December 2009 Archives

This website provides case details and asks you to act as jurors and render a verdict. It was designed to allow attorneys to test their theories prior to trial to see how potential jurors might react. It appears to be defunct, as the three cases posted, are the only one ever available. However, it is a useful exercise to review and render a verdict for the three cases that are there.

http://www.legalvote.com/

UPDATE: It used to be that even though the cases were closed, you could still review the case summaries and evidence. It looks like they've taken that down. There is still one case left to evaluate:

http://www.legalvote.com/worth/worth11139.phtml 

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=394

A couple in Texas find a seemingly abandoned car and think they've stumbled across a crime scene. And they're right...but not in the way they imagined. Michael May tells the story. Michael is the Books and Culture editor at The Texas Observer. (18 minutes)

You can look up titles at www.imdb.com to find out information about the movie.

10 Rillington Place

12 Angry Men

88 Seconds

A Civil Action

A Cry in the Dark

A Dry White Season

A Few Good Men

A Free Soul

A Man for All Seasons

A Map of the World

A Night of Adventure

A Passage to India

A Place in the Sun

A Time to Kill

Adam's Rib

Amistad

An Act of Murder

Anatomy of a Murder

And Justice for All

Bananas

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Big Daddy

Billy Budd

Bone Collector

Bonfire of the Vanities

Boomerang!

Breaker Morant

Brilliant Lies

Carrington V. C.

Chicago

Class Action

Compulsion

Copycat

Coquette

Count the Hours

Criminal Court

Criminal Lawyer

Dancer in the Dark

Deep End of the Ocean

Devil's Advocate

Disorder in the Court

Dreamboat

Eight o'Clock Walk

Erin Brockovich

Evelyn

Evelyn Prentice

Eye Witness

Falling Down

Final Analysis

Fried Green Tomatoes

From the Hip

Fury

Ghosts of Mississippi

Going Bye-Bye!

Guilty as Sin

How to Murder Your Wife

I am Sam

I Confess

I Want to Live!

In the Name of the Father

Inherit the Wind

It Could Happen to You

Jagged Edge

JFK

Johnny Belinda

Judge Priest

Judgment at Nuremberg

Judgment in Berlin

King and Country

Knock on Any Door

Kramer vs Kramer

Lawyer Man

Legally Blonde

Let Him Have It

Libel

Losing Isaiah

Madame X

Man in the Middle

Man on Fire

Manhattan Melodrama

Marked Woman

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Miracle on 34^th Street

Mountain Justice

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Murder in the First

Murder!

Music Box

My Cousin Vinny

Mystic River

Night Court

Night Falls on Manhattan

No Other Woman

North Country

Nuts

On Trial

One More River

Paths of Glory

People vs. Dr. Kildare

Philadelphia

Pinky

Presumed Innocent

Primal Fear

Prisoners of the Sun

Reversal of Fortune

Rules of Engagement

Runaway Jury

Sergeant Rutledge

She Couldn't Say No

Silence of the Lambs

Sleepers

Sling Blade

Snow Falling on Cedars

Sommersby

State's Attorney

Stranger on the Third Floor

Suspect

The Accused

The Advocate

The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse

The Awful Truth

The Caine Mutiny

The Case of the Howling Dog

The Castle

The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

The Good Mother

The Lady from Shanghai

The Letter

The Life of David Gale

The Life of Emile Zola

The Murder Man

The Onion Field

The Paradine Case

The People Against O'Hara

The People vs Larry Flynt

The Rack

The Rainmaker

The Secret Six

The Star Chamber

The Star Witness

The Talk of the Town

The Unfaithful

The Unholy Three

The Unknown Man

The Verdict

The Winslow Boy

The Wrong Man

The Young Philadelphians

They Won't Believe Me

They Won't Forget

To Kill a Mockingbird

Town Without Pity

Trial

Trial and Error

Unashamed

Veer-Zaara

Vera Drake

Whose Life is it Anyway?

