Forensnips aplenty, forensnips galore

Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes, Everybody knows

I can't seem to get Leonard Cohen’s haunting Everybody Knows out of my mind.

Perhaps it's because I was just down in Alabama, the belly of the beast, working on a tragic case. With the highest per capita rate of executions in the United States, the Heart of Dixie State kills people for crimes that other nations punish with probation. No exaggeration. It was jarring to drive around  Montomery and see the close proximity of historic mansions to abandoned homes and decaying housing projects. The juxtaposition is fitting, as Montgomery claims the dual distinctions of being the "cradle of the Confederacy" and the "birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement."  

Montgomery, Alabama (c) Karen Franklin 2013

Or maybe it's a flashback to Elysium, in which the one percenters have left Earth’s teeming masses to rot away while they luxuriate on an idyllic orbiting satellite. The scene in the parole office, with a robot parole agent delivering a quick risk assessment and then pushing meds, is worth the price of admission, although the film is marred by interminable hand-to-hand combat scenes and a ridiculous Hollywood ending.

David Miranda, held hostage
by British security forces

Or, it could be because I’m still riled up over the British government's abuse of David Miranda. He is the Brazilian partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald (think Edward Snowden). In what can only be called an outrageous effort to intimidate journalists, the Brits detained Miranda at Heathrow Airport for nine solid hours -- the maximum allowed under the British Terrorism Act -- before finally releasing him sans his laptop, cell phone and camera. Under the Terrorism Act, he was not entitled to counsel, nor to decline to cooperate. I sure hope it backfires and incenses journalists; it certainly fired up USA Today columnist Rem Rieder (whose column I highly recommend).

* * * * *

I feel bad about the dearth of posts recently. It's been a hectic period. I'll try to make up for my lapse by packing this post with lots of links to forensic psychology and criminology news and views from the past few weeks:

Evidence-based justice: Corrupted memory

Nature magazine's profile of Elizabeth Loftus and her decades-long crusade to expose flaws in eyewitness testimony is worth a gander.

Psychopathic criminals have empathy switch

New research published in the journal Brain indicates that psychopaths do not lack empathy, as is often claimed. Rather, they can switch it on and off at will. The study, out of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, is freely available online. BBC also has coverage.  

The demographics of sexting

Sexting is becoming increasingly commonplace. But practices and meanings differ by gender, relationship and sexual identity, according to a new article, also available online, in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

Brainwashed video discussion

New York Times columnist David Brooks just interviewed psychiatrist Sally Satel and psychologist Scott Lilenfield about their new book, Brainwashed, which is getting quite a bit of media buzz. The book is a workmanlike, if a bit superficial, exploration of the allure of "mindless neuroscience." If you’ve got 65 minutes, I recommend watching the video discussion.

Prison news: Hunger strike, juveniles, the elderly, women

On the prison front, a lot has been going on. California prisoners are into Day 50 or so of their hunger strike over solitary housing (a condition that the Department of Corrections denies, despite many men being kept in segregation units for years and even decades) and other cruel conditions. With prisoners' health deteriorating, a court order has been issued allowing force feeding if necessary to forestall deaths. Mainstream media reporting has been minimal, but at least Al Jazeera's got you covered.  

Even more local to me, a lawsuit has been filed over solitary confinement of juveniles in Contra Costa County. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, accuses county officials of flouting state laws mandating that juvenile detention facilities be supportive environments designed for rehabilitation.

Meanwhile, NBC news is sounding an alarm over the increasing number of elderly people in U.S. prisons. NBC sounds mostly worried about the cost to taxpayers of prisons teeming with upwards of 400,000 elderly prisoners by the year 2030. Read ithttp://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/29/.UeV62HppQL8.twitter, and weep. 

Piper Kerman, author of the memoir Orange Is the New Black that's become a trendy Netflix series, is also sounding an alarm. In a New York Times op-ed, she writes about a federal plan to ease overcrowding in men's prisons by shipping about 1,000 women from Connecticut down to Alabama and points beyond, where they will be even more estranged from their families. As Kerman notes: "For many families these new locations might as well be the moon." I recommend her thoughtful essay on alternatives for low-risk women prisoners. 

In a more promising development, the U.S. Justice Department has announced efforts to curtail the stiff drug sentences that have caused much of this overcrowding in the first place. The U.S. prison system is so bloated, so costly, and so irrational, that even conservatives are calling for reform. Better late than never, I suppose.

