Peer‐Reviewed Forensic Consultation in Practice: Multidisciplinary Oversight in Common Expertise

The fallibility of forensic science consultation is an ongoing and major justice concern. Prospective peer‐reviewed forensic consultation has over 10 years of application in American criminal and civil courts, adapting from the traditional oversight of teaching hospitals, rules of evidence and discovery, conventions of testimony of expert witnesses, and attorneys' overall trial strategy. In systematizing heightened oversight, this process ensures greater accountability in forensic science consultation. The integration of peer reviewers' complementary expertise and experience enhances the sophistication and overall quality of assessment. Forensic examination frequently involves the interface of different specialties. Multidisciplinary peer review augments expert proficiency with that of professional peers having different vantage points from relevant scientific disciplines. This approach ensures greater sophistication of a case inquiry, built‐in accountability, and streamlined processes when multiple experts are necessitated. Here, the authors present examples of several cases and the primary and secondary benefits of this collaborative, rigorous, cross‐disciplinary exercise.     

Regularities in Eyewitness Identification

What do eyewitness identification experiments typically show? We address this question through a meta-analysis of 94 comparisons between target-present and target-absent lineups. The analyses showed that: (a) correct identifications and correct-nonidentifications were uncorrelated, (b) suspect identifications were more diagnostic with respect to the suspect’s guilt or innocence than any other response, (c) nonidentifications were diagnostic of the suspect’s innocence, (d) the diagnosticity of foil identifications depended on lineup composition, and (e) don’t know responses were nondiagnostic with respect to guilt or innocence. Results of diagnosticity analyses for simultaneous and sequential lineups varied for full-sample versus direct-comparison analyses. Diagnosticity patterns also varied as a function of lineup composition. Theoretical, forensic, and legal implications are discussed.     

Symptoms of trauma, perceptions of discrimination, and anger: a comparison between Australian indigenous and nonindigenous prisoners

Although the need for the development and provision of culturally appropriate rehabilitation programs for offenders is widely acknowledged, there is a lack of empirical data that can be used as a basis for the development of new programs. This article reports the findings of a comparison of indigenous and nonindigenous male prisoners on a range of measures relevant to the experience of anger by indigenous prisoners in Australia. The results suggest that indigenous participants are more likely to experience symptoms of early trauma, have greater difficulties identifying and describing feelings, and perceive higher levels of discrimination than nonindigenous prisoners. The implications of this work for the development of culturally appropriate and effective anger management programs for indigenous male prisoners are discussed.     

The meaning of anger for Australian Indigenous offenders: the significance of context

The problem of overrepresentation of Indigenous offenders in Australian prisons highlights the need for effective tertiary intervention programs within correctional settings as a way of reducing Indigenous reincarceration. This study seeks to explore meanings of anger within an Indigenous context that might inform the development of more acceptable and potentially more effective rehabilitation programs. A methodology that acknowledges the importance of narrative, context, and culture was devised to explore how anger as an emotion is understood and experienced by a group of Indigenous men in a South Australian prison. Although some of the major themes reflected experiences of anger common to many offenders, it was evident that for these Indigenous men, anger was experienced within a broad social and political context that imbued the experience of anger with layers of culturally specific meaning. It is suggested that these layers of meaning constitute sufficient difference to warrant further exploration.     

The Target-to-Foils Shift in Simultaneous and Sequential Lineups

A theoretical cornerstone in eyewitness identification research is the proposition that witnesses, in making decisions from standard simultaneous lineups, make relative judgments. The present research considers two sources of support for this proposal. An experiment by G. L. Wells (1993) showed that if the target is removed from a lineup, witnesses shift their responses to pick foils, rather than rejecting the lineups, a result we will term a target-to-foils shift. Additional empirical support is provided by results from sequential lineups which typically show higher accuracy than simultaneous lineups, presumably because of a decrease in the use of relative judgments in making identification decisions. The combination of these two lines of research suggests that the target-to-foils shift should be reduced in sequential lineups relative to simultaneous lineups. Results of two experiments showed an overall advantage for sequential lineups, but also showed a target-to-foils shift equal in size for simultaneous and sequential lineups. Additional analyses indicated that the target-to-foils shift in sequential lineups was moderated in part by an order effect and was produced with (Experiment 2) or without (Experiment 1) a shift in decision criterion. This complex pattern of results suggests that more work is needed to understand the processes which underlie decisions in simultaneous and sequential lineups.