Witness for the Prosecution

Wives Under Suspicion

Young Mr. Lincoln

http://www.prisonexp.org/

Welcome to the Stanford Prison Experiment web site, which features an extensive slide show and information about this classic psychology experiment, including parallels with the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? These are some of the questions we posed in this dramatic simulation of prison life conducted in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=928

Listen to Act 1:

Alix Spiegel reports on the "Recovered Memory" movement. In the early 1990s people across America turned to experts in psychology for help ... and many people were told that the source of their problems could be traced to traumatic events they could not even remember, to memories that had to be recovered through special techniques. In the last ten years, this whole approach to psychology has fallen out of favor. So what happened that so many experts came to believe in a treatment that turned out to make many of their patients worse, not better ... and what happened when the patients and therapists figured all this out? (35 minutes)

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=920

After a decade in which DNA evidence has freed over 100 people nationwide, it's become clear that DNA evidence isn't just proving wrongdoing by criminals, it's proving wrongdoing by police and prosecutors. In this show, we look at what DNA has revealed to us: how police get innocent people to confess to crimes they didn't commit and how they get witnesses to pin crimes on innocent people. There have always been suspicions that these kinds of things take place. With DNA, there's finally irrefutable proof.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=218

We devote this entire episode to one story: over the course of six months, reporter and TAL contributor Jack Hitt followed a group of inmates at a high-security prison as they rehearsed and staged a production of the last act--Act V--of Hamlet. Shakespeare may seem like an odd match for a group of hardened criminals, but Jack found that they understand the Bard on a level that most of us might not. It's a play about murder and its consequences, performed by murderers, living out the consequences.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=143

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1054

Every crime scene hides a story. In this week's show, we hear about crime scenes and the stories they tell.

Here is a list of textbooks and reference books related to Psychology & Law.

Barrett & George, Race, Culture, Psychology and Law

Bartol & Bartol, Psychology and Law

Bergman & Asimow, Reel Justice

Brewer & Williams, Psychology and Law: An Empirical Perspective

Chase, Movies on Trial

Costanzo, Psychology Applied to Law

Eisen, Quas, & Goodman, Memory and Suggestibility in the Forensic Interview

Felson, Crime and Everyday Life

Friedrichs, Law in Our Lives

Garner, Black's Law Dictionary

Greene, Heilbrun, Fortune, & Nietzel, Forensic Psychology

Huss, Forensic Psychology

Kapardis, Psychology and Law: A Critical Introduction

Levine, Wallach & Levine, Psychological Problems, Social Issues, and Law

Lind & Tyler, The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice

Livingston, Crime and Criminology

Memon, Vrij, & Bull, Psychology and Law

Monahan & Walker, Social Science in Law

Ogloff, Taking Psychology and Law into the 21st Century

Roesch, Hart, & Ogloff, Psychology and Law

Roesch, Zapf, & Hart, Forensice Psychology and Law

Saferstein, Forensic Science Handbook

Schuller & Ogloff, Introduction to Psychology and Law: Canadian Perspectives

Walker & Shapiro, Introduction to Forensic Psychology

Wrightsman & Fulero, Forensic Psychology

Wrightsman, Forensic Psychology

Wrightsman, Green, Nietzel, & Fortune, Psychology and the Legal System

The following are books that are useful as readers or for book report assignments. Please feel free to add additional titles in the comments section.

Active Liberty

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0307263134/002-1523136-0036840?v=glance

Actual Innocence

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0451203658/qid%3D1029343202/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/103-1334532-6018213
 

 Anatomy of Motive

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0671023934/qid=1075402638//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl14/104-2449508-7352752?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Case of a Lifetime: A Criminal Defense Lawyer's Story

http://www.amazon.com/Case-Lifetime-Criminal-Defense-Lawyers/dp/0230614337/ref=pd_sim_b_5

College Students' Guide to the Law

http://www.amazon.com/College-Students-Guide-C-L-Lindsay/dp/1589790898/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262011215&sr=1-4

Convictions: A Prosecutor's Battles Against Mafia Killers, Drug Kingpins and Enron Thieves

http://www.amazon.com/Convictions-Prosecutors-Battles-Against-Kingpins/dp/0374531773/ref=pd_sim_b_4

A Cop's Life

http://www.amazon.com/Cops-Life-Stories-Heart-Behind/dp/0312940017/ref=pd_sim_b_5

Cops: Their lives in their own words

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0671685511/qid=1029957796/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-2777705-2011124?s=books&n=507846

Courtroom 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse

http://www.amazon.com/Courtroom-302-American-Criminal-Courthouse/dp/0679752064/ref=pd_sim_b_4

Defending the Devil: My Story as Ted Bundy's Last Lawyer

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0688108237/qid%3D1029959449/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/104-2777705-2011124

Eyewitness Testimony

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674287770/ref=pd_sim_books/103-1334532-6018213

Fraternity Gang Rape

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814779026/qid=1029343686/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-1334532-6018213

How to Argue and Win Every Time

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312144776/qid=1029959118/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-2777705-2011124

Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618087281/qid=1136483827/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-7445806-9744127?n=507846&s=books&v=glance

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0688128165/qid=1029344012/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/103-1334532-6018213

The Language of Confession, Interrogation, and Deception

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0761913467/qid=1029958714/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/104-2777705-2011124

Last Chance for Justice: The Juror's Lonely Quest

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0965711501/qid=1029861502/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/103-1334532-6018213

Law School Confidential: The Complete Guide to the Law School Experience

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/031224309X/qid=1093374289/sr=ka-2/ref=pd_ka_2/102-0916068-4077719

Letters from Law School: The Life of a Second Year Law Student

http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Law-School-Second-Year-Student/dp/0595009751/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262011645&sr=1-6

Lush Life

http://www.amazon.com/Lush-Life-Novel-Richard-Price/dp/0312428227/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261960167&sr=8-1

The Making of a Cop

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671665251/qid=1029957918/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-2777705-2011124

Mindhunter : Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671528904/qid=1093374407/sr=ka-1/ref=pd_ka_1/102-0916068-4077719

Minds on Trial: Great Cases in Law and Psychology

http://www.amazon.com/Minds-Trial-Great-Cases-Psychology/dp/019518176X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262015118&sr=8-3

Mystic River

http://www.amazon.com/Mystic-River-Dennis-Lehane/dp/0060584750/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262010059&sr=1-1

The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312141238/ref=pd_sim_books/103-1334532-6018213

No Higher Calling, No Greater Responsibility: A Prosecutor Makes His Case

http://www.amazon.com/Higher-Calling-Greater-Responsibility-Prosecutor/dp/1555916627/ref=pd_sim_b_1

No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court

http://www.amazon.com/NO-MATTER-HOW-LOUD-SHOUT/dp/0684811952/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262011645&sr=1-1

Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption

http://www.amazon.com/Picking-Cotton-Memoir-Injustice-Redemption/dp/0312376537/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Police Interrogation and American Justice

http://www.amazon.com/Police-Interrogation-American-Justice-Richard/dp/0674035313/ref=pd_sim_b_5

Portraits of Guilt: The Woman who Profiles the Faces of America's Deadliest Criminals

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671034863/qid=1029861062/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-1334532-6018213

The Prosecutors: A Year in the Life of a District Attorney's Office

http://www.amazon.com/Prosecutors-Year-District-Attorneys-Office/dp/0525947124/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262011828&sr=1-1

Snitches: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice

http://www.amazon.com/Snitching-Criminal-Informants-Erosion-American/dp/0814758509/ref=pd_sim_b_4

Snitch Culture: How Citizens are Turned into the Eyes and the Ears of the State

http://www.amazon.com/Snitch-Culture-Citizens-Turned-State/dp/0922915636/ref=pd_sim_b_4

Surviving Justice

http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Justice-Wrongfully-Convicted-Exonerated/dp/1932416234/ref=pd_sim_b_6

Telling lies: Clues to deceit in the marketplace, politics and marriage.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393321886/qid=1029958435/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/104-2777705-2011124

Trance on Trial

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0898623405/qid=1029958053/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-2777705-2011124

True Blue: Police Stories by those Who have Lived Them

http://www.amazon.com/True-Blue-Police-Stories-Those/dp/0312995377/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262011404&sr=1-4

True Stories of False Confessions

http://www.amazon.com/True-Stories-False-Confessions-Warden/dp/0810126036/ref=pd_sim_b_3

True Witness

http://www.amazon.com/True-Witness-Science-against-Misidentification/dp/1403964300/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262010226&sr=1-1

With Justice for None

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140133259/qid=1029860752/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-1334532-6018213

Witness for the Defense

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312084552/qid=1029343507/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-1334532-6018213

The Wrong Guys: Murder, False Confessions, and The Norfolk Four

http://www.amazon.com/Wrong-Guys-Murder-Confessions-Norfolk/dp/1595584013/ref=pd_sim_b_2

Inside the Mind of BTK

http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Mind-BTK-Thirty-Year-Notorious/dp/0470325151/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283258625&sr=8-2

The Echo from Dealey Plaza: The True story of the first African American on the White House Secret Service detail and his quest for justice

http://www.amazon.com/Echo-Dealey-Plaza-American-assassination/dp/0307382028/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314713124&sr=8-1

Orange is the New Black

http://www.amazon.com/Orange-New-Black-Womens-Prison/dp/0385523394/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314713174&sr=1-1

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

http://www.amazon.com/Other-Wes-Moore-Name-Fates/dp/0385528205/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314713209&sr=1-1

Skin color may be genetically controlled, and police may be able to use this information.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5055391

But police officers are likely to be interested, too. Already, some officials are testing DNA left at crime scenes to get clues about what the culprit might look like. Tony Frudakis runs DNAPrint Genomics, a Florida-based company that uses gene markers associated with geographic ancestry to give police a general sense of whether someone might look more black or white. In one case, he says, such "DNAWitness" testing helped recently track down a serial killer in Louisiana.

