Update: High court won't block Lewis execution

The U.S. Supreme Court has just refused to block the execution of Teresa Lewis, whom I blogged about Sept. 8, setting the stage for Virginia's first execution of a woman in nearly a century. Lewis is scheduled to die by injection Thursday for hiring two men to kill her husband and stepson for a quarter-million dollar insurance payout.

Two of the three women on the high court, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, voted to stop the execution. The court did not otherwise comment on its order Tuesday.

Lewis's supporters have argued that she does not deserve to die because she is borderline mentally retarded and was manipulated by a smarter conspirator. It is unfair, they say, that she was sentenced to death while the two triggermen received life sentences, writes Washington Post crime scene blogger Maria Blod.

A CBS video interview with Lewis is HERE. Reaction from Iran is HERE.

Science often disbelieved, study finds

How many times have you found yourself in court, being challenged on basic information that is virtually undisputed and noncontroversial among scientists? As it turns out, no matter how knowledgeable you are, or how great your credentials, judges or jurors may disbelieve the scientific evidence you are presenting if it does not match their social values.

That's no big surprise, given decades of social psychology research into cognitive dissonance. But a study funded by the National Science Foundation and scheduled for publication in the Journal of Risk Research sheds new light on why "scientific consensus" fails to persuade.

Study participants were much more likely to see a scientist with elite credentials as an "expert" on such culturally contested issues as global warming, gun control, and the risks of nuclear waste disposal if the expert's position matched the participant's own political leanings.

"These are all matters on which the National Academy of Sciences has issued 'expert consensus' reports," said lead author Dan Kahan, a law professor at Yale University. "Using the reports as a benchmark, no cultural group in our study was more likely than any other to be 'getting it right,' i.e., correctly identifying scientific consensus on these issues. They were all just as likely to report that 'most' scientists favor the position rejected by the National Academy of Sciences expert consensus report if the report reached a conclusion contrary to their own cultural predispositions."

The findings suggest that mere education alone will not increase people's willingness to accept scientific consensus as accurate, said co-author Donald Braman, a law professor at George Washington University. "To make sure people form unbiased perceptions of what scientists are discovering, it is necessary to use communication strategies that reduce the likelihood that citizens of diverse values will find scientific findings threatening to their cultural commitments."

Information sources more atomized

Unfortunately, trends in public consumption of news may make this task increasingly difficult. Although people are spending at least as much time as ever on the news, they are less likely to read the daily newspaper and more likely to get their information from television and online sources including, most recently, their telephones, according to an informative new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. This decreases our common knowledge base and makes it easier for ideologically slanted information sources to influence public opinion.

Indeed, the Pew researchers found ideology inextricably linked with people's choices of news sources. For example, here in the United States, Republicans, conservatives, and so-called "Tea Party" enthusiasts were much more likely than the general public to watch Fox News and listen to Rush Limbaugh. In contrast, the researchers found, supporters of gay rights make up large shares of regular readers of the New York Times and listeners at National Public Radio.

In an interesting analysis of the mainstreaming of extremism, alternative journalist Arun Gupta points out the ease with which political pundits for whom facts are irrelevant can indoctrinate the uninformed. A respondent committed to rational scientific inquiry becomes like a dog chasing its tail: In the time it takes to deconstruct one fraudulent news story, the pundits have concocted five more.

Top myths of popular psychology

For a great myth-busting tool, I recommend Scott Lilienfeld's latest, 50 great Myths of Popular Psychology. Lilienfeld and co-authors Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio, and the late Barry Beyerstein provide dozens of examples of entrenched popular beliefs that have been debunked by high-quality research, many relevant to forensic practice. A few examples:

• Human memory works like a tape recorder or video camera, and accurately records the events we have experienced

• Abstinence is the only effective treatment for problem drinking

• Criminal profiling helps solve crimes
  

(You'll remember that last one from my most recent post.)

Given the public's increasingly atomized sources of information, it behooves us to be knowledgeable about both ideological influences and common myths. What an expert witness might naively regard as established science may, after all, be subject to disbelief.

A blogger responds:

"Science, Believing Is Believing," Scott H. Greenfield, Esq. at Simple Justice

The featured research:

• "Cultural cognition of scientific consensus," by Dan M. Kahan, Hank Jenkins-Smith and Donald Braman, forthcoming in the Journal of Risk Research.

• Ideological news sources: Who watches and why, Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, September 12, 2010, full report available online and highly recommended
  

Forensic psych professor slams video game law

A forensic psychology professor and leading researcher of violence and video games has published an editorial in the Salt Lake City Tribune condemning attempts to restrict violent video games as a "waste of taxpayer money."

Christopher Ferguson, an associate professor at Texas A&M University, wants Utah's Attorney General to sign an amicus brief opposing California's Assembly Bill 1179. An appellate court struck down that law, but California has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is slated to hear the case this fall. The law would criminalize selling or renting video games deemed "violent" to consumers under age 18.

