The influence of courtroom questioning style on actual and perceived eyewitness confidence and accuracy

Purpose. Little research has been conducted on the effects of courtroom examination/questioning styles on witness confidence and accuracy. Two studies were therefore conducted, one investigating the effects of examination style on witness confidence and accuracy, the other investigating observers/jurors perceptions of witness confidence and accuracy. Method. In Study 1, after observing a video event, 60 witnesses were individually interviewed about the event according to one of three conditions: (1) simple questioning style, (2) lawyerese questioning style (containing leading and suppositional phrases), and (3) lawyerese with negative feedback style. In study 2, 60 observers/ jurors observed a good and a poor witness under examination by one of the three questioning styles. Measures of the perceived fairness of the examination were also taken in study 2. Results. In the main, significant results were found only for question items classed as difficult to remember. The lawyerese style appeared to have an adverse affect on confidence‐accuracy relationships. Adding subtle negative feedback reduced the problem, but at the price of reduced overall accuracy. Observers (jurors) also seemed to be most affected by observing the negative feedback style; judging the witness overall to be less accurate. An unexpected result was that, regardless of questioning style, presenting the testimony of the least confident witness first appeared to spuriously boost confidence and thereby perceived accuracy, in that witness's testimony. No significant effects were found for perceived fairness. Conclusions. In general, these results lend some support to those who have asserted that the lawyerese style of questioning may be unwise.     

Cognitive psychologists as expert witnesses

The first part of this paper defines a central problem for professional ethics: whether agents in professional roles are to act on their own moral perceptions or rather defer to those with special authority to make decisions within particular institutional settings. Specifically, should the psychologist decide for himself whether and how to testify as an expert witness, or should he allow the judge and lawyer to settle these questions for him? I argue that he must decide for himself and attempt to control the nature of his testimony. Given this preliminary conclusion, the second part of the paper argues on direct moral grounds first for a general presumption in favor of psychologists' testimony on the accuracy of eyewitnesses. Such testimony fits the legal criterion of reasonable doubt, if the psychologists' information is more accurate than that of the average juror and lawyer. Second, it is argued that the expert witness must resist intense adversarial pressures and present his testimony as impartially and objectively as possible.     

Effects of Testimonial Inconsistencies and Eyewitness Confidence on Mock-Juror Judgments

This study examined the interaction between testimonial consistency and eyewitness confidence on mock-jurors' judgments of probability that the defendant committed the crime and verdicts. In a 2 (testimonial consistency) × 2 (confidence) between-groups design, 130 mock-jurors listened to an audio-taped trial of a person charged with armed robbery. Manipulations were contained in the prosecution witness's responses to detailed questioning by prosecution and defense attorneys. Although consistency is considered to be a key marker of accuracy, its impact on judgments was weak and nonsignificant. Witness confidence had a strong influence on judgments, whether testimony was consistent or inconsistent. We suggested that witness confidence may be more likely to emerge as a dominant influence on juror judgments when the testimony is wide ranging rather than relatively brief and concerned only with a specific issue (e.g., identification confidence).     

Confidence inflation in eyewitnesses: Seeing is not believing

Purpose. Confidence inflation in eyewitnesses obscures a useful cue to identification accuracy and affects evaluations of eyewitnesses (e.g., Bradfield & McQuiston, 2004; Jones, Williams, & Brewer, 2008). We examine whether sensitivity to confidence inflation evidence is enhanced by seeing a videotape of the identification procedure. Methods. Participants (N= 131) watched a videotaped trial in which the witness's original confidence statement was presented as part of a previously recorded videotaped identification procedure or read by the witness at trial. In addition, the witness's identification confidence was either consistently high or low at the time of the identification and high at the trial (i.e., it was inflated). Results. Significant interactions demonstrated that confidence inflation evidence factored into judgments of the eyewitness and defendant guilt more strongly in the videotape condition compared with the read condition. Conclusions. The present results support recommendations to collect immediate confidence reports and videotape identification procedures. Using videotape evidence may help innocent defendants convince jurors that the eyewitness's identification is not accurate.     