An amicus brief is a document which is filed in a court by someone who is not directly related to the case under consideration. The American Psychological Association has submitted many briefs to courts when they believe education on psychological issues is important for the case at hand. The APA has submitted briefs on abortion, sexual orientation, disabilities rights and many other topics. Check out a list of the briefs by topic with links to the briefs themselves.

http://www.apa.org/about/offices/ogc/amicus/index-issues.aspx

The following activty is from Rusty Juban's Management of Organizations class at Southeastern Lousiana University

The Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971 is a dramatic example of the power of peer pressure, group norms, and institutional control to change the persona of normal people into brutal barbarians and whimpering broken souls. The 24 subjects were chosen from 70 applicants as the most normal, average, and healthy; in other words, those individuals most like you and I. Five days into a scheduled two-week experiment these individuals had become completely consumed by the artificial roles created for the experiment. So brutal were the "guards" (a randomly chosen dozen of the 24) and so emotionally distraught, depressed, and distressed were the "prisoners" (the other dozen of the 24), that at the end of five days the experiment was halted.

This is one of the most famous and dramatic experiments in Psychology and it has applications to those studying the art and science of management. Of course the study results have an impact on many facets of life and have thus become the subject of segments on 60 Minutes, Phil Donahue, PBS, and is even being developed as a Hollywood movie. Students and the public are very fortunate that details and pictures from this experiment are now available on the Stanford Prison Experiment Web site.

1. Should we be frightened by what this experiment shows?
2. What are some of the symbolic actions that reinforced the "prisoners" status?
3. What was the basis of power for the guards?

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/178240.htm

Roy Malpass has put together a very useful site on how to evaluate the fairness of a lineup that you or someone else has created.  Description of how to conduct the evaluation, the statistical spreadsheet necessary to analyze the data, discussion and references.

http://eyewitness.utep.edu/consult05B.html

http://www.utpjournals.com/cjls/cjls.html

The journal is committed to publishing high caliber, original academic work in the field of law and society scholarship.

http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/law/index.aspx

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law focuses on the links between psychology as a science and public policy and law.

http://basp.osu.edu/

BASP provides a way for social psychologists to communicate with one another across a wide range of problem interests and subspecialties. Its goal is not only to provide a forum for a broad mixture of experiments, field studies, and reviews of social psychology, but also to serve as a resource for those interested in the application of complex human experimentation to problems of health, environment, and society.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/4438/home?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Applied Cognitive Psychology seeks to publish the best papers dealing with psychological analyses of memory, learning, thinking, problem solving, language, and consciousness as they occur in the real world. Applied Cognitive Psychology will publish papers on a wide variety of issues and from diverse theoretical perspectives. The journal focuses on studies of human performance and basic cognitive skills in everyday environments including, but not restricted to, studies of eyewitness memory, autobiographical memory, spatial cognition, skill training, expertise and skilled behaviour. Articles will normally combine realistic investigations of real world events with appropriate theoretical analyses and proper appraisal of practical implications. While empirical research remains the primary focus of the journal, Applied Cognitive Psychology also publishes theoretical articles, reviews and surveys. We encourage authors to submitt via our online submission system: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/acp

http://www.law.kuleuven.be/eapl/

The European Association of Psychology and Law (EAPL) was launched in 1990 at Nuremberg and was formally founded in 1992 at Oxford.The aims of the EAPL are:

• the promotion and development of researchimprovements in legal procedures, teaching, and practice in the field of psychology and law (e.g., legal psychology, criminological psychology, forensic psychology) within Europe
• the interchange of information throughout the world aimed toward an international cooperation.
• 

http://www.sarmac.org/

The Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition fosters applied research in memory and cognition and promotes the communication of this research within and between the applied and basic research communities.

http://www.ap-ls.org/

The American Psychology- Law Society, Division 41 of the American Psychological Association, is an inter-disciplinary organization devoted to scholarship, practice, and public service in psychology and law. Please use this Web site to learn more about AP-LS and the interaction between psychology and law.