Ferguson claims it is "simply dishonest" to imply that research consistently links video games with violence:

First, there is no consistent research indicating that video games cause increased violence. Studies of video game effects return weak and mixed results. Many studies are limited by poor methodology, and some scholars do seem eager to promote negative links, oftentimes ignoring inconsistent data from their own results. The most recent Surgeon General’s report downplayed the influence of media violence, as did a recent Secret Service report on school shooters.

My own research, published in peer-reviewed journals in pediatrics, psychology and criminal justice, has found no links between violent video game playing and violent behavior. Other researchers, such as Cheryl Olson, Lawrence Kutner, Dmitri Williams, John Colwell, among others, have come to similar conclusions. Others, such as Patrick Markey, suggest that perhaps video game violence is like peanut butter, a harmless indulgence for the vast majority of children, but perhaps something to be avoided for a tiny minority of children, particularly those already disposed to pathological violent behavior.

Second, as video games have become more popular and more violent in the past two decades, violent crimes among both youth and adults have gone down to their lowest levels since the 1960s. Indeed, if there is a correlation between video game violence and violent crimes, it is in the opposite direction as that suggested by proponents of the California bill. I’m not saying video games have made the United States less violent; we don’t know that. However, the waves of youth violence some anti-game activists have feared simply never materialized….

My understanding is that California is experiencing difficult financial times and has cut valuable services to needy individuals, including many families and children. It is ironic that the state would claim to champion the welfare of children by throwing money at a video game bill that will help no one, yet cut basic health, education and support services to countless children.

Vending Times has additional coverage and background information HERE.

Sept. 21 postscript:

States Join Media Groups in Briefs Opposing California's Violent Video Game Ban, National Law Journal

Backlash growing against criminal profiling

UK Guardian: "Psychological profiling 'worse than useless' "

In the beginning, there was Malcolm Gladwell's 2007 masterpiece in the New Yorker, exposing criminal profiling as clever sleight of hand. Three years later, reports in both New Scientist and the Guardian of UK are expressing mounting concerns over the pseudoscientific technique made bigger than life in fictional TV shows.

Leading the backlash is psychology professor Craig Jackson of the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University. He will critique the scientific validity of profiling at the British Science Festival this week. Not only is profiling unscientific, say Jackson and a growing chorus of others, but it risks bringing the field of psychology into disrepute. As Ian Sample reports in today's Guardian:

In many cases, offender profiles are so vague as to be meaningless, according to psychologist Craig Jackson. At best, they have little impact on murder investigations; at worst they risk misleading investigators and waste police time, he said.

"Behavioural profiling has never led to the direct apprehension of a serial killer, a murderer, or a spree killer, so it seems to have no real-world value," Jackson said.

Despite profiling's lack of demonstrated validity, police forces around the world bring in behavioral experts in complex or high-profile cases, often to appease victims' families or the media. In the UK, for example, The Home Office keeps a register of experts who are qualified to render offender profiles based on crime information, the Guardian reports.

"It is given too much credibility as a scientific discipline. This is a serious issue that psychologists and behavioural scientists need to address," [Jackson] said. "People believe psychologists like 'Cracker' can exist." In the 1990s television series, police apprehended criminals with help from an overweight, chain-smoking alcoholic psychologist.

Jackson quoted one behavioural scientist as saying he "climbs inside the minds of monsters" and "takes the expression frozen on the face of a murder victim and works backwards."

"They bring themselves forward as if they are shamans who are cursed by nightmares and picturing dead people," Jackson said.

Jackson argues that, since people from marginalized groups are the primary victims of murder, "if we really want to deliver on the objective of reducing the numbers of people who fall victim to violent crime, then we would be just as well concentrating on eradicating homophobia, prejudice against sex workers and the elderly, rather than 'delving' into the heads of serial killers."

In an interview published today in the London Evening-Standard, the vice-chair of the British Psychological Society's forensic psychology division distanced forensic psychologists from criminal profiling. Carol Ireland said forensic psychologists worked in a wide range of areas, including offender risk assessments and interventions, helping victims, and conducting research.

A critical report by Jackson and two colleagues, "Against the Medical-Psychological Tradition of Understanding Serial Killing by Studying the Killers," is slated for publication next month in the legal journal Amicus Curiae, published by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London.

Related news coverage:

• "Crime 'crackers' no better than witch doctors, says psychologist," London Evening-Standard, Sept. 14, 2010

Related blog resources:

• Of profiling, astrology, and magic : Malcolm Gladwell exposes the tricks of forensic profilers (Nov. 7, 2007)

• Criminal profiling strikes out again: British case also features missteps by police, prosecutors, tabloid media (Dec. 24, 2008)

• Pseudoscience in policing (Oct. 19, 2008)

• What's it take to become a forensic psychologist? Profilers. Silence of the Lambs. The criminal mind. So eerie, so glamorous. (Sept. 19, 2007)

• "The Tim Masters Case: Chasing Reid Meloy" (Feb. 2, 2008)

• Fascinating new twists in Tim Masters case : Expert witness psychologist cited FBI profiler who had rejected prosecution theory of case (Dec. 20, 2007)

• Report provides blueprint for reducing wrongful convictions (July 9, 2007)

Paradoxical finding on juvenile sex offender risk

Leading tools cannot distinguish among delinquent boys

New tools designed to predict sex offender recidivism risk among juveniles continue to generate controversy and confusion. Some studies find that they work a bit better than the flip of a coin, and some find that they don't. Now, a new study out of Canada adds a paradoxical twist to the mix.