我国诉讼中证人证言证明力探析

证人证言证明力是证人证言对案件起证明作用的关键,就我国诉讼理论和实际而言,由于证人作证意识较差、法律规定的漏洞或相对笼统、司法人员应有素质的欠缺等原因,致使证人证言的证明力较差。为保证案件质量,实现司法公正,提高证人证言证明力已成为我国司法实践中的重要课题。从理论上探讨了证人证言证明力的标准及其重要性;从取证、查证、认证的角度,全面分析了我国诉讼中证人证言证明力的现状;并提出了提高证人证言证明力的途径。     

Co‐witness information influences whether a witness is likely to choose from a lineup

Purpose. Much crime is witnessed by more than one eyewitness, and witnesses may learn information about other witness's decisions throughout the identification and trial process. The objective of this paper was to investigate whether hearing about a co‐witness's type of lineup decision and subsequent confidence level affects another witness's type of lineup choice. Methods. A total of 304 undergraduate students watched a crime video with a confederate co‐witness. After the video, the witnesses completed an identification task. Prior to completing the task, the participant learned that the confederate co‐witness either chose from or rejected the lineup and was subsequently confident or not confident in that decision (or heard no co‐witness information). Participants completed the identification task using either a target present (TP) or target absent (TA) lineup. Results. Overall, those who heard the co‐witness chose from the lineup were more likely to choose from the lineup than those who heard no co‐witness information or who heard the co‐witness rejected the lineup. In addition, witnesses who chose from the lineup and heard the co‐witness chose from or rejected the lineup expressed more confidence in that choice if the co‐witness was more confident versus if the co‐witness was less confident. Conclusions. In cases of multiple witnesses, identification decisions may not be independent pieces of evidence. Therefore, it is important that police separate co‐witnesses throughout the identification process.     

Cameras in the courtroom

The present experiment examined some of the key psychological issues associated with electronic media coverage (EMC) of courtroom trials. Undergraduate student subjects served as eitherwitnesses orjurors in one of three types of trials:EMC, in which a video camera was present; conventional media coverage (CMC), in which a journalist was present; or, ano-media control, in which no media representative or equipment was present. Students who served as witnesses first viewed a 5-min videotape of a reenacted armed robbery. Days later, these students testified as witnesses to the crime in front of a jury of peers. Measures assessed the following: witness and juror attitudes toward EMC, witness report and juror perceptions of nervousness and media distraction, juror perceptions of witness testimony, and witnesses' ability to accurately recall aspects of the crime event. Results showed that EMC witnesses and jurors had significantly more favorable attitudes toward EMC than participants in the other two conditions. And, although EMC witnesses and jurors both reported greater witness nervousness, distraction, and awareness than those in the CMC condition, the EMC experience did not impair witnesses' ability to accurately recall the details of the crime or witnesses' ability to communicate effectively. The psychological and legal policy implications of these findings are discussed.     

The impact of general versus specific expert testimonyand eyewitness confidence upon mock juror judgment

Subjects (n=128) initially viewed an eyewitness of high or low confidence. Subsequently, participants viewed a psychologist who gave either espert testimony on the unreliability of eyewitness identification, specific expert testimony, or no expert (control) testimony. Subjects viewing expert testimony believed the eyewitness identified the gunman significantly less often, gave the defendant lower guilt ratings, estimated a lower general percentage of correct identifications under similar circumstances, estimated a lower percentage of general accurate eyewitness testimony, and gave significantly lower ratings to the belief that one can generally tell from eyewitness confidence whether an eyewitness is accurate than subjects in control conditions. Significant differences were also obtained between general and specific expert testimony. Participants viewing specific expert testimony estimated lower general percentages of correct identifications under the circumstances of the crime and reported relying more upon the psychologist's testimony than subjects viewing general expert testimony. Additionally, subjects viewing general expert testimony had significantly less confidence in their gunman vs. innocent person decision than subjects in specific testimony or control conditions. Subjects who viewed the high confidence eyewitness decided that the eyewitness correctly identified the gunman more often, gave the defendant higher guilt ratings, and estimated the general percentage of accurate eyewitness testimony to be significantly higher than jurors in low eyewitness confidence groups. The finding that jurors may continue to rely on eyewitness confidence to gauge the accuracy of the witness even after viewing expert testimony is discussed.     

