contrast to the large proportion of eyewitness-memory research that concerns system variables, the lay respondents overwhelmingly generated factors related to estimator variables, while system-variable factors such as police questioning and identification procedures were rarely mentioned. Respondents also reported that their own common sense and everyday life experiences were their most important sources of information about the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Not only do these results clarify the need for further research on the lay perspective of eyewitness testimony, but they also provide some insight into the way in which many jurors might approach cases involving eyewitness evidence.     

A Comparison of What U.S. Judges and Students Know and Believe About Eyewitness Testimony

We compared what 160 U.S. judges, 57 law students, and 121 undergraduates know and believe about factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Judges were no more knowledgeable than were undergraduates, and both groups were less knowledgeable than were law students. For all 3 groups, increased knowledge of eyewitness factors was associated with beliefs that might reduce wrongful convictions. Participants in all 3 groups underestimated what potential jurors know about eyewitness testimony. The results suggest that increasing judges' knowledge of eyewitness testimony might help them to reduce wrongful convictions and to more accurately assess when eyewitness experts are needed. The results also suggest that law schools need to do a better job of educating law students about eyewitness testimony.     

Videotaped Versus In-Court Witness Testimony: Does Protecting the Child Witness Jeopardize Due Process?1

Videotaping depositions may protect a child witness from the stress of testifying in court but also may influence jurors’ perceptions of the child and the defendant, and jurors’ verdicts in systematic ways. The present study examines several psychological hypotheses that emerge from the controversy over the use of videotaped depositions of child witnesses in child sexual abuse trials. We predicted that student jurors viewing a videotaped deposition would be more proprosecution and less prodefense than those who did not receive testimony in such a form. Thus, it was predicted that jurors viewing a videotaped deposition would perceive the prosecution witnesses and their testimonies more favorably, the defense witnesses and their testimonies less favorably, and give more guilty verdicts than jurors who viewed identical testimony during the course of a trial. We also predicted that females would be more proprosecution and less prodefense than males and that this gender difference would be accentuated by the medium of presentation. The medium of presentation had only a few effects on jurors’ responses. However, when differences emerged, they generally provided support for the predicted main effects. The implications of these findings for the use of videotaped depositions of child sexual abuse victims are discussed.     

Determining dangerousness in sexually violent predator evaluations: cognitive-experiential self-theory and juror judgments of expert testimony

Past research examining the effects of expert testimony on the future dangerousness of a defendant in death penalty sentencing found that jurors are more influenced by less scientific clinical expert testimony and tend to devalue scientific actuarial testimony. This study was designed to determine whether these findings extend to civil commitment trials for sexual offenders and to test a theoretical rationale for this effect. In addition, we investigated the influence of a recently developed innovation in risk assessment procedures, Guided Professional Judgment (GPJ) instruments. Consistent with a cognitive-experiential self-theory based explanation, mock jurors motivated to process information in an experiential condition were more influenced by clinical testimony, while mock jurors in a rational mode were more influenced by actuarial testimony. Participants responded to clinical and GPJ testimony in a similar manner. However, participants' gender exerted important interactive effects on dangerousness decisions, with male jurors showing the predicted effect while females did not. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.     

A survey of psychological test use patterns among forensic psychologists

Clinical psychologists are frequently called on to testify in court regarding mental health issues in civil or criminal cases. One of the legal criteria by which admissibility of testimony is determined includes whether the testimony is based on methods that have gained "general acceptance" in their field. In this study, we sought to evaluate the psychological tests used in forensic assessments by members of the American Psychology-Law Society Division of the American Psychological Association, and by diplomates in the American Board of Forensic Psychology. We present test results from this survey, based on 152 respondents, for forensic evaluations conducted with adults using multiscale inventories, single-scale tests, unstructured personality tests, cognitive and/or intellectual tests, neuropsychological tests, risk assessment and psychopathy instruments, sex offender risk assessment instruments, competency or sanity-related instruments, and instruments used to evaluate malingering. In addition, we provide findings for psychological testing involving child-related forensic issues.     

On the "general acceptance" of eyewitness testimony research. A new survey of the experts

In light of recent advances, this study updated a prior survey of eyewitness experts (S. M. Kassin, P. C. Ellsworth, & V. L. Smith, 1989). Sixty-four psychologists were asked about their courtroom experiences and opinions on 30 eyewitness phenomena. By an agreement rate of at least 80%, there was a strong consensus that the following phenomena are sufficiently reliable to present in court: the wording of questions, lineup instructions, confidence malleability, mug-shot-induced bias, postevent information, child witness suggestibility, attitudes and expectations, hypnotic suggestibility, alcoholic intoxication, the crossrace bias, weapon focus, the accuracy-confidence correlation, the forgetting curve, exposure time, presentation format, and unconscious transference. Results also indicate that these experts set high standards before agreeing to testify. Despite limitations, these results should help to shape expert testimony so that it more accurately represents opinions in the scientific community.     

Trivial persuasion in the courtroom: the power of (a few) minor details

Investigated the influence of trivial testimonial detail on judgments of 424 undergraduates who served as mock jurors. Ss read a summary of a court case involving robbery and murder. In Experiment 1, detailed testimony influenced judgments of guilt, even when the detail was unrelated to the culprit. In Experiment 2, detailed testimony was especially powerful when an opposing witness testified that she could not remember the trivial details. Subsequent analyses suggest that the impact of detailed testimony on guilt judgments is mediated by inferences about the eyewitnesses. When eyewitnesses provided more detail, they were generally judged to be more credible, to have a better memory for the culprit's face and for details, and to have paid more attention to the culprit.     

Expert testimony and jury decision making: An empirical analysis

This experiment examines the influence of expert psychological testimony on juror decision making in eyewitness identification cases. Experienced jurors and undergraduate mock jurors viewed versions of a videotaped trial, rated the credibility of the eyewitness and the strength of the prosecution's and defense's cases, and rendered verdicts. In the absence of expert testimony jurors were insensitive to eyewitness evidence. Expert testimony improved juror sensitivity to eyewitness evidence without making them more skeptical about the accuracy of the eyewitness identification. Few differences emerged between the experienced jurors and undergraduate mock jurors.