On two leading instruments, generally delinquent juveniles with a prior sex offense scored higher in risk than juveniles who had committed only sex offenses. And, true to this prediction, about 13 percent of these delinquent boys went on to commit another sex offense during the 6.6-year followup period, compared with just 7 percent of the boys with only sex offenses.

But, while they did moderately well at predicting risk among the non-delinquent juveniles, neither tool could reliably predict which among the delinquent, higher-risk youngsters would go on to reoffend sexually. The two instruments were the Juvenile Sex Offender Assessment Protocol-II (J-SOAP-II) and the Estimate of Risk of Adolescent Sexual Offense Recidivism (ERASOR).

A number of factors contribute to the difficulties in accurately predicting risk, especially among juveniles. These include:

• Adolescent immaturity -- most juvenile offending is time-limited, and will spontaneously cease over time.

• Low base rates -- it is hard to accurately predict events that have a low likelihood of occurring. In the current study, for example, only 9.4 percent of the youths were charged with another sex offense during the followup period.

• Situational and random influences -- A lot of offending, especially among juveniles, is due to situational and environmental factors rather than personality variables, and these are extraordinarily hard to predict. (See this PSYBLOG post for a social psychology experiment demonstrating the underappreciated influence of situational variables.)
  

It all gets back to the larger problem I discussed in last week's report on the British metaanalysis of violence risk prediction tools: Maybe we will never find the Holy Grail. Maybe we've reached the summit of the mountain, and it’s time to step back.

The new study, by Gordana Rajlic and Heather M. Gretton of the Youth Forensic Psychiatric Services in Burnaby, British Columbia, is "An Examination of Two Sexual Recidivism Risk Measures in Adolescent Offenders: The Moderating Effect of Offender Type." It was published in the latest issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior and is available for free from Sage Publications for a limited time.

Related blog resources:

• New study on juvenile sex offender treatment: Efficacy claimed, but control group questionable (June 18, 2010)

• The "juvenile sex offender": Myth in the making? Book describes harmful effects of labeling and treatment (Jan. 31, 2010)

• New findings on juvenile sex offending (Jan. 7, 2010)

• Can we tell which juveniles will sexually reoffend? (Dec. 2, 2009)

• Challenge to juvenile sex offender risk prediction: Harsh federal law on shaky scientific ground (Oct. 9, 2008)

Mentally challenged Virginia woman facing death

While all eyes are on Iran's (just suspended) threat to stone a woman to death, a mentally challenged woman in the U.S. state of Virginia faces a more obscure death this month at the hands of her government.

The case of Teresa Lewis is one of dozens of skirmishes in U.S. death penalty states spawned by the Supreme Court's 2002 decision outlawing capital punishment for the mentally retarded. In the years since the Atkins ruling, an estimated 7 percent of condemned prisoners have filed claims on the basis of mental retardation, with about 40 percent succeeding in getting their death sentences overturned.

Central to these battles are opposing experts in forensic psychology. Their role illustrates the fundamental problem with science in court. The law asks a simple, black-and-white question: Is this person's IQ above or below the magic threshold for mental retardation (typically, an IQ score of 70)? Lewis scored 73 and 70 on IQ tests administered since her trial. Such minimal score differences are within the range of random fluctuations and are practically meaningless in a clinical context. But in the legal context, they can be the difference between life and death.

Psychology, in contrast to the law, sees nuances and shades of gray. An IQ score is only one data point, and must be combined with other relevant information to give a meaningful picture of a person's functional capacities. Here, a central issue is Lewis's personality style.

Lewis was sentenced to die under the theory that she masterminded the killing of her husband and stepson for a $350,000 life insurance policy. Although both triggermen received life sentences, Judge Charles Strauss gave Lewis the death penalty, reasoning that she was "clearly the head of this serpent," according to an account in yesterday's Huffington Post.

But new evidence suggests Lewis may have been manipulated into the crime. In a letter written before he killed himself in prison, gunman Matthew Shallenberger said the crime was entirely his idea, and he deliberately manipulated Lewis because he needed money and she "was an easy target."

Three forensic psychology experts have diagnosed Lewis with a dependent personality disorder. She is reportedly so dependent on others that she cannot make even simple decisions such as what to buy at the grocery store. Lewis's chaplain at Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women similarly described Lewis in a Newsweek essay appealing for clemency as "slow and overly eager to please -- an easy mark, in other words, for a con."

The state Supreme Court, a U.S. District Court, and, most recently, a U.S. Court of Appeals, have all upheld the death sentence. The execution, which will be Virginia's first killing of a woman in almost a century, is set for Sept. 23. She gets to choose between the electric chair or lethal injection.

Perhaps she should choose the latter; Kentucky, Oklahoma, and some other states may have to delay executions due to a shortage of one of the drugs in their lethal cocktails.

Related blog post (with additional links to resources):

• Atkins claims: Did Texas psychologist skew data for death? (Jan. 10, 2010)