By the way, Florida has executed John Errol Ferguson, the prisoner whose controversial case I blogged about earlier this year, whose competency was contested in part because of his insistence that he was the "Prince of God." The American Bar Association had filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify the standard for competency for execution being applied in the case. 

Sex offender news

In yet another in a series of registry-facilitated vigilante attacks, a South Carolina man has been arrested for killing a sex offender and his wife in the mistaken belief that the man was a child molester. At the same time, there are signs that overzealous laws that contribute to such stigmatization are being scrutinized more closely. For example, a federal judge has struck down a Colorado city's ordinance restricting where registered sex offenders can live, ruling that it conflicts with a state law requiring parolees to be reintegrated into society. An appellate panel in North Carolina has also struck down a law that banned registered sex offenders from using social media sites. The state Court of Appeals agreed with the challenger that the law violated his Constitutional rights to free speech and freedom of association. 

Dispute over expert witness credentials

Finally, there's a big brouhaha in South Dakota over the credentials of a psychologist who frequently testifies as an expert witness in child custody cases. The credentials of the widely respected psychologist, Thomas Price, became an issue during a child custody dispute. It was ascertained that he had earned his PhD in behavioral medicine from an online degree mill called Greenwich University on Norfolk Island, Australia, that was subsequently shuttered by the Australian government. According to an expert on diploma mills quoted by the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, degree mills often adopt the names of respected English universities. Price's resumé says he earned a Ph.D. in behavioral medicine from Greenwich University, without noting the Norfolk Island location. "Typically," notes the article, "people don’t get caught using an unaccredited degree until they assume a high-profile position ... or they do something that causes another person to research their backgrounds…. If you stay under the radar, you can get by."

Science blogger

Finally (this time I really mean it), for those of you who are into offbeat science, I've just added a new blog, Mike the Mad Biologist, to my blog roll (which can be found a little ways down the right column of my blog site). Mike is prolific and wide-ranging in his news links, with a creative spin. 

Hat tips to Jane, Terry, Kirk and others

The taint of a false confession

Ripple effects bias parties, contaminate "independent" evidence 

Michael Crowe, age 14, falsely confessing to murdering his sister

With the recent tidal wave of scholarly research into false confessions, informed forensic psychologists are by now tuned in to the phenomenon. We know, for example, that they played a role in one out of four DNA exoneration cases. We are aware of their compelling nature, and can cite examples such as the Central Park Jogger case in which they produced profound miscarriages of justice.

But let's take it one step further. What if, once police elicit a false confession from a suspect, it contaminates everything and everyone in touches -- from the prosecutor, the judge, and even the suspect's own attorney all the way to the fingerprint identification and even, perhaps, the DNA match?

That is the troubling thesis raised by Saul Kassin, a pioneer in the psychological study of false confessions, in an article in the current issue of the American Psychologist.

  

"Corroboration inflation"

Research shows us that such a contaminating effect is plausible. For example:

• Fingerprint experts who were told the suspect had confessed were more likely to change their opinion and make an incorrect match, as compared with experts who were told the suspect was already in custody at the time of the crime. (1)

• Polygraph examiners were significantly more likely to opine that an inconclusive chart showed deception when they were told the suspect had confessed. (2)

Bizarre case of multiple false confessions and prosecutions

Such findings may extend to other forensic science that requires subjective judgments, Kassin argues, including comparative analyses of ballistics, hair and fiber, shoeprints, tire tracks, handwriting and even DNA. Although CSI-style TV shows portray such evidence as infallible, a 2009 study by the National Academy of Sciences found widespread errors and bias in the collection and analysis of evidence.

That's not to mention egregious cases of intentional fraud in forensic laboratories that pop up with alarming regularity, such as a case in Boston, Massachusetts currently garnering headlines. There, a lab worker with allegedly bogus credentials as a chemist intentionally fabricated positive drug test results. Over a 9-year period, Annie Dookhan tested an estimated 60,000 drug samples confiscated from about 34,000 criminal defendants. Dookhan reportedly admitted writing reports listing samples as positive for illicit drugs even though she had never tested them; sometimes, "if a sample tested negative, she would take known cocaine from another sample and add it to the negative sample to make it test positive for cocaine," according to the Huffington Post's account. Dookhan has been arrested and the lab is temporarily shuttered.

Kassin points to an archival study conducted by he and two colleagues which found that, in DNA exoneration cases, false confessions were often accompanied by other errors, including improper forensic science, mistaken eyewitness identifications and/or the testimony of dishonest informants. Importantly, the confession preceded the other case errors in two-thirds of cases, suggesting it may have had a corrupting influence.

