Deck 6: Miscarriages of Justice: False Confessions and Eyewitness Error

Question 1

More than half of wrongful convictions occur because of

A) Legal technicalities
B) Mistaken eyewitness identification
C) False testimony
D) Errors in paper work, and the like

Answer 1

Mistaken eyewitness identification

Question 2

When prosecution eyewitness testimony is admitted, defense lawyers can try to raise the question of faulty identification by

A) Cross-examining the witness
B) Asking psychologists to testify about eyewitness fallibility
C) Both A and B
D) Neither A or B

Answer 2

Both A and B

Question 3

Some basic concepts that emerge from memory research and are relevant to considerations of eyewitness testimony include

A) Encoding
B) Encoding errors
C) Memory as a reconstruction
D) All of the above
E) None of the above

Answer 3

All of the above

Question 4

Researchers have found that when witnesses are asked to identify the "culprit" in a lineup

A) Witnesses tend to pick out a person who best matches their verbal description of the "culprit", whether or not the identification in the line up is correct (i.e., if person said they saw a tall blond man, he or she would pick anyone out of the line-up who had those features)
B) Eyewitnesses are fairly accurate at picking out the right person out of the lineup, in fact, 90% of the time, eyewitnesses are correct
C) Most eyewitnesses appear timid about identifying a person out of a lineup
D) None of the above.

Question 5

Research had shown that eyewitness confidence has a _______ and _______ correlation to accuracy

A) Modest and positive
B) High and positive
C) Low and positive
D) Modest and negative

Question 6

Trial courts and psychologists both have opinions about the effects of expert testimony. For example, a psychologist may feel that _______ whereas trial courts disagree

A) Sometimes, hearing the expert's opinion will make the jury too skeptical of eyewitness testimony
B) Hearing the expert testimony will make the jury appropriately skeptical
C) Hearing the expert testimony will not make the jury skeptical enough
D) Expert witnesses are unreliable and a generally "quacks"

Question 7

A fundamental question that arises when considering eyewitness testimony is whether or not jurors exposed to expert testimony are better able to distinguish inaccurate testimony from accurate testimony. Using mock jurors, some studies have shown that

A) On average, jurors found the defendant guilty as often when hearing expert testimony and when they did not
B) Jurors found the defendant guilty more often when they heard expert testimony
C) Jurors found the defendant guilty less often when hearing expert testimony
D) Jurors never found the defendant guilty

Question 8

Rules for improving lineup procedures, as recommended by the American Psychology-Law Society include

A) Blinding lineup administrators
B) Having witnesses sign a sworn statement saying that they will only identify an individual if they are 100% sure of that identification
C) Neither A or B
D) Both A and B

Question 9

In lineup procedures, lowering situational demands includes

A) Putting less "culprits" to chose from in the lineup at one time
B) Telling the witness that they do not necessarily have to chose someone
C) Having fewer authority figures (i.e., policemen) in the vicinity while the witnesses chooses
D) All of the above.

Question 10

Context reinstatement is

A) When eyewitnesses are helped to mentally reconstruct the original context and conditions in which a face was seen or an event was witnessed
B) When the interviewer will ask the eyewitness to recall peripheral details of the scene
C) Both A and B
D) Neither A or B

Question 11

Is it fair to exclude expert testimony? What if the "expert" really does have valid and truthful information? Is it right for that information to be withheld based upon another person's opinion that this "expert" is a quack? What implications might this have for the defendant? The prosecution? What are some solutions to this problem, if any?

Question 12

Do you think that context reinstatement is affective? Is there still room for biasing? If so, how?

Question 13

What variables are likely to affect the accuracy of eyewitness identifications? Support your assertions with research evidence.

Question 14

What changes could be made in lineups, the use of photo arrays, and other eyewitness identification procedures to improve their fairness and accuracy?

Question 15

What is ecological validity and how does it apply to the problems of eyewitness identification?

Question 16

What is social framework testimony?