http://www.jurysync.com/

JurySync helps litigators connect with fact finders in jury trials, bench trials and alternative dispute resolution.  We are an experienced team of litigation consultants specially trained in communication strategy and the psychology of jury decision-making.  As social scientists, we help bridge the gap between law and fact finders' perceptions of justice by translating complex evidence into messages that resonate and persuade.

http://www.juryresearchinstitute.com/

Founded in the early 1980's by pioneers in what was then the new business of trial consulting, Jury Research Institute is one of the oldest and most respected firms in the field. We rely upon science and experience to help you develop, test and implement winning trial strategies.

http://www.njp.com/

National Jury Project® is a professional trial consulting firm with offices in Oakland, California; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Madison, New Jersey. In the early 1970's, our founders pioneered the use of social science research to improve jury selection and case presentation in jury trials. Established in 1975, the National Jury Project is the nation's first trial consulting firm.

http://www.doar.com/

http://www.trialbehavior.com/

Litigation always involves risks. With the right trial & jury consultants, it doesn't have to be a gamble. At Trial Behavior Consulting, our mission is simple: To provide you the best jury research, jury consulting and strategy advice in the business.

http://www.slrinc.net/

Strategic Litigation Research, Inc. provides a full range of trial and jury consulting services nationwide, from mock jury and mock bench trial research to venue studies, assistance with witness preparation and jury selection. SLR also provides graphics for the courtroom. In addition, SLR has available a "real-time" electronic response system for your research. The SLR professional staff is centrally located to conveniently serve our clients.

http://www.krollontrack.com/jury-consulting/

Compelling strategies win cases. Apart from knowing the legal and factual background of a case, litigators should also be aware of significant and persuasive case themes, jury and judge perceptions, traits of hostile jurors, key concepts and terms, what drives verdict and damage decisions, and potential verdicts. A tactical approach to litigation and voir dire can mean the difference between a favorable outcome and a loss.

http://henningtonand.reachlocal.net/

Hennington and Associates is the leading Trial and Jury consulting firm in the nation. We are a full service firm that specializes in winning cases.

http://www.theadvocates.com/

We are the nation's most experienced and successful team of professional trial consultants and jury consultants. Our firm offers you a powerful array of resources that can insure your best chance to prevail in litigation regardless of the venue or issues involved. We offer you the assistance of more than 40 highly skilled professional people, including 23 jury consultants and trial consultants in 17 office locations in major cities within the United States.

http://www.decisionquest.com/

At DecisionQuest, trial research is more than picking jurors. It's about how jurors think. Our job is to arm you with an understanding of what, why and how the decision-makers are thinking as your case evolves.

The old Courttv.com is unfortunately gone. It's morphed into CNN Justice to cover 'real' life, and TruTV to cover crime dramas, etc.

http://www.cnn.com/JUSTICE/

Brief article by Sarah Palmer, M.S.

http://www.abanet.org/tech/ltrc/publications/lia_training.html

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/law/research/part1/

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=1919

Undergraduate interest in psychological applications to the law has perhaps never been greater. Recent real cases that have involved aspects of psychology and law include the Central Park jogger case, in which four teenaged boys gave videotaped confessions that now appear to have been false (see Kassin, 2002). Due in part to both fictional (Silence of the Lambs, Profiler, CSI) and nonfictional (e.g., Court TV, Dateline, 48 Hours, Forensic Files) representations in the media, undergraduates are increasingly interested in learning about how psychology may be utilized in and by the legal system and about associated educational and career opportunities (Fulero, Greene, Hans, Nietzel, Small, & Wrightsman, 1999). For example, students invariably mention wanting to learn about being a "profiler." Faculty can take advantage of student interest in the popular media's portrayal of forensic psychology to teach psychological concepts that have a place in the legal process (e.g., memory, perception, psychopathology, cognition, group processes) in a wide variety of subdisciplinary areas -- clinical, cognitive, community developmental, industrial/ organizational, physiological, and social psychology.

