American Psychology-Law Society
Mark your calendars for the upcoming AP-LS conference, to be held March 18-20, 2010 in Vancouver, BC. The deadline for conference submissions is October 5. Information about the conference is available at the conference website. Proposals for posters, papers, and symposium can be submitted HERE.
Risk for Sexual Violence Protocol (RSVP)
On October 22, Stephen Hart is going to be down in Portland, Oregon, giving an all-day training on his newly developed instrument, the RSVP (which replaces the Sexual Violence Risk-20 instrument). Dr. Hart is well worth catching. A member of the Mental Health, Law, and Policy Institute at Simon Fraser University in Canada, he is an internationally renowned researcher, forensic psychologist and past president of the American Psychology-Law Society. More information on the training is at the website of Northwest Forensic Institute.
Showing posts with label forensic psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forensic psychology. Show all posts
August 20, 2009
July 27, 2009
Professionals behaving badly
Mistrial in psychiatrist molestation case
Remember the case of the San Francisco Bay Area psychiatrist whom the juvenile courts kept sending boys to for at least 16 years after allegations of molestation first surfaced?
Disappointingly for the prosecutor and the alleged victims, the jury trial of 77-year-old William Ayres ended in a mistrial today, after nine days of deliberations.
Ex-patients, now men in their 20s and 30s, had testified that the prominent psychiatrist molested them in his private, soundproof office under the guise of giving them medical exams.
"Much of the testimony during the trial centered on whether Ayres followed acceptable psychiatric practices when he gave the exams, which [the prosecutor] argued were merely a ruse to give the doctor a reason to fondle boys," according to a San Francisco Chronicle report. "While the details varied, Ayres' former patients told authorities similar scenarios: Ayres would direct them to undress, then conduct a physical where he fondled their genitals or masturbated them for several minutes."
Juvenile court judges continued to send new victims to Dr. William Ayres until 2003, long after the first of multiple complaints against him by boys and their parents. Several dozen men accused Ayres of molesting them as boys dating back almost four decades. Economic class disparities between the accusers and the accused likely influenced the failure to prosecute until the chance intervention of a freelance writer from New York.
Although Ayres is elderly and ill, a retrial is likely.
Tuesday postscript: A writer who attended the trial tells me that the jury was leaning 10-2 and 11-1 for guilt; the main holdout was a young woman who recently graduated from law school and who did not believe the alleged victims.
My original blog post is HERE; the blog Psych Watch ("Documenting Psychiatrists Behaving Badly") has a special "William Ayres Watch" page devoted to in-depth coverage of the case.
Lawsuit in forensic psychologist voyeurism case
Meanwhile, in another case involving alleged sexual misconduct by a forensic mental health professional, an employee of Stuart Greenberg has sued the estate of the once-prominent forensic psychologist.
Sex crimes prosecutor charged with rape
And, finally, back in court today is a prosecutor in Contra Costa County, California, who has been fired pending trial for the alleged gunpoint rape of a female colleague. In one of the more chilling aspects of the case, the woman alleges that the sex crimes unit where she and former supervisor Michael Gressett worked together was a highly sexualized place where prosecutors "bantered about rough sex and directed gallows humor toward the crime victims they represented," according to a San Francisco Chronicle article.
And they wonder why some rape victims balk at reporting the crime. Talk about a perception of revictimization!
Remember the case of the San Francisco Bay Area psychiatrist whom the juvenile courts kept sending boys to for at least 16 years after allegations of molestation first surfaced?
Disappointingly for the prosecutor and the alleged victims, the jury trial of 77-year-old William Ayres ended in a mistrial today, after nine days of deliberations.
Ex-patients, now men in their 20s and 30s, had testified that the prominent psychiatrist molested them in his private, soundproof office under the guise of giving them medical exams.
"Much of the testimony during the trial centered on whether Ayres followed acceptable psychiatric practices when he gave the exams, which [the prosecutor] argued were merely a ruse to give the doctor a reason to fondle boys," according to a San Francisco Chronicle report. "While the details varied, Ayres' former patients told authorities similar scenarios: Ayres would direct them to undress, then conduct a physical where he fondled their genitals or masturbated them for several minutes."
Juvenile court judges continued to send new victims to Dr. William Ayres until 2003, long after the first of multiple complaints against him by boys and their parents. Several dozen men accused Ayres of molesting them as boys dating back almost four decades. Economic class disparities between the accusers and the accused likely influenced the failure to prosecute until the chance intervention of a freelance writer from New York.
Although Ayres is elderly and ill, a retrial is likely.
Tuesday postscript: A writer who attended the trial tells me that the jury was leaning 10-2 and 11-1 for guilt; the main holdout was a young woman who recently graduated from law school and who did not believe the alleged victims.
My original blog post is HERE; the blog Psych Watch ("Documenting Psychiatrists Behaving Badly") has a special "William Ayres Watch" page devoted to in-depth coverage of the case.
Lawsuit in forensic psychologist voyeurism case
Meanwhile, in another case involving alleged sexual misconduct by a forensic mental health professional, an employee of Stuart Greenberg has sued the estate of the once-prominent forensic psychologist.
The ex-employee alleges that she was fired after discovering the video camera that Dr. Greenberg allegedly used to spy on women in his office bathroom. A former president of the American Board of Forensic Psychology and a consultant for the Seattle Archdiocese, Dr. Greeberg committed suicide after the voyeurism allegations surfaced. In her civil suit, the woman alleges that Dr. Greenberg confessed to her that he had videotaped her and two other women as they used the bathroom.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer story is HERE.Sex crimes prosecutor charged with rape
And, finally, back in court today is a prosecutor in Contra Costa County, California, who has been fired pending trial for the alleged gunpoint rape of a female colleague. In one of the more chilling aspects of the case, the woman alleges that the sex crimes unit where she and former supervisor Michael Gressett worked together was a highly sexualized place where prosecutors "bantered about rough sex and directed gallows humor toward the crime victims they represented," according to a San Francisco Chronicle article.
And they wonder why some rape victims balk at reporting the crime. Talk about a perception of revictimization!
Photo credit: Kristopher Skinner, Contra Costa Times
May 1, 2009
Forensic Psychology Unbound
That's the clever title of a new website launched by a group of forensic psychologists promoting an online, open-access journal. The first issue of the Journal of Forensic Psychology is in the works, and editor Greg DeClue is encouraging interested professionals to submit manuscripts. The journal will be free and accessible to anyone with Internet access. This stands in stark contrast to most professional journals, which have long been critiqued for being extremely costly and inaccessible to professionals without a subscription or members of the public who don’t have access through academic databases.
The new journal features several of the same editorial board members as a more narrowly focused effort at an open-access forensic psychology journal, the Journal of Sexual Offender Civil Commitment, launched by psychologist Joseph Plaud in 2005. Board member R.K. McKinzey sponsors a third online, open-access forensic psychology site, Web Psych Empiricist, with a neuropsychology emphasis. The breadth of interest areas of editorial board members bodes well for the new journal.
Sponsoring the new project is Professional Resource Press, which was founded by psychologist Larry Ritt a few decades ago, and is a continuing education sponsor approved by the American Psychological Association.