Such findings suggest that the legal system's longstanding assumption that independent sources of evidence provide confirmation of a suspect’s guilt may be wrong. Rather, Kassin writes, "confessions can spawn other incriminating evidence, creating an illusion of corroboration":

Amanda Knox, wrongly convicted in Italy

"Supported by 100-plus years of basic psychology and the research reviewed herein, confession-induced corroboration inflation challenges a core premise in law. Both pretrial corroboration requirements and a harmless error analysis on appeal rest on the assumption that the corroborating evidence on record is nonredundant and independent of the confession. It now appears that this assumption is often incorrect, that the other evidence may be tainted by confession, and that the appearances of corroboration at pretrial and the sufficiency of evidence on appeal may be more illusory than real."

"Hollywood productions"

Especially pernicious is the frequent situation in which police -- either intentionally or inadvertently -- feed an innocent suspect information that only a guilty party should know. Taking on the aura of a carefully scripted movie production with the confession as the central plot device, the confession is carefully drawn out of the suspect over hours and even days until in its final version it includes vivid details and plausible motivations.

Such an account proves virtually impossible for a judge or a jury to discount. The scripted confession thus becomes the be-all, end-all of the case, contaminating the minds of all who are exposed to it:

• POLICE close the investigation, deem the case solved, and overlook exculpatory information, even when (as Richard Leo and his colleagues have shown) the confession is internally inconsistent or contradicted by independent evidence.

• PROSECUTORS stubbornly cling to false confession cases, refusing to admit the possibility of their falsity even when DNA testing unequivocally excludes the confessor. (The New York Times Magazine has more on this phenomenon, describing -- in an article titled "The prosecution's case against DNA" -- the improbable arguments manufactured by prosecutors to explain away negative DNA findings.)

• Perhaps most dangerously, even DEFENSE ATTORNEYS succumb to the allure. Individuals who falsely confess are much more likely to be pressured into accepting a guilty plea, which bars future appeals. In an archival study conducted by Kassin and a colleague of 273 DNA exoneration cases, those based on false confessions were three times as likely to involve bad lawyering.

Matias Reyes, the actual rapist
in the Central Park Five jogger
wrongful conviction case

"Taken together," Kassin concludes, "research suggests that judges, juries, and others are doomed to believe the false confessions of innocent people not only because the phenomenon strongly violates common sense but because of corroboration inflation -- a tendency for confessions to produce an illusion of support from other evidence."

All of this suggests that it is essential for courts to allow the testimony of forensic experts who can explain the mechanisms of false confessions, including both what types of police practices are more likely to generate them, and what types of individual vulnerabilities make a person especially prone to cave in under such pressure.

More broadly, this line of analysis suggests the need for changes in police practices, for example an end to the routine practice of lying to suspects about incriminating evidence, and greater government oversight and regulation of police interrogations. Moreover, safeguards on the analysis of supposedly independent evidence, such as evidence technicians being blind to a suspect's confession status, must be implemented in order to ensure that corroborating evidence truly is independent.

The article is: "Why confessions trump innocence." Members of the American Psychological Association may download it for free as part of their member benefits; others may request a copy from the author (HERE).

Related blog posts:

• Police interrogations: AP-LS issues landmark white paper (March 14, 2010)

• Clueless'science' (guest essay by Jennifer L. Mnookin, Feb. 19, 2009)

• Historical review of false confessions (Nov. 8, 2010)

• Damning reconstruction of notorious false confession case of Central Park Five (March 29, 2012)

• Canada: How false confessions occur (Nov. 27, 2007)

• New study on background factors in false confessions (Aug. 25, 2007)

• Guest report: Interrogations and Confessions Conference, El Paso, Texas (Oct. 4, 2007)

For a complete list of my many other posts on the topic of confessions and interrogations, click HERE.

References:

(1)   Dror, I. E., and Charlton, D. (2006). Why experts make errors. Journal of Forensic Identification, 56, 600–616.

(2)   Elaad, E., Ginton, A., and Ben-Shakhar, G. (1994). The effects of prior expectations and outcome knowledge on polygraph examiners' decisions. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 7, 279–292.

Hat tip: Tim Derning

Composites illustrate problems with eyewitness recall

Take a minute to examine this display of composites. Notice the wide variations in features -- eyes, apparent age, bone structure, etc.

DNA evidence links 11 rapes in East Los Angeles over the past 16 years to this so-called "Teardrop Rapist." Based on the similarities in modus operandi and description, police believe he is responsible for at least 17 other rapes, for a total of 28 or more.

