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:

Defendants should have right to forensic expertise

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:

A Death in the Family: Aided by advocates for the mentally ill, William Bruce left the hospital -- only to kill his mother

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:

Protecting our kids – or jeopardizing everyone's freedom? Residency laws for child sex offenders flout the Constitution

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:

Hard Time Out: The prison boom comes to the schools

Probation Profiteers: In Georgia's outsourced justice system, a traffic ticket can land you deep in the hole

Why Texas Still Holds 'Em: Forget oil and gold. In the Lone Star state, the boomtown business is locking up immigrants

When Prison Guards Go Soft: Even California's powerful prison guards' union thinks more prisons are a bad idea

Not to mention, a "MoJo Prison Guide" with a glossary of prison slang and answers to such obscure prison trivia as:

• What Do Prisoners Make for Victoria's Secret?
• Which Works Better Behind Bars, Scuba or Buddha?
  

Hat tip: Jane

Guantanamo psychologist takes the Fifth

Court case may fuel debate at annual APA Convention

I've been trying to keep this blog out of the torture debate raging within the American Psychological Association, but I wanted to alert readers to this interesting news angle reported in today's New York Sun.

In a courtroom at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay yesterday, a psychologist asserted the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination when called testify about the treatment of a detainee. Her action implies that she could face criminal sanctions or licensure action for her role in the interrogation of detainee Mohammad Jawad.

According to court papers, the psychologist became involved when Jawad's interrogator became concerned over his deteriorating mental state. The detainee had begun speaking to posters on the wall.

The psychologist (whose name is being kept secret by court order) reportedly told the interrogator that Jawad was faking. She recommended that he be placed in isolation in order to weaken his resolve. Nine weeks later, Jawad attempted suicide.

Jawad's military lawyer, Major David Frakt, said the psychologist's refusal to testify is tantamount to admitting "that her conduct was criminal."

The case is likely to figure into the firestorm at this week's annual convention of the American Psychological Association in Boston. The APA is set to vote on whether to ban members from participating in these types of interrogations. A number of psychologists have resigned or are withholding dues in protest of the organization's refusal to take a stronger stand against torture, and more than 1,200 members have signed a protest petition.

The New York Sun article is here. Hat tip to Ken Pope, who has a page of online resources on the controversy. More information is available at the web site of Psychologists for an Ethical APA.

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.

Yet another DNA child rape exoneration

Excellent journalistic expose

Shortly after sunrise (yesterday), the inmates in the stark prison yard cheered wildly and pumped their fists for Robert McClendon as he took his final steps toward freedom. The Columbus (Ohio) man grinned as he walked past the concrete-block walls and curls of barbed wire, no longer condemned for a child rape that DNA shows he didn't commit.

That is the lead to a story in yesterday's Columbus Dispatch. The case is featured as part of a yearlong investigation by reporters at the Dispatch, who found "deep flaws" in Ohio's system for uncovering wrongful convictions:

"Police and courts regularly destroy evidence. Prosecutors, benefiting from a flawed law, routinely oppose DNA testing. Judges dismiss inmate requests without a reason, as required by law."

The full "Test of Convictions" series - including interactive videos and graphics - is here; the McClendon case is presented here.

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.

"Hot tubbing": Counterbalance for expert partisanship?

Tomorrow's New York Times features a thought-provoking analysis by Adam Liptak of the problem of partisanship in the U.S. system of expert witnesses. Might the solution be "hot tubbing" - a new practice out of Australia?

"In U.S., Partisan Expert Witnesses Frustrate Many"
By Adam Liptak
New York Times, Aug. 12, 2008

Judge Denver D. Dillard was trying to decide whether a slow-witted Iowa man accused of acting as a drug mule was competent to stand trial. But the conclusions of the two psychologists who gave expert testimony in the case, Judge Dillard said, were “polar opposites.”

One expert, who had been testifying for defendants for 20 years, said the accused, Timothy M. Wilkins, was mentally retarded and did not understand what was happening to him. Mr. Wilkins’s verbal I.Q. was 58, the defense expert said.

The prosecution expert, who had testified for the state more than 200 times, said that Mr. Wilkins’s verbal I.Q. was 88, far above the usual cutoffs for mental retardation, and that he was perfectly competent to stand trial.

Judge Dillard, of the Johnson County District Court in Iowa City, did what American judges and juries often do after hearing from dueling experts: he threw up his hands. The two experts were biased in favor of the parties who employed them, the judge said, and they had given predictable testimony. “The two sides have canceled each other out,” Judge Dillard wrote in 2005, refusing to accept either expert’s conclusion and complaining that “no funding mechanism exists for the court to appoint an expert.”

In most of the rest of the world, expert witnesses are selected by judges and are meant to be neutral and independent. Many foreign lawyers have long questioned the American practice of allowing the parties to present testimony from experts they have chosen and paid....

Some major common-law countries are turning away from partisan experts. England and Australia have both adopted aggressive measures in recent years to address biased expert testimony....

Hot tubbing in Australia

In that procedure, also called concurrent evidence, experts are still chosen by the parties, but they testify together at trial — discussing the case, asking each other questions, responding to inquiries from the judge and the lawyers, finding common ground and sharpening the open issues....

Australian judges have embraced hot tubbing. “You can feel the release of the tension which normally infects the evidence-gathering process,” Justice Peter McClellan of the Land and Environmental Court of New South Wales said in a speech on the practice. “Not confined to answering the question of the advocates,” he added, experts “are able to more effectively respond to the views of the other expert or experts.” ...

England has also recently instituted what Adrian Zuckerman, the author of a 2006 treatise there, called “radical measures” to address “the culture of confrontation that permeated the use of experts in litigation.” The measures included placing experts under the complete control of the court, requiring a single expert in many cases and encouraging cooperation among experts when the parties retain more than one. Experts are required to sign a statement saying their duty is to the court and not to the party paying their bills.

There are no signs of similar changes in the United States. “The American tendency is strictly the party-appointed expert,” said James Maxeiner, a professor of comparative law at the University of Baltimore. “There is this proprietary interest lawyers here have over lawsuits.”

American lawyers often interview many potential expert witnesses in search of ones who will bolster their case and then work closely with them in framing their testimony to be accessible and helpful. At a minimum, the process results in carefully tailored testimony. Some critics say it can also produce bias and ethical compromises....

The United States Supreme Court has expressed concerns about expert testimony, but it has addressed bias only indirectly, by requiring lower courts to tighten standards of admissibility and to reject what some call “junk science.”

The full article is here.