You can help the project succeed by submitting manuscripts, taking the APA-approved Continuing Education offerings, or simply donating money -- online, of course. The home page sports a piggy bank which is not yet open for business.
The new journal features several of the same editorial board members as a more narrowly focused effort at an open-access forensic psychology journal, the Journal of Sexual Offender Civil Commitment, launched by psychologist Joseph Plaud in 2005. Board member R.K. McKinzey sponsors a third online, open-access forensic psychology site, Web Psych Empiricist, with a neuropsychology emphasis. The breadth of interest areas of editorial board members bodes well for the new journal.
Sponsoring the new project is Professional Resource Press, which was founded by psychologist Larry Ritt a few decades ago, and is a continuing education sponsor approved by the American Psychological Association.
You can help the project succeed by submitting manuscripts, taking the APA-approved Continuing Education offerings, or simply donating money -- online, of course. The home page sports a piggy bank which is not yet open for business.
March 12, 2009
New book review in California Lawyer
My review of Charles Patrick Ewing's Trials of a Forensic Psychologist is now available online at the California Lawyer website. Here is how the review begins:
Billy Shrubsall was the top student at his small Niagara Falls, New York, high school. Thus, it came as a surprise when he didn't show up to give the 1988 valedictory address. But he had good reason. Just hours earlier, the 17-year-old had clubbed his domineering mother to death.
To explain Billy's horrific crime, his attorney advanced a theory of "psychological self-defense." The attorney retained forensic psychologist and attorney Charles Patrick Ewing, who had recently advanced the novel doctrine in his 1987 book Battered Women Who Kill (Lexington Books). Ewing's sympathetic testimony paved the way for a plea bargain under which Shrubsall served just 16 months in prison. A model prisoner and parolee, Shrubsall went on to graduate from an Ivy League university and become a Wall Street stock analyst.
But all was not as rosy as it appeared. The ostensibly rehabilitated and upright citizen still had a dark side as a vicious misogynist. He had been assaulting girls since his mid-teens, and a decade after his mother's death he brutally assaulted at least three women in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In one assault eerily reminiscent of his mother's beating death, Shrubsall clubbed a female store clerk with a baseball bat, shattering her skull.
Shrubsall's case is one of more than 600 in which Ewing has testified as an expert. But that case still haunts him, as he states in his latest book, Trials of a Forensic Psychologist: "[A]fter decades of working with the victims of violence and sexual abuse, I know all too well the awful harm Shrubsall did to the women he later victimized ... to this day when I testify as an expert, I am often questioned about my role in this case."
The review continues HERE.
Billy Shrubsall was the top student at his small Niagara Falls, New York, high school. Thus, it came as a surprise when he didn't show up to give the 1988 valedictory address. But he had good reason. Just hours earlier, the 17-year-old had clubbed his domineering mother to death.
To explain Billy's horrific crime, his attorney advanced a theory of "psychological self-defense." The attorney retained forensic psychologist and attorney Charles Patrick Ewing, who had recently advanced the novel doctrine in his 1987 book Battered Women Who Kill (Lexington Books). Ewing's sympathetic testimony paved the way for a plea bargain under which Shrubsall served just 16 months in prison. A model prisoner and parolee, Shrubsall went on to graduate from an Ivy League university and become a Wall Street stock analyst.
But all was not as rosy as it appeared. The ostensibly rehabilitated and upright citizen still had a dark side as a vicious misogynist. He had been assaulting girls since his mid-teens, and a decade after his mother's death he brutally assaulted at least three women in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In one assault eerily reminiscent of his mother's beating death, Shrubsall clubbed a female store clerk with a baseball bat, shattering her skull.
Shrubsall's case is one of more than 600 in which Ewing has testified as an expert. But that case still haunts him, as he states in his latest book, Trials of a Forensic Psychologist: "[A]fter decades of working with the victims of violence and sexual abuse, I know all too well the awful harm Shrubsall did to the women he later victimized ... to this day when I testify as an expert, I am often questioned about my role in this case."
The review continues HERE.
February 28, 2009
Upcoming forensic training workshops
Forensic Training Institute - Diagnostic Controversies
April 16 (CA)
Your host (Karen Franklin) and colleague Craig Lareau will present this all-day training at the California Psychological Association convention in Oakland, California. Geared toward advanced-level forensic practitioners, we will focus on current diagnostic controversies in the field including those surrounding Antisocial Personality Disorder, Psychopathy, the sexual disorders as used in Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) proceedings, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.
Click HERE for more information and online registration.
Assessing Malingering and Miranda Rights Waiver
April 24 (VA)
If you want to get away from the cold and visit a pretty place, you might want to check out this excellent training down in Charlottesville, Virginia. Richard Rogers, whom most of you all know as a leading forensic psychology practitioner and scholar, is presenting this full-day training sponsored by the always-excellent Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy (ILPP) at the University of Virginia. Dr. Rogers will be presenting one-half day on malingering (the topic of his classic reference text) and one-half day on evaluation of Miranda Rights, another of his specialty areas.
Click HERE for more information and to register.
Assessing Violence Risk in Community Settings
May 22 (VA)
This is a chance to hear from John Monahan, probably the foremost expert on this topic. Monahan has authored or edited 15 books and written hundreds of articles; his work on violence risk is frequently cited by courts, including the California Supreme Court in the landmark Tarasoff v. Regents and the United States Supreme Court in Barefoot v. Estelle, in which he was referred to as "the leading thinker on the issue" of violence risk assessment. This training is also sponsored by the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy (ILPP) at the University of Virginia.
Click HERE for information and registration.
April 16 (CA)
Your host (Karen Franklin) and colleague Craig Lareau will present this all-day training at the California Psychological Association convention in Oakland, California. Geared toward advanced-level forensic practitioners, we will focus on current diagnostic controversies in the field including those surrounding Antisocial Personality Disorder, Psychopathy, the sexual disorders as used in Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) proceedings, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.
Click HERE for more information and online registration.
Assessing Malingering and Miranda Rights Waiver
April 24 (VA)
If you want to get away from the cold and visit a pretty place, you might want to check out this excellent training down in Charlottesville, Virginia. Richard Rogers, whom most of you all know as a leading forensic psychology practitioner and scholar, is presenting this full-day training sponsored by the always-excellent Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy (ILPP) at the University of Virginia. Dr. Rogers will be presenting one-half day on malingering (the topic of his classic reference text) and one-half day on evaluation of Miranda Rights, another of his specialty areas.
Click HERE for more information and to register.
Assessing Violence Risk in Community Settings
May 22 (VA)
This is a chance to hear from John Monahan, probably the foremost expert on this topic. Monahan has authored or edited 15 books and written hundreds of articles; his work on violence risk is frequently cited by courts, including the California Supreme Court in the landmark Tarasoff v. Regents and the United States Supreme Court in Barefoot v. Estelle, in which he was referred to as "the leading thinker on the issue" of violence risk assessment. This training is also sponsored by the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy (ILPP) at the University of Virginia.
Click HERE for information and registration.