But, as these sketches show, the victims have strikingly different recall. They give his height as between a pint-sized 5 foot 2 inches and 6 feet. His weight fluctuates between 130 and 200 pounds. His age varies between 27 and 40.

Even the teardrop(s), an especially distinctive feature, are recalled differently. Some victims saw one teardrop; some reported up to three -- or none at all (police say he may have had them removed). The teardrop(s) were usually spotted on his left cheek, but occasionally they were seen on his right.

About the only constants are his eyes (brown), his ethnicity (Hispanic), and the fact that he wears a head covering. 

In 1999, police arrested a 21-year-old man for the attacks. Given the problems with eyewitness accuracy so amply illustrated here, the existence of DNA evidence proved a lucky break for him: He was exonerated.

Special journal issue on psychology-law available for free!

A special issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science showcasing the latest psychological research applied to the legal system has received enormous interest. As a result, the editors and Sage Publications are making the full contents available free to the public through June 15, 2011. The articles cover a wide range of topics of interest to my readers, including competency, violence risk assessment, profiling, false confessions, eyewitness evidence, and jury decision making. You are encouraged to download these articles for later reading, and to freely share these links with colleagues. 

  FULL CONTENTS - CLICK ON BELOW LINKS TO DOWNLOAD  

Comment From the Editor
Randall W. Engle
 
Editor's Introduction: Special Issue on Psychology and Law
Ronald P. Fisher
 
Resolving the Offender "Profiling Equations" and the Emergence of an Investigative Psychology  
David V. Canter
 
Forensic Interviewing Aids: Do Props Help Children Answer Questions About Touching?
Debra Ann Poole, Maggie Bruck, and Margaret-Ellen Pipe
 
Interviewing Cooperative Witnesses
Ronald P. Fisher, Rebecca Milne, and Ray Bull
 
Current Issues and Advances in Misinformation Research
Steven J. Frenda, Rebecca M. Nichols, and Elizabeth F. Loftus
 
Eyewitness Identification
Neil Brewer and Gary L. Wells
 
Outsmarting the Liars: Toward a Cognitive Lie Detection Approach
Aldert Vrij, Pär Anders Granhag, Samantha Mann, and Sharon Leal
 
Suspect Interviews and False Confessions
Gisli H. Gudjonsson and John Pearse
 
Current Directions in Violence Risk Assessment
Jennifer L. Skeem and John Monahan
 
Future Directions in the Restoration of Competency to Stand Trial  
Patricia A. Zapf and Ronald Roesch
 
The Utility of Scientific Jury Selection: Still Murky After 30 Years
Joel D. Lieberman
 
Expert Psychological Testimony  
Brian L. Cutler and Margaret Bull Kovera
 
The Psychology of Trial Judging  
Neil Vidmar
 
Jury Decision Making: Implications For and From Psychology
Brian H. Bornstein and Edie Greene

Special issue, Current Directions in Psychological Science

The February issue offers a cutting-edge roundup of psychology-law topics, with contributions from many luminaries. Click on an author link to request a reprint.

• Expert Psychological Testimony by Brian L. Cutler and Margaret Bull Kovera (I haven't finished reading this one yet, but I see that it discusses the critical issue of adversarial allegiance, identified by Murrie, Boccaccini and their colleagues in regard to the Psychopathy Checklist)

• Future Directions in the Restoration of Competency to Stand Trial by Patricia A. Zapf and Ronald Roesch

• Current Directions in Violence Risk Assessment by Jennifer L. Skeem and John Monahan

• The Psychology of Trial Judging by Neil Vidmar

• Jury Decision Making: Implications For and From Psychology by Brian H. Borstein and Edie Greene

• Suspect Interviews and False Confessions by Gisli H. Gudjonsson and John Pearse

• The Utility of Scientific Jury Selection: Still Murky After 30 Years by Joel D. Lieberman

• Resolving the Offender "Profiling Equations" and the Emergence of an Investigative Psychology by David V. Canter

• Forensic Interviewing Aids: Do Props Help Children Answer Questions About Touching? by Debra Ann Poole, Maggie Bruck, Margaret-Ellen Pipe

• Interviewing Cooperative Witnesses by Ronald P. Fisher, Rebecca Milne, and Ray Bull

• Current Issues and Advances in Misinformation Research by Steven J. Frenda, Rebecca M. Nichols, and Elizabeth F. Loftus

• Eyewitness Identification by Neil Brewer and Gary L. Wells

• Outsmarting the Liars: Toward A Cognitive Lie Detection Approach by Aldert Vrjj, Par Anders Granhag, Samantha Mann, and Sharon Leal

Another Texan joins growing club of exonerees

30 years in prison for rape he did not commit

He could have been free six years ago. But he could not get past even the first of the sex offender treatment program's "four R’s" -- Recognition, Remorse, Restitution and Resolution.