Syllabi compiled by APLS for undergraduate Psychology and Law or Forensic Psychology courses.

http://www.ap-ls.org/education/SyllabiUndergrad.php

https://people.creighton.edu/~plw92048/

http://www.alaskainnocence.org/

The Alaska Innocence Project is an Alaska based non-profit corporation that provides legal, educational, and charitable services to identify and exonerate individuals who have been wrongfully convicted in the state of Alaska and to provide educational opportunities that foster a culture that champions the defense of the innocent. Prior to its formatiom, individuals wrongfully convicted in Alaska could turn to the dedicate staff of the Innocence Project Northwest Clinic at the University of Washington School of Law for assistance; however, workload has forced that project to turn down requests from inmates in Alaska. To fill this need, a dedicated group of criminal attorneys, investigators, and concerned individuals banded together to form the Alaska Innocence Project. The AIP is currently staffed by an Executive Director and an intern, and overseen by a 13 member volunteer board of directors.

http://www.centurionministries.org/

The primary mission of Centurion Ministries is to vindicate and free from prison those who are completely innocent of the crimes for which they have been unjustly convicted and imprisoned for life or death. We also assist our clients, once they are freed, with reintegration into society on a self-reliant basis.

http://www.innocentinprison.org/

The Innocent In Prison Project International (IIPPI) is a medium, which supports errors of justice awareness. Errors of justice concern anyone. When innocent individuals are imprisoned, the guilty ones are at large and may commit more crimes. IIPPI illustrates cases of possibly false or wrongful convictions. Public documents, audio and video files enrich this website beyond detailed analysis. IIPPI has been an informative and inspiring source to students, journalists, governmental officials, activists and others since 2004.

http://www.law.uoregon.edu/org/oip/

Oregon Innocence Project ("OIP") was formed in 2005 as a clinic at the University of Oregon School of Law . The work of the organization is now carried out by student volunteers. We are a group of committed law students interested in helping innocent inmates and their attorneys with their cases.

http://blogs.luc.edu/afterinnocence/

The Life After Innocence Project advocates for innocent people adversely affected by the criminal justice system, helping them reenter society and enabling them to reclaim their rights as citizens, through individualized legal and support services and wider-reaching public policy initiatives.

http://www.brandeis.edu/investigate/innocence/

The Justice Brandeis Innocence Project addresses an ethical crisis in the United States: the incarceration of thousands of innocent people. For most, class and race make them more vulnerable to arrest and conviction and least able to afford effective legal representation.

http://twitter.com/InnocenceBlog

The twitter account of the Innocence Project - Exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system.

http://www.mtinnocenceproject.org/

The Montana Innocence Project is a nonprofit organization dedicated to exonerating innocent Montana inmates and preventing future wrongful convictions. We provide the legal and investigative assistance necessary to identify and advance credible claims of innocence.
We also advocate for public policy reforms to improve the criminal justice system,
and work to educate Montanans throughout the state.

http://www.nccai.org/

The North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, established in 2000, is located in Durham, N.C. and is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. The Center was founded to heighten communication and efficiency between the Innocence Projects® at Duke University School of Law and University of North Carolina School of Law. The Center now coordinates case investigations by Innocence Projects® at each of North Carolina's law schools, including Campbell, Charlotte, Duke, Elon, NCCU, UNC, and Wake Forest. Although the Center's primary resources are hundreds of North Carolina law student volunteers, necessary staffing and operating expenses are funded by grants from Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, NC IOLTA, the North Carolina Bar Foundation, the Park Foundation, and private donations. We are immensely grateful for their support. However, even with grant funding, the Center operates on a very tight budget and has never had the opportunity to staff to the level needed to efficiently meet demand for case review and investigation and opportunities for policy reform in North Carolina.

http://www.iowainnocence.org/

The Innocence Project of Iowa is a nonprofit organization that seeks to prevent and remedy wrongful convictions in the State of Iowa through education, advocacy, and litigation. The Project's volunteers provide representation to inmates with viable claims of actual innocence.

http://www.mississippiinnocence.org/

The Mississippi Innocence Project identifies,
investigates and litigates meritorious claims of innocence
on behalf of Mississippi prisoners serving lengthy periods
of incarceration.

http://innocenceprojectbournemouth.com/

The Bournemouth Innocence Project was founded and is currently being lead by a second year Law undergraduate, it is affiliated to the Innocence Network UK (INUK). This 2007 initiative is Bournemouth University's first pro bono legal scheme.

http://www.kyinnocenceproject.org/home.html

The Kentucky Innocence Project (KIP) was developed by the Department of Public Advocacy to provide incarcerated men and women who have legitimate claims of innocence with a resource through which their claims may be investigated and presented to the courts of the Commonwealth for relief.

http://www.newenglandinnocence.org/

NEIP is a member of the international Innocence Network of innocence projects. Each of these projects was modeled after the Innocence Project, which was founded by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld at the Cardozo School of Law in 1992.