November 30, 2008
Treating therapist as police interrogator
For all you psychologists, here's a quick ethics vignette:
If you are Wayne R. Price, Ph.D. of Beatrice, Nebraska, you see no problem in interrogating the young women despite having been their therapist:
"What I find, I find. It makes no difference to me," Price testified at a pretrial hearing. "When I have an emotional involvement or vested interest and can't do it objectively, I will say so."
Price's role in helping elicit confessions from two of his former patients is in the spotlight now, almost two decades later, because of new DNA evidence pointing to a different killer. The so-called Beatrice Six case has set a record for the number of people exonerated by DNA evidence in a single case.
The five suspects who confessed fit the pattern of false confession cases: Suggestible young people with psychiatric or cognitive problems who used alcohol or drugs, were easily confused, and were worn down by aggressive questioning.
False confessions like this are not nearly as unusual as many people still think. According to the Innocence Project, they have been found in about one-fourth of DNA exonerations.
What is unusual in the Beatrice Six case is the psychologist's role. A psychologist playing the dual roles of trusted therapist and criminal interrogator "would have had a powerful place of trust and persuasion over suspects," the Omaha World-Herald cites confession experts as stating.
The Six did not become formal suspects until four years after the 1985 murder of Helen Wilson. The ball got rolling when a hard-partying 23-year-old named Tom Winslow was in jail for an unrelated crime, the beating of a motel clerk during a robbery. Police approached him with an offer he couldn't refuse: "Help us solve our murder case, and we'll get you out of jail on bond."
Winslow claims police called him a liar and threatened him with the electric chair if he did not confess. He said police fed him information and "suggested he was blocking out memories of a horrific crime due to the cloud of alcohol or drug abuse," according to reporter Paul Hammel, who has followed the case for the World-Herald.
Earlier this month, authorities announced that the DNA found at the crime scene matched an Oklahoma City man, Bruce Smith, who had since died. In light of that evidence, the state is seeking pardons for the Beatrice Six.
Joseph White, a 26-year-old drifter from Alabama, was the only one of the Six who refused to confess. A jury deliberated for only a few hours before convicting him anyway, largely on the testimony of co-defendants who received reduced charges in exchange.
One of White's attorney's, Toney Redman, recalled arguing in court that those testifying were "so weak-minded" that their stories could not be trusted.
"I'm fully convinced now that the police, if they wanted to, could get any borderline personality person, who has alcohol and drug issues, and scare them to death and get them to confess to anything," he told the World-Herald.
Two of the three who testified against White - Ada JoAnn Taylor and Deb Shelden - were former patients of Dr. Price. Their accounts reportedly changed over time, partly after Dr. Price encouraged them to recollect more details.
Taylor, diagnosed by Price with a personality disorder, initially said she couldn't recall much because she had memory problems. After police insisted she was at the scene of the murder, she eventually changed her story. She also told investigators she communicated telepathically with a friend and had five former lives and an imaginary twin. She took a plea deal and was paroled in November.
Shelden, the other former patient of Price's, initially told interrogators she didn't recall the details of the assault on her grand-aunt until months later, when she began having nightmares. She said Dr. Price helped her to remember the details. Shelden was paroled after serving 10 years in prison.
Although Dr. Price - now executive director of Blue Valley Behavioral Health in Beatrice - doesn't see a problem with his dual roles in the Beatrice Six case, many other psychologists might.
Beneficence and Nonmaleficence is the very first principle of the American Psychological Association's Ethics Code, advising us to to "benefit those with whom [we] work and take care to do no harm." Another principle, Justice, cautions psychologists to "exercise reasonable judgment and take precautions" to avoid participating in unjust practices. A third principle, Respect for People's Rights and Dignity, discusses the duty to safeguard people's confidentiality and self-determination, especially when their "vulnerabilities [might] impair autonomous decision making."
The dangers of multiple relationships are specifically addressed in Section 3.05 of the Ethics Code. Psychologists are forbidden from engaging in dual relationships that "risk exploitation or harm to the person with whom the professional relationship exists."
The Forensic Psychology Specialty Guidelines, published two years after Dr. Price's involvement in the Beatrice Six interrogations, also caution against engaging in dual relationships that might cause harm: "Forensic psychologists recognize potential conflicts of interest in dual relationships with parties to a legal proceeding, and they seek to minimize their effects. Forensic psychologists avoid providing professional services to parties in a legal proceeding with whom they have personal or professional relationships that are inconsistent with the anticipated relationship."
It's hard to see how providing someone with confidential psychological therapy would not be inconsistent with later becoming that person's police interrogator.
If you have other thoughts on the ethical contours of this case, I encourage you to comment.
Omaha World-Herald coverage of the Beatrice Six case is here, here, and here.
A classic article on dual roles in forensic psychology is: Greenberg, S.A. & Shuman, D.W. (1997). Irreconcilable Conflict Between Therapeutic & Forensic Roles. Professional Psychology: Research & Practice, 28, 50-57.
You live and work in a small town, population 13,000. Like many psychologists, you have a diverse practice. You treat patients at a local mental health clinic. You serve on professional boards. You work part-time as a consultant to the local sheriff's department.What do you do?
One day, the sheriff asks you to come down and help with some interrogations in a cold case of sexual assault and murder. Among the suspects being questioned are Deb and Ada, two young women you treated in your private practice.
If you are Wayne R. Price, Ph.D. of Beatrice, Nebraska, you see no problem in interrogating the young women despite having been their therapist:
"What I find, I find. It makes no difference to me," Price testified at a pretrial hearing. "When I have an emotional involvement or vested interest and can't do it objectively, I will say so."
Price's role in helping elicit confessions from two of his former patients is in the spotlight now, almost two decades later, because of new DNA evidence pointing to a different killer. The so-called Beatrice Six case has set a record for the number of people exonerated by DNA evidence in a single case.
The five suspects who confessed fit the pattern of false confession cases: Suggestible young people with psychiatric or cognitive problems who used alcohol or drugs, were easily confused, and were worn down by aggressive questioning.
False confessions like this are not nearly as unusual as many people still think. According to the Innocence Project, they have been found in about one-fourth of DNA exonerations.
What is unusual in the Beatrice Six case is the psychologist's role. A psychologist playing the dual roles of trusted therapist and criminal interrogator "would have had a powerful place of trust and persuasion over suspects," the Omaha World-Herald cites confession experts as stating.
The Six did not become formal suspects until four years after the 1985 murder of Helen Wilson. The ball got rolling when a hard-partying 23-year-old named Tom Winslow was in jail for an unrelated crime, the beating of a motel clerk during a robbery. Police approached him with an offer he couldn't refuse: "Help us solve our murder case, and we'll get you out of jail on bond."
Winslow claims police called him a liar and threatened him with the electric chair if he did not confess. He said police fed him information and "suggested he was blocking out memories of a horrific crime due to the cloud of alcohol or drug abuse," according to reporter Paul Hammel, who has followed the case for the World-Herald.
Earlier this month, authorities announced that the DNA found at the crime scene matched an Oklahoma City man, Bruce Smith, who had since died. In light of that evidence, the state is seeking pardons for the Beatrice Six.
Joseph White, a 26-year-old drifter from Alabama, was the only one of the Six who refused to confess. A jury deliberated for only a few hours before convicting him anyway, largely on the testimony of co-defendants who received reduced charges in exchange.