Influence of confidence inflation and explanations for changes in confidence on evaluations of eyewitness identification accuracy

Guidelines for conducting police line‐ups typically recommend immediate assessment of eyewitness confidence following identification. This confidence level can presumably be used to estimate accuracy even in the presence of subsequently inflated confidence. In this experiment, we examined students' perceptions of immediate and inflated confidence and whether their reliance on confidence varies as a function of the explanations given by the eyewitness for her inflated confidence. Each of 126 university students viewed one of five versions of a videotaped officer–eyewitness interaction depicting an eyewitness identification and follow‐up interview in which the eyewitness gave a (1) high or (2) moderate level of confidence or inflated her confidence and gave a (3) confidence epiphany, (4) memory contamination, or (5) no explanation for the inflation. The memory contamination and confidence epiphany explanations led to lower ratings of identification accuracy as compared to the high‐confidence control condition, supporting the immediate confidence recommendation but in some ways contradicting previous research on this issue. The results suggest the need for further research to understand the conditions under which confidence inflation influences juror evaluations of eyewitness identification.     

The power of presentation: How attire,cosmetics, and posture impact the source credibility of women expert witnesses

Gender stereotypes may negatively affect perceptions of women professionals' credibility, including forensic experts. This study investigated the impact of behavior-based and appearance-based factors on women expert witness's credibility. Jury-eligible adults were shown one of 16 conditions depicting a woman expert which varied based on combinations of three primary independent variables: (1) attire, (2) cosmetic use, and (3) posture. Expert attractiveness and participants' sexist attitudes served as covariates. Results revealed that women experts were seen as marginally more credible when wearing a skirt suit with a closed posture stance than when wearing a pant suit with a closed posture. Secondary analyses indicated expert attractiveness and participant sexist attitudes accounted for the most variability in credibility scores. Credibility of women expert witnesses may be impacted by irrelevant peripheral cues. Findings can inform discussions aimed at mitigating extraneous factors that inadvertently undermine the reception of women expert witness testimony.     

Battered women who kill

This study assesses acquital rates using mock jurors in cases involving a battered woman charged with killing her husband. The simulated trial format was based on actual courtroom proceedings including witness cross-examination and jury deliberation proceedings. The type of plea entered was varied and reflected either self-defense, automatism, or a hypothetical plea of psychological self-defense. The severity of abuse incurred by the defendant was also varied along with expert testimony. Jurors more frequently found the defendant not guilty when a plea of automatism was entered compared to a plea of self-defense. The frequency of acquittals following a plea of psychological self-defense resulted in more acquittals than the self-defense plea but significantly fewer than the automatism plea. The likelihood of acquittal increased under conditions of severe abuse as opposed to moderate abuse. Expert witness testimony was observed to influence verdicts during juror deliberations.     

Educating Jurors about Forensic Evidence: Using an Expert Witness and Judicial Instructions to Mitigate the Impact of Invalid Forensic Science Testimony

Invalid expert witness testimony that overstated the precision and accuracy of forensic science procedures has been highlighted as a common factor in many wrongful conviction cases. This study assessed the ability of an opposing expert witness and judicial instructions to mitigate the impact of invalid forensic science testimony. Participants (N = 155) acted as mock jurors in a sexual assault trial that contained both invalid forensic testimony regarding hair comparison evidence, and countering testimony from either a defense expert witness or judicial instructions. Results showed that the defense expert witness was successful in educating jurors regarding limitations in the initial expert's conclusions, leading to a greater number of not-guilty verdicts. The judicial instructions were shown to have no impact on verdict decisions. These findings suggest that providing opposing expert witnesses may be an effective safeguard against invalid forensic testimony in criminal trials.     

Impact of Defense-Only and Opposing Eyewitness Experts on Juror Judgments

Previous research shows that expert testimony on eyewitness memory influences mock-juror judgments. We examined the extent to which opposing expert testimony mitigates the impact of defense-only expert testimony. Participants (N = 497) viewed a video-taped trial involving an eyewitness identification and individually rendered verdicts and evaluated the evidence and the experts. We manipulated the Foils (unbiased vs. biased) and Instructions (unbiased vs. biased) of the lineup and Expert Testimony (no expert vs. defense-only expert vs. opposing experts). Expert testimony did not significantly influence juror judgments, but the opposing expert testimony diminished the credibility of the defense expert in the eyes of the jurors. Results point to the need for further research on conditions that qualify the impact of expert testimony.     

