Teaching criminal investigation: A critical thinking approach

The purpose of this paper is to explore the “critical thinking” approach to teaching and develop those concepts into meaningful instructional activities in the classroom. The authors offer practical suggestions based on the critical thinking philosophy for implementing an active learning approach. The case study method serves as the foundation for an investigative process course and lead-up activity to the simulated preliminary and follow-up investigation. The instructor presents the critical thinking process and content information that enables students to perform five basic progressions: (1) case studies; (2) the preliminary investigation; (3) follow-up; (4) suppression hearing; and (5) moot court criminal justice simulations.     

Book reviews

M.B. Hayne, The French Foreign Office and the Origins of the First World War 1898-1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993) £35. ISBN 019-820270-9.

Keith Hamilton, Bertie of Thame: Edwardian Ambassador (Woodbridge/Suffolk: Boydell Press 1990 (= Royal Historical Society Studies in History, No. 60)), ix + 436 pp. ISBN 0-86193-217X. £35.

Anita Inder Singh, The Limits of British Influence: South Asia and the Anglo-American Relationship, 1947-56 (Pinter, 1993) pp. 309. £45.

Robert H. Ferrell (ed.), Truman in the White House: The Diary of Eben A. Ayers (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991) $37.50. ISBN 0-8262-0790-1.

Robert Pearce (ed.), Patrick Gordon Walker: Political Diaries 1932-1971 (London: The Historians Press, 1991) £20. ISBN 1-872273-05 X.

Richard J. Aldrich (ed.), British Strategy and the Cold War, 1945-51 (London: Routledge, 1992) £40. ISBN 0-415-07851-2.

Timothy Garton Ash, In Europe's Name. Germany and the Divided Continent (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993) £25. ISBN 0-224-02054-4.     

ON RAZ AND THE OBLIGATION TO OBEY THE LAW

Law and Philosophy -     

Psychology's influence on constitutional interpretation

When organized psychology files amicus briefs with the Supreme Court and other courts, it does so for a variety of reasons and seeks to advance a number of policy objectives. The thesis of this article is that pursuit of some of those objectives is improper and that their pursuit threatens to defeat other objectives. Psychology's expertise is not in constitutional analysis; it is in the study of human behavior. As a practical matter, to pretend to do the former is to weaken our effectiveness in describing the latter. In public interest cases, when acting as a true friend of the court, APA's obligation is to share with the court what empirical research and theory tell us about human behavior, and not to argue for any particular outcome of the case before the court.