One of White's attorney's, Toney Redman, recalled arguing in court that those testifying were "so weak-minded" that their stories could not be trusted.
"I'm fully convinced now that the police, if they wanted to, could get any borderline personality person, who has alcohol and drug issues, and scare them to death and get them to confess to anything," he told the World-Herald.
Two of the three who testified against White - Ada JoAnn Taylor and Deb Shelden - were former patients of Dr. Price. Their accounts reportedly changed over time, partly after Dr. Price encouraged them to recollect more details.
Taylor, diagnosed by Price with a personality disorder, initially said she couldn't recall much because she had memory problems. After police insisted she was at the scene of the murder, she eventually changed her story. She also told investigators she communicated telepathically with a friend and had five former lives and an imaginary twin. She took a plea deal and was paroled in November.
Shelden, the other former patient of Price's, initially told interrogators she didn't recall the details of the assault on her grand-aunt until months later, when she began having nightmares. She said Dr. Price helped her to remember the details. Shelden was paroled after serving 10 years in prison.
Although Dr. Price - now executive director of Blue Valley Behavioral Health in Beatrice - doesn't see a problem with his dual roles in the Beatrice Six case, many other psychologists might.
Beneficence and Nonmaleficence is the very first principle of the American Psychological Association's Ethics Code, advising us to to "benefit those with whom [we] work and take care to do no harm." Another principle, Justice, cautions psychologists to "exercise reasonable judgment and take precautions" to avoid participating in unjust practices. A third principle, Respect for People's Rights and Dignity, discusses the duty to safeguard people's confidentiality and self-determination, especially when their "vulnerabilities [might] impair autonomous decision making."
The dangers of multiple relationships are specifically addressed in Section 3.05 of the Ethics Code. Psychologists are forbidden from engaging in dual relationships that "risk exploitation or harm to the person with whom the professional relationship exists."
The Forensic Psychology Specialty Guidelines, published two years after Dr. Price's involvement in the Beatrice Six interrogations, also caution against engaging in dual relationships that might cause harm: "Forensic psychologists recognize potential conflicts of interest in dual relationships with parties to a legal proceeding, and they seek to minimize their effects. Forensic psychologists avoid providing professional services to parties in a legal proceeding with whom they have personal or professional relationships that are inconsistent with the anticipated relationship."
It's hard to see how providing someone with confidential psychological therapy would not be inconsistent with later becoming that person's police interrogator.
If you have other thoughts on the ethical contours of this case, I encourage you to comment.
Omaha World-Herald coverage of the Beatrice Six case is here, here, and here.
A classic article on dual roles in forensic psychology is: Greenberg, S.A. & Shuman, D.W. (1997). Irreconcilable Conflict Between Therapeutic & Forensic Roles. Professional Psychology: Research & Practice, 28, 50-57.
October 27, 2008
Trials of a Forensic Psychologist: A Casebook
The latest from forensic psychologist Charles Ewing
No sooner do I get done reviewing law professor Charles Ewing's book, Insanity: Murder, Madness, and the Law, than the internationally known forensic psychologist and legal scholar cranks out another one.
Ewing's latest, Trials of a Forensic Psychologist, is also his most autobiographical to date, drawing on his 30 years of experience in the trenches and in some of the nation's most high-profile cases. As such, it promises to be an engaging read as well as good fodder for course instructors.
"Many people, myself included, have written books examining high-profile controversial cases whose verdicts hinged on the testimony of forensic experts," Ewing said. "My goal in this book was to take that genre one step further. After sorting through the many trials in which I have testified throughout the United States, I selected 10 high-profile cases that were not only fascinating, but allowed me to give readers an intimate and detailed look at my work as a forensic psychologist."
I was interested to see that women are well represented among the 10 cases, which include:
Ewing, a professor at the University of Buffalo Law School, has several books to his credit, including Fatal Families, Kids Who Kill, and an excellent, co-authored case-study book, "Minds on Trial."
The book's table of contents and excerpts are available here.
No sooner do I get done reviewing law professor Charles Ewing's book, Insanity: Murder, Madness, and the Law, than the internationally known forensic psychologist and legal scholar cranks out another one.
Ewing's latest, Trials of a Forensic Psychologist, is also his most autobiographical to date, drawing on his 30 years of experience in the trenches and in some of the nation's most high-profile cases. As such, it promises to be an engaging read as well as good fodder for course instructors.
"Many people, myself included, have written books examining high-profile controversial cases whose verdicts hinged on the testimony of forensic experts," Ewing said. "My goal in this book was to take that genre one step further. After sorting through the many trials in which I have testified throughout the United States, I selected 10 high-profile cases that were not only fascinating, but allowed me to give readers an intimate and detailed look at my work as a forensic psychologist."
I was interested to see that women are well represented among the 10 cases, which include:
- Waneta Hoyt, who under intense pressure confessed to killing five of her children whose deaths had originally been attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
- Judith Neelley, a battered woman and the youngest American woman to serve time on death row, was convicted of committing the heinous murders of two women at the behest of her abusive husband.
- Richard Knupp, charged with over 1,400 counts of sexually abusing his own children, who was first convicted and then exonerated in a second trial.
- Shirley Kinge, whose son murdered a family during a robbery before himself being killed by police. The mother was convicted as an accomplice but was exonerated based on evidence that a prosecution expert had falsified evidence against her and many other criminal defendants.
Ewing, a professor at the University of Buffalo Law School, has several books to his credit, including Fatal Families, Kids Who Kill, and an excellent, co-authored case-study book, "Minds on Trial."
The book's table of contents and excerpts are available here.
Photo credit: Douglas Levere
October 12, 2008
Goldilocks and the 3 Bears
When the Bear family came home from an evening of foraging at the local Chinese buffet, Mama Bear noticed that someone had been eating in her kitchen.
"Who ate the crab cake and left the crumbs on the counter?" she asked.
"Not I," said Papa Bear.
"Not I," said Baby Bear.
Papa Bear went upstairs and saw that someone had been sleeping in his bed. In fact, that someone was still sleeping, curled up in Papa Bear's blanket on the bed, with his shoes, socks, and pants lying on the floor.
"Who's been sleeping in my bed?" Papa Bear asked.
No, wait a minute, scratch that. Modern bears have cell phones. So Papa Bear did not confront the intruder. Instead, he quietly crept downstairs, gathered up Mama Bear and Baby Bear, and went outside to call the police.
Goldilocks was still asleep when police rolled up.
"What are you doing in my house?" demanded the brazen, modern-day Goldilocks of police.
As it turns out, poor Goldilocks was a 50-year-old man who - with the recent economic downturn - had just lost his job. He was apparently so drunk that he entered the wrong bed in the wrong house. In fact, he got off the bus a full eight miles from his own home in Damascus, Maryland.
The drunken Goldilocks was apologetic.
"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," he told the Bears. "And by the way, you have a very comfortable bed."
The modern-day Bears were also a good deal more charitable than in the original tale.
Mama Bear, a middle school teacher named Joanne Breiner, packed up a container of homemade chicken soup, homemade cookies, and spareribs for Goldilocks.
