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.

     

Numerical density of mu opioid receptor expressing neurons in the frontal cortex of drug related fatalities

In animal and cell culture experiments, chronic morphine treatment has been followed by 'up'- as well as 'down-regulation' of the mu opioid receptor (mu OR) number. The present postmortem morphometric study of morphine-related fatalities of drug addicts (n=12, and 22-35 years old, with blood unconjugated morphine levels from 27.1 to 458 ng/ml, m.v. 198.5 ng/ml) versus a non-addicted control group (n=13 and 10-44 years old) was intended to examine whether chronic opiate exposure affects the numerical density of mu OR expressing neurons in the human neocortex (area 10 according to Brodmann). For the immunohistochemical procedure, thick (100 microm) vibratome sections were incubated with a monoclonal antibody against the mu OR [Arvidsson et al., J. Neurosci. 15 (1995) 3328] and immunoreactive sites were visualized using an immunoperoxidase protocol. The numerical densities of mu OR-expressing and Nissl-stained neurons were assessed morphometrically (camera lucida-drawings). In both collectives, the anti-mu OR immunoreactivity was mainly found in pyramidal neurons of layers (L) II/III and V and in multiform neurons of L VI. In the drug-related fatalities and the control group, the density of neurons expressing mu OR protein was similar, amounting for 2698 +/- 153 and 2688 +/- 172/mm(3), respectively. These findings extend the binding studies of opioid ligands in postmortem brains of heroin addicts [Gabilondo et al., Psychopharmacology 115 (1994) 135] revealing similar receptor densities and affinities by showing no difference in the density of mu OR-positive neurons.     

The effect of metal salt treatment on the photoluminescence of DFO-treated fingerprints

Ninhydrin developed fingerprints can be enhanced by treatment with a zinc or cadmium salt. The resulting fingerprint luminescence has been attributed to the induced coplanarity of the bicyclic indanedione rings of Ruhemann's purple due to complexation with the metal ions. This paper explores whether this effect also occurs in the 1,8-diaza-9-fluorenone (DFO)-amino acid adduct (1), formed from the reaction of DFO with amino acids. Molecular modeling studies of (1) indicate a relatively small out-of-plane angle of 24 degrees. 1H NMR studies indicate (1) is asymmetric about the C2 axis in contrast to what has been previously reported. Little, if any, enhancement of luminescence was observed with Zn, Cd, Ru or Eu treated DFO developed latent fingerprints. This lack of enhancement was also borne out by solution luminescence studies. Given this lack of enhancement of luminescence, solutions of (1) and the four metal ions above were analyzed by electrospray mass spectrometry (ESMS). This indicated the formation of predominantly 1:1 complexes of (1) with both Zn and Cd, and the 2:1 complex with ruthenium. No evidence of a Eu complex was found by ESMS.