Extra Effort During Memory Retrieval May Be Associated with Increases in Eyewitness Confidence

When testifying in court, witnesses are motivated to try as hard as possible to give an accurate account. This study tested the proposition that extra effort by eyewitnesses during a memory test can lead to higher confidence ratings without any accompanying changes in accuracy. Participant-witnesses answered multiple-choice questions about a classroom visitor who had spoken 5 days earlier. In the high-motivation condition participants could earn prizes based on their memory test performance; in the low-motivation condition there were no special incentives. Although the motivation manipulation did not affect mean witness confidence, the confidence–accuracy and effort–accuracy correlations were substantially smaller in the high-motivation condition than in the low-motivation condition. Furthermore, the confidence ratings for those participants who reported expending high levels of effort in both motivation conditions were significantly higher than the confidence ratings for the low-effort participants, despite the fact that response accuracy did not differ as a function of reported effort. These findings have important implications for understanding how pressures to perform well in the courtroom can affect eyewitness confidence.     

Juror Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Legal Authorities and Decision Making in Criminal Cases

Literature on trust in legal authorities and institutions demonstrates that trust affects individual behavior, yet there is little research on whether attitudes toward legal authorities such as the police or courts influence juror behavior as a third party assessing evidence and determining legal outcomes for others. Additionally, the literature on juror decision making confirms that juror race is an important predictor of juror decisions, but explanations for differences among racial groups are not clear. Since minority groups hold less favorable attitudes toward legal authorities generally, legitimacy theory may help explain racial differences in decision making among jurors. Using data from nearly 2,000 jurors in felony trials, this research utilizes multilevel modeling techniques to find that jurors' trust in legal authorities is related to juror outcomes, though the effect of juror trust and confidence in the police is opposite that of juror trust and confidence in the courts. Additionally, juror race conditions the effect of trust in police and courts. Trust is a stronger predictor of both perceptions of evidence and voting for black jurors than it is for white jurors.     

Lineup Administrators' Expectations: Their Impact on Eyewitness Confidence

This research focuses on how lineup a administrators influence eyewitnesses' postidentification confidence. What happens to witness confidence when a witness makes an identification that confirms the lineup administrator's expectations; what happens when this expectation is not confirmed? In Experiment 1, participant interviewers (n = 52) administered target-absent photo lineups to participant witnesses (n = 52). The interviewers did not view the simulated crime, but were told the thief's position in the lineup. In every instance this information was false (we used a target-absent lineup). A one-way ANOVA revealed that eyewitness identification confidence was malleable as a function of interviewers' beliefs about the thief's identity. In Experiment 2, participant jurors (n = 80) viewed 40 testimonies of Experiment 1 witnesses (2 participants viewed each testimony). Participant jurors judged all participant witnesses as equally credible despite their varying levels of postidentification confidence.

     

Increasing jurors' participation in trials

A field experiment is reported that examines the advantages and disadvantages of two juror participation procedures: Allowing jurors to take notes during the trial, and allowing jurors to direct questions to witnesses. The presence or absence of both procedures was randomly assigned to 34 civil and 33 criminal trials in Wisconsin circuit courts. Following the trials, questinnaires were administered to judges, lawyers, and jurors. Overall, no evidence is found to support the hypotheses that juror notetaking would serve as a useful memory aid, would assist the jury with recall of the judge's instructions, or would increase the jurors' confidence in their verdict. The hypothesis that juror notetaking would increase juror satisfaction with the trial was supported. None of the findings supported the conclusion that juror notetaking was distracting, that notetakers were overly influential during the deliberations, that the jurors' notes were inaccurate, that the notes favored the plaintiff, or that the notes heightened juror disagreement about the trial evidence. It was hypothesized, but not found, that allowing juror questions of witnesses would uncover important issues in the trial and would increase the jurors' satisfaction with the trial procedure. However, juror questions did serve to alleviate juror doubts about the trial testimony, and provided the lawyers with feedback about the jurors' perception of the trial. No evidence was found to support the expectations that juror questions would slow the trial, would upset the lawyers' strategy, or that the question-asking procedure would be a nuisance to the courtroom staff. Furthermore, the lawyers did not appear overly reluctant to object to inappropriate questions from jurors, and jurors did not report being embarassed or angry when their questions were objected to.Dispute Resolution Research Center, Northwestern University     

唐代刑事证据制度考略

唐代是中国封建社会经济、政治和文化发展的鼎盛时期,其法律制度也达到了古代封建法制的最高水平。唐代总结其前代王朝刑事证据之经验并有所创新,直接影响着后世。唐代立法和司法实践体现了据证惟实、重视伦理权衡等证据原则,主要证据形式包括口供、证人证言、物证、书证和勘验笔录,相应的取证方法主要有取得口供和证言的刑讯、获取实物证据的现场勘验和搜查,司法官员运用经验和逻辑推理综合审查和运用证据。