Instead, Cornelius Dupree Jr. continued to stubbornly insist he was innocent of the robbery and rape for which he went to prison 30 years ago.

Today, Dupree finally won back his good name, becoming the latest in a flood of exonerated convicts in Dallas, Texas. District Attorney Craig Watkins, the first African American elected prosecutor of any county in the state, actively supports innocence projects. Like Dupree, the majority of the exonerated men are African American and were convicted of sexual assaults.

By local tradition, many of the other exonerated men attended Dupree's court hearing on Tuesday. Many said they too had been convicted based on eyewitness misidentification, the most common cause of wrongful convictions.

The moral: Do not assume that someone who has been convicted of a crime is lying, just because he or she is denying guilt. Every once in a while, it's true.

An Associated Press article with more case details is HERE.
The Dallas Morning News has an excellent series on the DNA exonerations, HERE.

APA Dispatch I: Science and public policy

I had intended to limit my dispatches from the American Psychological Association convention in San Diego to forensic highlights. But I would be remiss if I didn't touch on the big news from psychological science and public policy. Anyway, it's all related to forensics.

Conference theme: Ending marriage discrimination

A public policy highlight of the convention was its theme of opposing marriage laws that discriminate against gay men and lesbians. Walking into the futuristic convention hall, one was greeted by a life-sized hologram of the APA's CEO, Norman B. Anderson, speaking of the scientific advocacy role in this area of the APA, which at 152,000 members is the world's largest psychological organization and devotes a good share of its $115 million annual budget to advocacy. Kiosks gave attendees a chance to don large lapel pins supporting marriage equality, or send a message to their legislator calling for an end to the federal ban on same-sex marriage.

The theme, planned months ago, could not have been more timely, especially given the conference's location. Just as the convention got underway yesterday, Judge Vaughan Walker lifted the stay on gay marriages in California following his earlier ruling that marriage discrimination was unconstitutional. Many of the key expert witnesses who presented scientific evidence at that trial were featured speakers at the convention: Gregory Herek of UC Davis on sexual orientation and stigma (introduced by APA President Carol Goodheart), Anne Peplau of UCLA on same-sex relationships, and Charlotte Patterson of the University of Virginia summarizing the empirical research regarding the emotional health of children raised in lesbian and gay families.

The APA leadership seems delighted to be on the correct side of history this time, especially after the lengthy debacle over psychologists' role in the torture of detainees at Guantanamo.

Memory: How the brain reconstructs reality

Meanwhile, memory research was on the cutting edge of the psychological science presented at the convention. I had the great fortune to hear preeminent scholar Daniel Schacter present some of the very latest findings.

We already know that retrieving a memory is nothing like opening a file on your computer. In calling up a memory, the brain -- specifically the hippocampus -- grabs a bunch of bits and pieces stored here and there around the brain, and reintegrates them to suit the current situational demand. This is adaptive. It allows us to use our accumulated experience to respond flexibly to an ever-changing environment. But it comes at a cost of errors and distortions, which Schacter has summarized beautifully in The Seven Sins of Memory (which all forensic practitioners should read).

In his talk, Schacter illustrated with the case of "John Doe 2," the composite creation of a faulty memory who was the subject of a massive FBI manhunt after the Oklahoma City bombing. As it turned out, John Doe 2 (despite lingering conspiracy theories to the controversy) was most probably an Army private who had nothing whatsoever to do with McVeigh; he happened to have been at the auto body shop where McVeigh rented his van, but a full day later.

The advent of neuroimaging technology has enabled this memory research to advance at a rapid pace. (The hippocampus even has its own journal now, named after itself!) In their most recent work, Schacter and his colleagues are localizing the precise hippocampal sites that activate when various tasks are being performed. Distinct patterns of hippocampal activity are visible on fMRI when someone is storing initial memories, retrieving those memories, and imagining future possibilities.

Intriguingly, it turns out that the brain tasks involved in remembering are not so different from those involved in imagining the future, or imagining a fictional version of the past, for that matter. Which makes sense: Like recalling real events, imagining fictional scenarios first requires us to think about our past experiences, and then tweak them (consciously or unconsciously).