"I think her mom would have been disappointed if we didn't feed the intruder," said Papa Bear (aka Bob Breiner).
In the modern saga, by the way, Baby Bear was 16 years old and had carelessly left the front door unlocked.
Police would not reveal Goldilocks' real name, saying only that he had no criminal record.
Why am I posting about Goldilock and the Bears?
Because in forensic psychology we sometimes get cases like this. Indeed, I had a case very similar to this one, except the Goldilocks in my case was arrested and prosecuted for burglary. In my case, Goldilocks had not been drinking; rather, he was sleepwalking while in an altered state due to an extremely high fever. His charges were dismissed based on witness accounts of his illness, medical records that substantiated his fever and lack of blood-alcohol, and his documented history of somnambulism (sleepwalking).
In the forensic context, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) cautions about the possibility of malingering - or faking - of such fugue-like states in order to avoid criminal responsibility.
"Criminal conduct that is bizarre or with little actual gain may be more consistent with a true dissociative disturbance," states the DSM-IV-TR.
That must have been what police concluded in Goldlilocks' case. Instead of arresting the embarrassed fellow, they released him to his wife. After all, most burglars don't just eat the crabcake and go to bed.
The Washington Post has the story.
October 10, 2008
Sex offender laws criminalizing children
Unintentional wrinkle in sex offender hysteria
A 15-year-old Ohio girl may have to register as a sex offender for the next 20 years – until she is 35 years old! - because she had the bad judgment to share with her friends some nude photos of herself that she took with her cell phone.
The girl's friends may also be charged in the case.
Under the federal Adam Walsh Act, which I blogged about yesterday, judges lost much of their ability to exercise common-sense discretion in cases like this. Instead, crimes must be punished based on fixed offense categories or "tiers."
The law under which the girl is charged makes it a 5th-degree felony to possess material showing a minor in a state of nudity. There is an exemption for parents or guardians who take nude photos of their own children, but no exemption for a child herself.
The legislator who wrote Ohio's Megan's Law, Republican Jay Hottinger, said this type of case was not what the legislature had in mind.
Maybe, instead of just thinking about getting votes, legislators should have been thinking a bit more carefully and deeply when they drafted all these laws, because this high school girl is far from a fluke.
As an expert on child pornography pointed out at a recent forensic psychology conference in Ireland, much of the sexually explicit imagery on the Internet is uploaded by the youngsters themselves, through such sites as Facebook, YouTube and Bebo; other images, as in this case, are sent from friend to friend via mobile phones.
Dr. Ethel Quayle, director of Europe's Combating Paedophile Information Networks in Europe (COPINE) and author of a book on Internet Child Pornography, estimated that about half of all online sexual solicitation involving children is done by the children themselves.
Dr. Quayle said the stereotype of middle-aged men grooming children for sexual exploitation is way off the mark; laws predicated on this bogeyman image are resulting in the increased criminalization of children like the Ohio girl.
The Newark (Ohio) Advocate has more on the Ohio case. The Irish Examiner reported on the forensic conference at University College Cork in Ireland. Photo credit: Hialean (Creative Commons license).
A 15-year-old Ohio girl may have to register as a sex offender for the next 20 years – until she is 35 years old! - because she had the bad judgment to share with her friends some nude photos of herself that she took with her cell phone.
The girl's friends may also be charged in the case.
Under the federal Adam Walsh Act, which I blogged about yesterday, judges lost much of their ability to exercise common-sense discretion in cases like this. Instead, crimes must be punished based on fixed offense categories or "tiers."
The law under which the girl is charged makes it a 5th-degree felony to possess material showing a minor in a state of nudity. There is an exemption for parents or guardians who take nude photos of their own children, but no exemption for a child herself.
The legislator who wrote Ohio's Megan's Law, Republican Jay Hottinger, said this type of case was not what the legislature had in mind.
Maybe, instead of just thinking about getting votes, legislators should have been thinking a bit more carefully and deeply when they drafted all these laws, because this high school girl is far from a fluke.
As an expert on child pornography pointed out at a recent forensic psychology conference in Ireland, much of the sexually explicit imagery on the Internet is uploaded by the youngsters themselves, through such sites as Facebook, YouTube and Bebo; other images, as in this case, are sent from friend to friend via mobile phones.
Dr. Ethel Quayle, director of Europe's Combating Paedophile Information Networks in Europe (COPINE) and author of a book on Internet Child Pornography, estimated that about half of all online sexual solicitation involving children is done by the children themselves.
Dr. Quayle said the stereotype of middle-aged men grooming children for sexual exploitation is way off the mark; laws predicated on this bogeyman image are resulting in the increased criminalization of children like the Ohio girl.
The Newark (Ohio) Advocate has more on the Ohio case. The Irish Examiner reported on the forensic conference at University College Cork in Ireland. Photo credit: Hialean (Creative Commons license).
September 25, 2008
Jam-packed new issue of psychiatry-law journal
The latest issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law is now available online, with interesting articles on competency, insanity, dangerousness, practice guidelines, diagnosis in SVP proceedings (a topic I am addressing in an upcoming training and an article in press), and much more:
The LEGAL DIGEST section includes the following summaries and analyses:
- Revisiting the Politics of Dangerousness by Gregory B. Leong
- Mandated Community Treatment: Applying Leverage to Achieve Adherence by the illustrious John Monahan
- Clinical Practice Guidelines as Learned Treatises: Understanding Their Use as Evidence in the Courtroom by Patricia R. Recupero
- Commentary: When Is a Practice Guideline Only a Guideline? by Howard Zonana
- Forensic Applications of Cerebral Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury by Hal S. Wortzel, Christopher M. Filley, C. Alan Anderson, Timothy Oster, and David B. Arciniegas
- Applications of Functional Neuroimaging to Civil Litigation of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury by Robert P. Granacher, Jr
- The Conditional Release of Insanity Acquittees: Three Decades of Decision-Making by Barbara E. McDermott, Charles L. Scott, David Busse, Felecia Andrade, Michelle Zozaya, and Cameron D. Quanbeck
- Conceptualizing and Characterizing Accuracy in Assessments of Competence to Stand Trial by Douglas Mossman
- Facts and Values in Competency Assessment by Alec Buchanan
- Making Consent More Informed: Preliminary Results From a Multiple-Choice Test Among Probation-Referred Marijuana Users Entering a Randomized Clinical Trial by Daniel B. Rounsaville, Karen Hunkele, Caroline J. Easton, Charla Nich, and Kathleen M. Carroll
- Defining Mental Disorder When It Really Counts: DSM-IV-TR and SVP/SDP Statutes by Allen Frances, Shoba Sreenivasan, and Linda E. Weinberger
- Testimony by Mentally Ill Individuals by Yuval Melamed
The LEGAL DIGEST section includes the following summaries and analyses:
- Competence to Waive Miranda Rights by Aimee Kaempf and Debra A. Pinals
- Waiver of Postconviction Relief (PCR) and PCR Counsel by Kimberly A. Larson and Albert J. Gruzdinskas
- Videotaped Confessions and Miranda Rights by Paul Noroian
- Guardianship and Autonomy in Decision-Making by Deepak Dev and Debra A. Pinals
- Competence to Plead Guilty and Seek the Death Penalty by Casey Helmkamp, Hal S. Wortzel, and Richard Martinez
- Mitigating Evidence in a Death Penalty Case by Gregory Kellermeyer, Hal S. Wortzel, and Richard Martinez
- Mental Retardation and the Death Penalty: Addressing Various Questions Regarding an Atkins Claim by Jacob Widroff and Clarence Watson
- Sum of Errors and Due Process Owed to Mentally III Defendant by Elena del Busto and Clarence Watson
- Termination of Parental Rights by Sarah Rasco and Heidi Vermette
September 24, 2008
Memory: The sharper, the falser
One of the most surprising things about memory is that contrary to popular belief, the more specific the detail, the less likely the memory is to be accurate. And while gaps in a memory are generally believed to indicate an unreliable memory, the reality is that gaps are virtually a hallmark of the remembering process.