     NEIP is unique, however, in that it was the first project in the country coordinated by a law firm. It was founded in 2000 with the goal of identifying and exonerating wrongly convicted individuals through the use of DNA evidence. In 2009 the mission was expanded to consider cases in which scientific testing or other investigative leads could establish a strong likelihood that the individual is factually innocent.

http://floridainnocence.org/content/

The Innocence Project of Florida (IPF) began in January of 2003 in response to an October 1, 2003, filing deadline for post-conviction DNA motions. Beginning with two advocates (Jennifer Greenberg and Sheila Meehan) working out of a hallway at the FSU College of Law, IPF has been screening, investigating, placing and litigating innocence cases for the past five (5) years. We have to date received well over 2000 inquiries and/or requests for assistance.

http://truthinjustice.org/

Truth in Justice is an educational non-profit organized to educate the public regarding the vulnerabilities in the U. S. criminal justice system that make the criminal conviction of wholly innocent persons possible.

http://www.ocpd.state.ct.us/Content/Innocence%20Project/Innocence%20Project.htm

The Connecticut Innocence Project is an office of the State of Connecticut Public Defender Services. The Connecticut Innocence Project is a member of the Innocence Project Network, a coalition of Innocence Projects in the United States and abroad. The mission of the Connecticut Innocence Project is to isolate cases of incarcerated individuals who have been convicted of crimes in Connecticut for which they are innocent, and seek their exoneration.

http://www.cwsl.edu/main/default.asp?nav=cip.asp&body=cip/home.asp

The California Innocence Project (CIP) is a law school clinical program dedicated to releasing wrongfully convicted inmates and providing an outstanding educational experience to the students enrolled in the clinic.  Founded in 1999, CIP reviews more than 2,000 claims of innocence from California inmates each year.  Students who participate in the year-long clinic work alongside CIP staff attorneys on cases where there is strong evidence of factual innocence.  They assist in investigation and litigation by locating and re-interviewing witnesses, examining new evidence, filing motions, securing experts, and providing support to attorneys during evidentiary hearings and trials.  CIP has trained more than 100 lawyers while securing the release of many innocent people who otherwise may have spent the rest of their lives in prison.

http://www.law.washington.edu/Clinics/IPNW/

The Innocence Project Northwest (IPNW) Clinic grew out of a volunteer effort aimed at freeing inmates who have been wrongfully convicted of crimes. Since IPNW's inception in 1997, volunteer students and attorneys have overturned the convictions of 12 innocent people in Washington state.

http://www.ipmn.org/

The Innocence Project of Minnesota takes on the cases of convicted but innocent people; we educate attorneys on best practices; and we work to reform procedures.

http://www.idahoinnocenceproject.org/

It is impossible to imagine the terror of being accused, tried and convicted of a crime that you did not commit. Yet the Innocence Projects across the country have secured the freedom of more than 230 innocent men and women who suffered false imprisonment. The Idaho Innocence Project at Boise State University has brought together some of the finest legal minds in the state to offer free legal help to the wrongfully convicted. These volunteer lawyers work with University of Idaho law interns and Boise State University students to investigate and pursue claims of actual innocence. The Idaho Innocence Project team also includes forensic experts in DNA, Polygraphs, Latent Prints and Physical Anthropology (bones).

http://law.scu.edu/ncip/

The Northern California Innocence Project embodies Santa Clara University's mission to create a more just and humane world through working to exonerate innocent prisoners and pursue legal reforms that address the causes and consequences of wrongful convictions.

http://www.innocenceprojectmidwest.org/

The Midwestern Innocence Project is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization dedicated to providing pro bono legal and investigative services to the innocent in prison.

http://www.ip-no.org/

Innocence Project New Orleans (IPNO) represents innocent prisoners serving life sentences in Louisiana and Mississippi, and assists them with their transition into the free world upon their release. IPNO works in the states with the country's highest incarceration rates and the highest rates of wrongful conviction in the country. By identifying and remedying cases and causes of wrongful conviction, we engage in high impact, frontline advocacy in the courts of law and public opinion, and lead community-based responses into the mistakes made by our criminal justice system.

http://www.medillinnocenceproject.org/

Founded in 1999, the Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern University gives undergraduate students firsthand experience in investigating wrongful convictions under the tutelage of Professor David Protess, the Project's director.