Australian study: Sharing distorts eyewitness memory

The fact that the very act of retrieving a memory causes it to be distorted (also the topic of a rather dry convention presentation by researcher Joseph LeDoux, author of The Emotional Brain) explains a new finding by forensic psychology lecturer Helen Paterson of the University of Sydney in Australia. She found that sharing memories leads to contamination that cannot be reversed through providing corrective information.

Paterson's team showed participants one of two different versions of a video of a crime. After discussing the crime with each other, most participants reported seeing specific details that were not in the version they had watched. The researchers believe that discussions among co-witnesses are more likely to damage accurate recall for a crime than are other avenues of distorted information such as reading a news account or being asked leading questions by investigators.

Like the broader memory research of Schacter and others, Paterson's study, published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, has direct implications for witness reliability. Once a memory is distorted, the inaccuracies remain even when witnesses are told that the new information is wrong, as witnesses " find it difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between genuine memories and false memories of an event," Paterson said.

The forensic implications of this line of memory research are rather mind-boggling, when you stop and think about it. Not only do we need to be extremely cautious about putting too much weight on someone's memory for an event but, as the accumulating research shows, we must be skeptical even if multiple people agree on the "facts."

Coming up in Part II: Whither juvenile forensics

Dallas bans 6-packs

No, not beer.
Or soda.
Or abs.

Six-pack photo lineups -- perhaps the single largest cause of wrongful convictions.

Frustrated with a string of wrongful convictions, the Dallas police department is now the nation's largest force to use sequential blind photo lineups -- a widely praised technique designed to reduce mistakes made by witnesses trying to identify suspects.

Dallas is not the first department to use the pioneering method. But experts hope that by using it in the county that leads the nation in exonerating wrongly convicted inmates, Dallas will inspire other departments to follow suit.

"If Dallas can do it ... then others are going to rise to the occasion," said Iowa State psychology professor Gary Wells, a national expert on police lineups.

The department switched to sequential blind lineups in April. Before that, Dallas police administered most lineups using the traditional six-pack -- law-enforcement lingo for mounting six photos onto a folder and showing them to a witness or victim at the same time. In sequential blind lineups, mug shots are shown one at a time. Detectives displaying the photos also don't know who the suspect is, which means they can't purposely or accidentally tip off witnesses.

Showing possible suspects all at once tends to make a witness compare the mug shots to one another, Wells said. But if they are shown sequentially, "witnesses have to dig deeper, compare each person to their memory and make more of an absolute decision."

An analysis of 26 recent studies shows that presenting mug shots sequentially instead of simultaneously produces fewer identifications but more accurate ones, Wells said.

Nationally, more than 75 percent of DNA exonerees who have been released since 1989 were sent to prison based on witness misidentification, according to The Innocence Project.

Here is the complete AP story: Dallas police pioneering new photo lineup approach.

Hat tip: Sol Fulero

Children serving life without parole: “Cruel and unusual?”

Test your knowledge:

1. In the entire world, how many children are serving sentences of life without parole for crimes committed when they were 13 years old?

2. In what countries are those cases?

3. How many of those cases involve crimes in which no one died?

Answers: (1) There are only eight in the entire world. (2) All eight are in the United States. (3) Only two did not commit a murder. Both are Black, and both are in Florida.

In yesterday's New York Times, Supreme Court correspondent Adam Liptak reports on one of those two. Joe Sullivan, now 33, is serving life for the 1989 rape of a 72-year-old woman. As Liptak reports it:

The victim testified that her assailant was "a colored boy" who "had kinky hair and he was quite black and he was small." She said she "did not see him full in the face" and so would not recognize him by sight. But she recalled her attacker saying something like, "If you can't identify me, I may not have to kill you." At his trial, Mr. Sullivan was made to say those words several times. "It's been six months," the woman said on the witness stand. "It's hard, but it does sound similar."

Sullivan's trial lasted only one day. His lawyer, later suspended from practice, made no opening statement. Biological evidence was collected from the victim but was not presented at trial and has since been destroyed.

Now, in an appeal to the United States Supreme Court, the Equal Justice Initiative argues that Sullivan’s life sentence is cruel and unusual punishment, banned by the Constitution’s 8th Amendment.

People can argue about whether imprisoning a 13-year-old for life is cruel, comments Liptak, but "there is no question that it is unusual."

Liptak's column is here.