"People still have this intuitive belief that if someone recounts a memory, it must be true if they display strong emotions," says Cara Laney, lecturer in forensic psychology at the University of Leicester. "But I've been studying memory so long that I don't trust very many of my childhood memories at all."
From rose-tinted views of childhood to clear recollections of events that never happened, research shows that memories are both suggestible and inherently idealised.
The rest of UK Guardian reporter Kate Hilpern's fascinating summary of memory research, "Is your mind playing tricks on you?"” in online here. The accuracy of memories is of central import in the field of forensic psychology, as well as related fields such as criminal investigation. So, if Hilpern's brief summary whets your appetite for more, I highly recommend scholar Daniel Schacter’s The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers (my Amazon review is here). After reading about the seven sins, you’ll never think the same about your own memory, or anyone else's.
"People still have this intuitive belief that if someone recounts a memory, it must be true if they display strong emotions," says Cara Laney, lecturer in forensic psychology at the University of Leicester. "But I've been studying memory so long that I don't trust very many of my childhood memories at all."
From rose-tinted views of childhood to clear recollections of events that never happened, research shows that memories are both suggestible and inherently idealised.
The rest of UK Guardian reporter Kate Hilpern's fascinating summary of memory research, "Is your mind playing tricks on you?"” in online here. The accuracy of memories is of central import in the field of forensic psychology, as well as related fields such as criminal investigation. So, if Hilpern's brief summary whets your appetite for more, I highly recommend scholar Daniel Schacter’s The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers (my Amazon review is here). After reading about the seven sins, you’ll never think the same about your own memory, or anyone else's.
September 5, 2008
Of child molestation and crystal balls
How much can a forensic psychologist really tell?
Defense attorneys regularly telephone me seeking an expert to testify that their client does not "fit the profile" of a child molester.
"What profile?" I want to ask. Men who molest children have no special profile. They come in all shapes and sizes.
After explaining this, I always pass on such cases.
Some forensic psychologists disagree. They think there is a profile, or that we can reliably determine the veracity of children who say they were abused.
Forensic psychologist excluded
In Louisiana, after the courthouse reopened following Hurricane Gustav, one such expert was slated to testify in the high-profile trial of church pastor Louis D. Lamonica.
The defense planned to call the forensic psychologist to tell jurors how to judge the veracity of abuse allegations made by children. No can do, ruled Judge Zoey Waguespack; the children's veracity is up to the jury to decide. Prosecutors had cited Supreme Court precedents to support that position.
The jury began deliberating yesterday. They must decide whether Lamonica molested his two young sons or falsely confessed, as the defense maintains, because he was being controlled by a self-proclaimed prophet who had tortured him, deprived him of sleep, and forced him to wear a dress and two rubber snakes.
The jurors' job won't be easy. Lamonica's sons - both now adults - testified that they were never abused. They, too, allege their confessions were the result of control by self-proclaimed prophet Lois Mowbray, who was arrested but never charged in the case. The boys testified that Mowbray controlled their mother and had her coerce the boys into accusing their father.
The bizarre case harkens back to the largely discredited satanic ritual abuse hysteria of the 1980s. In his tape-recorded confession, which was played for jurors, Lamonica talked about a child-sex ring at his Hosanna Church that practiced satanic cult rituals. Former church members also testified that the church had devolved from an established church into a Christian cult where worshippers publicly confessed and vomited to cast out the demons of sin. The allegations rocked the small town of Ponchatoula, about 40 miles northwest of New Orleans.
Ironically, the case broke when Lamonica himself walked into the local sheriff's station back in 2005 and began babbling about having molested children, taught them to have sex with each other and with a dog, and poured cat blood over the bodies of his young victims. At his trial, Lamonica testified that was all lies.
Unfortunately, the jurors won't have much in the way of science to guide them in choosing which of Lamonica's two diametrically opposed stories to believe.
But wait! High-tech mind reading in the works
While not in time to help Lamonica's jurors, scientists are feverishly working on new technologies to enable us to differentiate truth from lies. The science holds promise, they say, for identifying pedophiles based on their mental attitudes toward children.
Researchers tout the Implicit Association Test (IAT), developed by Harvard scholars to measure unconscious racism, as having the potential to sniff out pedophiles and even psychopathic murderers. (See Gray et al, 2003 and 2005.) A modified IAT called the Timed Antagonistic Response Alethiometer (TARA) can classify responders as liars or truth tellers based on the speed at which they classify sentences and "manipulate response incongruities," they claim. (See Gregg, 2007.) Other researchers have been working to adapt functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) into a lie-detection tool, with mixed results. (See Ganis et al, 2003, and Iacono & Lykken, 1999.)
The current issue of Psychological Science presents an article summarizing this research and offering a new tweak, the autobiographical IAT (aIAT), which researchers boast "outperforms currently available lie-detection techniques."
The authors concede that this and other emergent technologies do "leave important neuroethical issues unresolved." (See Wolpe et al 2005.)
You don't say.
In the forensic realm, it seems particularly problematic to equate attitudes with behavior. After all, many more men lust after children and teens than go on to commit illegal sex acts against them.
The Psychological Science article is: "How to Accurately Detect Autobiographical Events," by Giuseppe Sartori, Sara Agosta, Cristina Zogmaister, Santo Davide Ferrara, & Umberto Castiello. The abstract is available online, and the full article can be requested from the first author.
A few of my prior related blog posts are:
Why the next civil rights battle will be over the mind
Forensic brain scanning: Online resources
Using lie detectors to monitor sex offenders
The evidence does not lie – or does it?
Gray, N.S., Brown, A.S., MacCulloch, M.J., Smith, J., & Snowden, R.J. (2005). An implicit test of the associations between children and sex in pedophiles. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 114, 304–308.
Gray, N.S., MacCulloch, M.J., Smith, J., Morris, M., & Snowden, R.J. (2003). Violence viewed by psychopathic murderers. Nature, 423, 497–498.
Gregg, A.I. (2007). When vying reveals lying: The Timed Antagonistic Response Alethiometer. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21, 621–647.
Iacono, W.G., & Lykken, D.T. (1999). Update: The scientific status of research on polygraph techniques: The case against polygraph tests. In D.L. Faigman, D.H. Kaye, M.J. Saks, & J. Sanders (Eds.), Modern scientific evidence: The law and science of expert testimony (pp. 174–184). St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.