Question 17

Our system of justice is designed

A) to guard against convictions of the innocent
B) to protect the community by convicting a defendant by any means possible
C) to protect the guilty by overemphasizing legal technicalities
D) to produce a very high rate of wrongful convictions

Question 18

A common cause of wrongful conviction

A) is the lack of due diligence by private defense attorneys
B) is a false confession
C) is the bias of judges against criminal defendants
D) is that overly-busy public defenders lack the time to prepare case properly

Question 19

False confessions

A) really don't matter because the defendants are usually released quickly
B) are not made when the crime is really serious (e.g. murder or rape)
C) may get in the way of solving crimes because police may stop investigating after they have a confession
D) are rarely caused by coercive police interrogation techniques

Question 20

Today's police interrogation techniques

A) routinely employ physically coercive "third degree" tactics
B) may include psychologically powerful manipulative techniques to induce confessions
C) are based on expectations that people who don't have lawyers are more likely to lie
D) are less effective if they give the defendant a Miranda warning first

Question 21

Research shows that the first purpose of a police interrogation is to

A) determine the truth of the matter
B) try to disconfirm the policeman's initial impression about the defendant
C) obtain a confession
D) try to detect a false confession from a true confession

Question 22

The defendant is confronted by police authority

A) in a situation which promotes isolation, fear and hopelessness
B) who attack alibis and refuse to listen to denials
C) who may give the defendant false or deceptive information
D) all of the above

Question 23

Once a defendant has given a confession

A) it doesn't matter because confessions are not considered important by jurors
B) prosecutors will be more likely to plea bargain giving the defendants a favorable reduced sentence
C) defense attorneys will be motivated to fight even harder for a trial for their client
D) none of the above

Question 24

Some populations may be more vulnerable to police interrogation techniques and may be more likely to make false confessions. These include

A) Juveniles, especially those under 15
B) Those with mental retardation or mental illness
C) a) but not b)
D) a) and b)

Question 25

An expert witness, if allowed to testify in a criminal trial about an issue of false confession

A) may not be allowed to offer an opinion that the confession is false because that is the jury's job to determine
B) will not be subject to cross examination because he is a scientist
C) cannot testify about a defendant's mental capacity or situational factors that made the defendant vulnerable
D) cannot testify about research showing false confessions do occur

Question 26

Eyewitness testimony

A) is unimportant to jurors because it is so subject to error
B) is weighted very heavily by jurors
C) has not been studied by psychologists until very recently
D) cannot lead to wrongful conviction because there are legal safeguards

Question 27

Courts have long recognized that eyewitness testimony

A) is rarely inaccurate
B) is not affected by suggestion
C) may be excluded if the police used impermissibly suggestive methods to obtain the identification
D) may be excluded if the totality of the circumstances favors the expert witness

Question 28

In evaluating the likelihood of a misidentification the court will review

A) the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime
B) the accuracy of a witness' prior description of the criminal
C) the level of certainty of the witness about the identification
D) all of the above

Question 29

Psychologists who study eyewitness identification would agree

A) with all of the factors in the question above
B) with a) and c) but not b)
C) with none of the factors in the question above
D) with a) and b) but have some questions about c)

Question 30

To be admitted in court, expert witness testimony

A) has to be based on good science as the judge sees it
B) has to reflect a consensus in the field about the expert's methods, theory and findings
C) a and b
D) neither a nor b

Question 31

To be admitted in court, expert testimony

A) must be based on "ecologically valid" science only if it is an environmental case
B) must be based on science that fits the issues in the particular trial
C) does not have to tell lay jurors something they don't already know
D) does not have to be based on sound science and research design

Question 32

Eyewitness identification may be problematic because

A) the perception may be encoded in the wrong genetic code
B) only fragments of an experience may be encoded due to stress
C) distraction because of a weapon may draw attention to the person's face
D) recognition of people of different races is better and the suspect and the eyewitness may be of the same race

Question 33

Eyewitness recognition

A) Is not faulty because stored memories do not change with time
B) Is not faulty because memory works like a tape recorder and retains events precisely
C) Can be faulty because memory retrieval is as much a matter of reconstruction as it is of simply recalling
D) Is completely unreliable because people are unreliable witnesses

Question 34

The eyewitness research paradigm

A) works well because the dependent variable, accurate identification is known in each case
B) can't produce meaningful results because the subjects are college students
C) is problematic because it has yielded so may contradictory results
D) works even though the researchers are not able to achieve randomization to conditions

Question 35

Sources of mistaken eyewitness identification

A) include estimator variables related to limitation of witness perception and information processing
B) include system variables such as police methods for obtaining identifications
C) both a) and b)
D) neither a) nor b)