Further resources:

Equal Justice Initiative report, "Cruel and Unusual," on 13- and 14-year-old children sentenced to life in prison

Photo credit: Equal Justice Initiative. Hat tip: Jane.

Historic hearings to commence on Calif. death penalty

Amid renewed national controversy over capital punishment, the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice is holding public hearings beginning tomorrow on the death penalty in California. At the first hearing, a lineup of luminaries will present evidence about racial, ethnic, and geographic disparities in who is sentenced to die.

The Commission was created by the state Senate in 2004 to investigate the causes of wrongful conviction and wrongful executions, and to recommend reforms to make California's criminal justice system "just, fair, and accurate." Composed of law enforcement, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and citizens, the Commission has already issued a series of unanimous recommendations on other criminal justice issues, including:

• Eyewitness Identification
• False Confessions
• Use of Jailhouse Informants
• Scientific Evidence
• Professional Responsibility and Accountability of Prosecutors and Defense Lawyers
• Remedies for Wrongful Conviction
• Fair Administration of the Death Penalty

(Click on any of the above links to see the related report.) A press release about the death penalty hearings, slated for January, February and March, is here.

Calif. governor vetoes three criminal justice reform bills

On Sept. 19, I posted that California could lead the way in criminal justice reform if our governor signed three innovative initiatives then sitting on his desk.

Sadly, the governor caved in to special interest lobbying by police and sheriff's departments, today announcing that he had vetoed all three. The reform measures, and his brief explanations for rejecting them, are:

Senate Bill 511: To require electronic recording of police interrogations in serious felony cases

Governor Schwarzenegger: "While reducing the number of false confessions is a laudable goal … interrogations are dynamic processes that require investigators to use acumen, skill and experience to determine [the best] methods."

Senate Bill 756: To increase the accuracy of eyewitness identifications by appointing a task force to create guidelines for police line-up procedures

Governor Schwarzenegger: "… Law enforcement agencies must have the authority to develop investigative policies and procedures that they can mold to their own unique local conditions and logistical circumstances rather than be restricted to methods created that may make sense from a broad statewide perspective."

Senate Bill 609: To require that testimony from jailhouse informants be independently corroborated before being used as the basis of a criminal conviction

Governor Schwarzenegger: "… When that kind of testimony is necessary, current criminal procedures provide adequate safeguards against its misuse."

In other words, he rejected any additional regulation of law enforcement practices. I guess it was unrealistic to think that an opportunist politician might stand up to the state's most powerful political lobby.

For more disappointed reaction to the vetoes, see "Legal advocates blast Schwarzenegger for vetoing three justice bills," by Brandon Bailey, San Jose Mercury News, Oct. 18, 2007.

Conviction overturned for failure to allow expert testimony on eyewitness identification

But courts retain broad discretion to decide

An Illinois appeals court has overturned a man's conviction because the trial court did not allow expert testimony on the fallibility of eyewitness evidence.

The case involved Walter Allen, who was sentenced to 43 years in prison for a 2001 robbery-shooting. The robbery was committed by two men wearing hoodies who entered a dry cleaning business, demanded money, and shot a woman employee in the back. From her hospital bed, the woman identified Allen from a photograph as the shooter.

At Allen's trial, the judge refused to allow an expert witness to testify for the defense about problems with eyewitness identification. The judge said that the testimony of Dr. Steven Penrod, a respected psychology-law professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, was unnecessary and might confuse the jury.

In its opinion in People v. Allen, the appellate court pointed to research establishing that eyewitnesses are often wrong, and that jurors have misconceptions about eyewitness accuracy. It cited prior Illinois rulings stating that expert testimony can dispel myths and correct misconceptions, and that "the science of eyewitness perception has achieved the level of exactness, methodology and reliability of any psychological research."

The court said it is not intending to lower the bar and allow all expert testimony about eyewitness accuracy. Judges are still entitled to exclude such testimony in some cases, but first they must carefully scrutinize the proffered testimony and determine whether it is relevant and might be helpful in the specific case. At Allen's trial, the court said, no such careful scrutiny took place.

Traditionally, trial judges are given wide latitude to decide whether to allow expert psychological testimony. For example, in a high-profile murder case in Michigan, a judge last week refused to allow either the defense or the prosecution to call dueling experts.

In that case, Thomas Richardson is accused of pushing his wife Juanita off a cliff at the scenic Pictured Rocks Cliffs. The defense claims that the death was accidental.