Wolpe, P.R., Foster, K.R., & Langleben, D.D. (2005). Emerging neurotechnologies for lie-detection: Promises and perils. The American Journal of Bioethics, 5 (2), 39–49.
Photo credits: ora mia and Josh Bancroft (Creative Commons license)
August 29, 2008
Underground ruling on underground rules
This post is mainly to alert those of you practicing in the SVP area. The decision is from California, but may have relevance in other jurisdictions.
First, the background:
We all know about statutes and case law. But what about all those little government agency regulations that guide the enforcement of the laws? How are they issued and enforced?
Well, it turns out that in California, there is an Administrative Procedure Act (APA) that very specifically defines these rules and regulations and how they are to be issued and enforced. Rules include any "regulation, order, or standard of general application" that a state agency adopts in order to "implement, interpret, or make specific the law enforced or administered by it." And before issuing or enforcing any such rule, a state agency must file it with the Secretary of State and have it formally adopted as a regulation.
Who regulates the regulator? In California, that's the job of the little-known Office of Administrative Law (OAL).
OK, so now you understand the process. And here's why I am writing about it:
State's SVP protocol in violation
This month, the Office of Administrative Law handed down a decision against California's Department of Mental Health (DMH), saying its internal manual for SVP evaluators is an illegal "underground regulation." That's the OAL's term for a rule that is issued or enforced without the required approval of the Secretary of State.
The OAL held that the 68-page "Clinical Evaluator Handbook and Standardized Assessment Protocol" violates the law because it requires psychologists and psychiatrists on the state's panel of experts "to evaluate persons in accordance with the [manual’s] protocol."
The 2007 manual "mandate[s] how the evaluation is conducted and how the results of the evaluation are presented," despite the fact that the DMH "does not have the authority to dictate or control the standards or clinical profession of psychology or psychology," the OAL ruled.
The DMH had argued that the protocol was not a regulation, but just a general guide to assist clinical evaluators in making "case-specific determination[s] using their education, experience, and expertise ... in the exercise of their independent professional clinical judgment." The OAL found this argument unconvincing, quoting the manual as saying it "specifies the questions that must be answered and formats to be used." The handbook specifies how to conduct the clinical interview, collect historical information, and perform an assessment of a person's risk for sex offense recidivism.
The case was brought by Michael St. Martin, a leading activist among the sex offenders being civilly detained at Coalinga State Hospital.
What does the ruling mean in practice?
Once the OAL identifies a governmental rule as an "underground regulation," the agency is prohibited from enforcing it.
There is no muscle behind the proclamation, however, in that the OAL does not impose sanctions.
The OAL does mention that attorneys may bring up the regulation's status as an issue in any subsequent litigation. That means defense attorneys will have a heyday with state SVP panelists, some of whom are earning a cool half-million dollars per year cranking out these evaluations. Prepare for cross-examination questions on whether the evaluation methodology has any scientific basis and whether it has been peer reviewed.
The full decision is here. Photo credit: Eole (Creative Commons license).
August 25, 2008
Psychologist may not testify, judge rules
A Vermont judge has ruled against allowing a psychologist to testify in a child pornography case aginst a prominent local man.
The defense had sought to call Thomas Powell to testify about two issues:
"Why should the jury care what Tom Powell thinks is lewd?" Judge Carroll asked. She said the defense attorney was trying to have Powell "come in and give his opinion" rather than just state facts helpful to the jury.
Although laws vary somewhat by jurisdiction, in general professionals are only allowed to testify as "experts" if they possess specialized knowledge that is beyond the realm of laypeople and will assist the trier of fact (such as a jury or judge) to understand the evidence and/or decide an issue.
On the face of it, the judge’s opinion certainly appears sound.
The full article, in today’s Rutland Herald, is online here.
The defense had sought to call Thomas Powell to testify about two issues:
- Whether pamphlets found in the home of Stewart Read were pornographic, and
- Whether the boys pictured in the pamphlets were under the age of 16.
"Why should the jury care what Tom Powell thinks is lewd?" Judge Carroll asked. She said the defense attorney was trying to have Powell "come in and give his opinion" rather than just state facts helpful to the jury.
Although laws vary somewhat by jurisdiction, in general professionals are only allowed to testify as "experts" if they possess specialized knowledge that is beyond the realm of laypeople and will assist the trier of fact (such as a jury or judge) to understand the evidence and/or decide an issue.
On the face of it, the judge’s opinion certainly appears sound.
The full article, in today’s Rutland Herald, is online here.
Study: Easier to implant negative false memories in children
This new study has potential relevance to forensic psychology, and specifically the automatic faith that some accord to statements made by children in criminal and child custody cases:
Children develop false memories for a negative event more readily than they do for a neutral one. Henry Otgaar and colleagues, who made the new finding, said their work has real-world implications for anyone working with child witnesses: "The argument that is sometimes heard in court - i.e. this memory report must be true because it describes such a horrible event - is, as our data show, on shaky grounds."
Seventy-six children aged between seven and nine years were asked to recall details about a true event that had happened to them the previous year (e.g. that their class had to perform a musical), and either a neutral fictitious event (moving classrooms) or a negative fictitious event (being wrongly accused of copying a classmate's work).
The children were asked about the events, true and fictitious, during two interviews held a week apart. If at first the children were unable to recall any further details, they were asked to concentrate and try again. They were also asked to reflect on the events during the week between interviews, to see if they could flesh out any further details.
Altogether, 74 percent of the children developed false memories for the fictitious event - that is, they said they remembered the event and added extra details about what happened. Crucially, those asked to recall the time they were accused of copying a classmate were significantly more likely to develop a false memory than were those asked to recall the time they had to switch classrooms.
The researchers speculated that children might be more prone to developing false memories of negative rather than neutral events because the two kinds of information are stored differently in the brain. "Negative information is more interrelated than neutral material," they explained. "As a result, the presentation of negative information - either true or false - might increase the possibility that other negative materials become activated in memory. This, in turn, could affect the development of a false memory for a negative event."
- From the British Psychological Society's Research Digest
The study, "Children's false memories: Easier to elicit for a negative than for a neutral event," appears in Acta Psychologica, the International Journal of Psychonomics, 128(2), 350-354. The authors are Henry Otgaar, Ingrid Candel, and Harald Merckelbach of Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
August 21, 2008
Opposing expert no safeguard against junk science
That's the conclusion of an interesting study in the current (August) issue of Law & Human Behavior. The researchers, criminology professor Lora Levett from the University of Florida and Margaret Bull Kovera, a prominent social psychologist and expert on eyewitness identification, found the following:
We tested whether an opposing expert is an effective method of educating jurors about scientific validity by manipulating the methodological quality of defense expert testimony and the type of opposing prosecution expert testimony (none, standard, addresses the other expert’s methodology) within the context of a written trial transcript. The presence of opposing expert testimony caused jurors to be skeptical of all expert testimony rather than sensitizing them to flaws in the other expert’s testimony. Jurors rendered more guilty verdicts when they heard opposing expert testimony than when opposing expert testimony was absent, regardless of whether the opposing testimony addressed the methodology of the original expert or the validity of the original expert’s testimony. Thus, contrary to the assumptions in the Supreme Court’s decision in Daubert, opposing expert testimony may not be an effective safeguard against junk science in the courtroom.The article is restricted to subscribers and purchasers, but you can get the abstract and a “free preview” (the first page) here.
More guilty verdicts, hmm? That hasn't been my experience in the cases I've been involved in, but it's an interesting finding nonetheless.
August 19, 2008
News headlines from around the U.S.
The major news outlets are running all kinds of stories relevant to forensic psychology. Here is a sampling.
CSI counterpoint
The fallability of forensic sciences is gaining attention lately. Roger Koppl, director of the Institute for Forensic Science Administration, and Dan Krane, a biological sciences prof at Wright State, co-authored this informative op-ed piece in the Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger:
When patients kill
It is always bad news when someone is certified ready for release from a psychiatric hospital and then commits a violent offense. Take William Bruce: Two months after the 24-year-old schizophrenic was released from a hospital in Maine, he hatcheted his mother to death. Here, the Wall Street Journal finds fault with patients rights' advocates who lobbied for Bruce's release:
Christian Science Monitor slams sex offender laws
As public awareness mounts regarding restrictive residency laws targeting sex offenders, the Christian Science Monitor joins the fray with this hard-hitting editorial by C. Alexander Evans:
MoJo's "Slammed: The coming prison meltdown"
And if you've got time for still more reading, a highly recommend the Mother Jones special on incarceration, "SLAMMED." It features at least nine interesting articles, among them:
Not to mention, a "MoJo Prison Guide" with a glossary of prison slang and answers to such obscure prison trivia as:
Hat tip: Jane
August 15, 2008
UK forensic psych honored
Pioneer in study of police interrogation tactics
A British forensic psychologist who pioneered in the study of police interrogation tactics and helped to reform such practices in the UK and elsewhere has been honored with an international award.
The European Association of Psychology and Law honored Professor Ray Bull of the University of Leicester with a Lifetime contribution to Psychology and Law award.
In 1991, Dr. Bull was commissioned by the British Home Office to co-author the first draft of the Memorandum of Good Practice on Video Recorded Interviews with Child Witnesses for Criminal Proceedings. He went on to write the government's 2002 Achieving Best Evidence in Criminal Proceedings: Guidance for Vulnerable or Intimidated Witnesses, Including Children. He has advised police forces in several countries on the interviewing of witnesses and suspects, and he has testified as an expert witness on this topic at a number of trials.
More information is online here.
A British forensic psychologist who pioneered in the study of police interrogation tactics and helped to reform such practices in the UK and elsewhere has been honored with an international award.
The European Association of Psychology and Law honored Professor Ray Bull of the University of Leicester with a Lifetime contribution to Psychology and Law award.
In 1991, Dr. Bull was commissioned by the British Home Office to co-author the first draft of the Memorandum of Good Practice on Video Recorded Interviews with Child Witnesses for Criminal Proceedings. He went on to write the government's 2002 Achieving Best Evidence in Criminal Proceedings: Guidance for Vulnerable or Intimidated Witnesses, Including Children. He has advised police forces in several countries on the interviewing of witnesses and suspects, and he has testified as an expert witness on this topic at a number of trials.
More information is online here.
August 13, 2008
Using lie detectors to monitor sex offenders
Pro and con arguments
Polygraph testing is widely used with convicted sex offenders in the United States to assist in their treatment and supervision, and in 2007 legislation was passed in England enabling a national trial of mandatory testing in the probation service.
In next month's issue of Legal and Criminological Psychology, a British journal, a forensic psychiatrist and a forensic psychologist debate the pros and cons of this approach:
Don Grubin, MD of Newcastle University in the UK endorses the use of polygraphy to monitor whether sex offenders are adhering to their treatment plans. Polygraphy, he argues, is an effective method for "getting a complete sexual history, checking compliance with treatment and supervision and gaining information about an individual's offending."
Gershon Ben-Shakhar, Ph.D. of Hebrew University of Jerusalem objects: "Polygraph examinations have no value as a scientific method for detecting deception and uncovering information the examinee does not wish to disclose."
The full arguments are in September's special issue on human rights in forensic practice; a press release from the British Psychological Society (the journal's publisher) is here. Unfortunately, although I have linked you to the abstracts, you have to pay or subscribe to a journal service to get the entire articles.
August 11, 2008
LA Times exposes SVP boondoggle
Back in January, I reported (here) on California's costly and ineffective program for screening Sexually Violent Predators. On Sunday, the L.A. Times reported on how the program is enriching a handful of state psychologists to the tune of more than $1 million in some cases (in addition to their day jobs). The state's 79 evaluators earned a cumulative $24 million in 2007, a figure that is expected to rise in coming years even as funds for more essential public services disappear. It's a story that both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Contra Costa Times have also covered some time ago:
State pays millions for contract psychologists to keep up with Jessica's Law
State pays millions for contract psychologists to keep up with Jessica's Law
A 2006 law intended to crack down on sex offenders has proved a bonanza for a small group of private psychologists and psychiatrists, 14 of whom billed California taxpayers last year for a half a million dollars or more each, a Times investigation found.The full story is here.
Among the 79 contractors hired by the state to evaluate sex offenders, the top earner was Robert Owen, a Central Coast psychologist who pulled in more than $1.5 million in 2007, according to state records reviewed by The Times.
That's equivalent to working 100 hours per week for 52 weeks at nearly $300 per hour -- top-scale in the private sector.
The No. 2 earner, psychologist Dawn Starr, billed the state $1.1 million in 2007, including $17,500 for a single day in April.
"It's been a boatload of money, to put it colloquially," psychologist Shoba Sreenivasan said during court testimony in November. Working only part time, she billed the state nearly $900,000 last year and at least $290,000 this year…
Dr. Michael First, editor of the American Psychiatric Assn. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the standard reference for mental disorders, said most reports require at least 30 hours.
Yet on a single day, Nov. 13, 2007, No. 2-earner Starr billed for five evaluations.On April 23, 2007, she billed more than 17 hours for a range of court-related work and still found time to complete an evaluation, according to her invoices, which were reviewed by The Times.
Dr. Mohan Nair, a psychiatrist with offices in Beverly Hills and Los Alamitos, earned nearly $1 million last year under the state program. He also saw private patients, provided forensic testimony and evaluation for other government agencies, directed a diagnostic lab and supervised residents at two medical centers.
Nair completed up to 20 sex-offender evaluations a month in 2007. Including time billed for legal matters, they comprised just 20% to 30% of his professional practice, he said.
Even at 100 hours per week, he would have had no more than six hours to complete each of five evaluations….
The State Personnel Board recently took up the issue, ruling that the use of contractors violated state law by failing to make an adequate effort to fill evaluator jobs with regular employees. The board ordered mental health officials to replace the contractors with civil servants. Despite an increase in pay to up to $110,000 annually, Mayberg said, just four jobs out of 80 have been filled.
Since then, the department and the union helped to craft a bill to permit the use of contract evaluators until January 2011.
Hat tip: Daniel Murrie
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