In denying both a defense motion to call a clinical neuropsychologist and a prosecution motion to call a forensic psychologist, the court said that the experts' testimony reflected competing opinions rather than science.

"The vagaries of the human mind and spirit are part of the puzzle left to a jury," wrote Alger County Circuit Court Judge Charles Stark. "Nothing proffered can assist them in determine the manner of death."

More commentary on the Allen decision is online at the Eyewitness Identification Reform blog.

DNA exonerations heralding broad legal changes

The highly publicized exonerations of hundreds of convicts through DNA technology is leading to rapid and sweeping legal changes around the United States. Among the new laws being proposed and passed in states all around the country:

• New standards for the identification of suspects by eyewitnesses, which is far and away the largest cause of wrongful conviction. Experts suggest requiring sequential rather than simultaneous photo lineups, and "double-blind" systems in which the officer administering a photo lineup is kept ignorant of the identity of the true suspect.

• Laws requiring police to electronically record interrogations to ensure that police did not coerce suspects or provide them with the incriminating information contained in their confessions.
  

• Efforts to require independent corroboration of testimony from police informants, who are often unreliable.
  

• Commissions to expedite the cases of those who were wrongfully convicted and to consider changes to legal procedures.

As suggested by a prominent story in today's New York Times, the DNA exonerations have contributed to a rapid change in public opinion. In a recent Gallup Poll, for instance, 59 percent of Americans believed that an innocent person had been wrongly executed in the past five years; these skeptical people thought that about 1 out of 10 of people who are executed overall are actually innocent.

Experts on false confessions tend to agree that the numbers are far higher than previously thought. Convening in El Paso, Texas last week for a conference on this timely topic, experts repeatedly stated that those exonerated through DNA technology represent only the "tip of the iceberg."

In enacting legal reforms to address this problem, the United States is following in the footsteps of Great Britain, which implemented legal changes several years ago in the wake of a series of highly publicized wrongful conviction cases involving the Irish Republican Army and others.

CA could lead in criminal justice reform

Three bills on Governor's desk

Three of the most common causes of wrongful conviction are mistaken eyewitness identification, false confessions, and fabricated statements of informants.

California is poised to address all three of those problems, through major criminal justice reform bills now sitting on the Governor's desk. The bills would:

• require electronic recording of police interrogations in serious felony cases (Senate Bill 511)

• appoint a task force to draft guidelines for police line-up procedures to increase the accuracy of eyewitness identifications (Senate Bill 756)

• require the corroboration of testimony from jailhouse informants (Senate Bill 609)

The ACLU of Northern California has a quick and easy online form that allows people to send a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, urging him to make California a leader in criminal justice reform by signing these bills into law.

Forensnips I: So much news, so little time

Much is happening in the news, but I'm too busy to go into depth at the moment. So I’m posting highlights, with links to more in-depth coverage for those of you who are interested. I hope to write a few longer posts on special topics over the coming weeks.

Two topics currently in the spotlight both pertain to commonplace police methods for obtaining arrests and convictions – the use of eyewitnesses and informants.

California considering eyewitness identification reform

At this weekend's American Psychological Association, psychologist Gary Wells received an award for his groundbreaking and influential studies of flawed eyewitness identification procedures.

California's state legislature is tackling the issue head-on. Senate Bill 756, now heading for the Assembly floor for a final vote, would enact statewide eyewitness identification procedures. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill last year, so we'll see what he does this time around.

The California legislature is also leading the way toward other reforms to help reduce wrongful convictions:

• Senate Bill 511 would require full electronic recording of interrogations in both juvenile and adult cases.

• Senate Bill 609 would require corroboration of information provided by jailhouse informants.

More research reports and news on this topic is online at:

The Justice Project

Seeing the Forest


Use of informants under scrutiny

Recent Congressional hearings put a spotlight on the widespread, secretive, and largely unregulated police practice of relying on confidential informants to put suspected criminals behind bars. Sparking public awareness and controversy over the longstanding practice were two recent cases: the fatal police shooting of a 92-year-old Atlanta woman in Alabama and a $102 million judgment against the FBI for knowingly using informants to illegally convict four men who then spent decades in prison.

An excellent column by law professor Alexandra Natapoff, author of a forthcoming book about informants, from the Aug. 16 San Francisco Chronicle is available online. Ms. Natapoff's testimony before a U.S. House Judiciary Committee is also available online.

Other coverage of the issue is at:

The blog of journalist Radley Balko

Texan Scott Henson's Grits for Breakfast blog

Drug War Chronicle

... Stay tuned - more news highlights to come.