http://ga-innocenceproject.org/

To free the wrongly prosecuted through DNA testing. To advance practices that minimize the changes that others suffer the same fate. To educate the public that wrongful convictions are not isolated or rare events. To help the exonerated rebuild their lives.

http://www.uni.edu/~maclino/

General research interests include cognitive and metacognitive aspects of face recognition as well as applied aspects of face recognition such as eyewitness identification. Specific research projects include comparing simultaneous vs. sequential lineup administration, suggestibility of show-ups, developing computer software to facilitate lineup administration, examination of the cross-race effect, and the examination of the perceptual dimensions underlying face recognition.

http://psyc.queensu.ca/faculty/lindsay/lindsay.html

Adult eyewitness reliability, police procedures for obtaining eyewitness evidence, methods of obtaining superior evidence from eyewitnesses, and the effects of eyewitness evidence in court.

http://www.psych.ucr.edu/faculty/clark/index.html

My research is most broadly directed at questions about human memory:

How do we store information in memory?
How is that information represented?
How is that information retrieved?
How do we make decisions based on the imperfect information that we are able to retrieve from memory?
And how do we collaborate with other people in memory tasks?

Many of these questions are addressed within a research program that also seeks to understand the complications of eyewitness memory.

http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/psychology/plato/

Eyewitness Identification and Face Recognition

http://www.uni.edu/maclink/wrongful.htm

This seminar combines sociology, political science, chemistry, psychology, law, biology and criminology for a truly interdisciplinary learning experience covering the causes and consequences of wrongful conviction, as well as potential reforms to prevent its occurrence.

http://www.uni.edu/~maclino/ew/index_s09.html

The goals of the course are to:

Introduce students to the area of eyewitness identification and its implications for understanding how memory for individuals works for within the legal system. Introduce system and estimator variables. Obtain familiarity with the following research topics and methodology to understand how eyewitness identification is experimentally studied and how the results are used in the legal system. Develop a research proposal on the topic of eyewitness identification.

http://www.exonerate.org/

The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project is a non-profit organization that provides investigation and legal assistance to incarcerated people that claim to be wrongly convicted.

http://www.law.wisc.edu/fjr/clinicals/ip/index.html

The Wisconsin Innocence Project has three core missions: 1) to investigate and litigate wrongful convictions, 2) to educate law students through closely supervised work on possible wrongful convictions, and 3) to remedy the causes of wrongful convictions through scholarship, education and collaboration with governmental and criminal justice agencies.

http://www.innocenceprojectoftexas.org/

The Innocence Project of Texas is a non-profit organization dedicated to overturning wrongful convictions and securing freedom for men and women wrongfully imprisoned for serious crimes in the State of Texas.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.

http://www.uccs.edu/~faculty/egreene/

Edie Greene is Professor of Psychology at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs (UCCS).  She received a BA in psychology from Stanford University, an MA in experimental psychology from the University of Colorado-Boulder, and a Ph.D. in psychology and law from the University of Washington.  She has served as Fellow in Law and Psychology at Harvard Law School and as a faculty member of the National Judicial College.  

http://socialecology.uci.edu/faculty/eloftus/

Elizabeth Loftus studies human memory. Her experiments reveal how memories can be changed by things that we are told. Facts, ideas, suggestions and other post-event information can modify our memories. The legal field, so reliant on memories, has been a significant application of the memory research. She is also interested in psychology and law, more generally.

http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/~glwells/

Extensive information on eyewitness identification, as well as information about identification of suspects from photographs and lineups.

http://iilab.utep.edu/

Research at the investigative interviewing laboratory is conducted by Dr. Christian Meissner and his colleagues at the University of Texas at El Paso. Our research examines the social and cognitive psychological processes that underlie the interviewing of individuals in forensic settings.

http://web.mac.com/jwturtle/iWeb/Site/P.I.T..html

The Police Investigation Techniques (P.I.T.) lab addresses issues at the intersection of psychology research and criminal investigations.  Our current interests involve eyewitness identification, investigative interviewing, and detection of deception.

http://www.le.ac.uk/pc/cap/hf49/

One line of Heather's research focuses on face processing in criminal identification lineups. The goal is to develop strategies for constructing lineups that minimize the rate of erroneous eyewitness identifications. In addition to laboratory research on lineups, Heather has conducted field and archival research studying the behavior of actual eyewitnesses in criminal cases prosecuted in the United States. Other recent lines of research include examining the role that victim characteristics play in the prosecution of rape cases, as well as determining the factors that affect decision making in the criminal justice system.

Roy Malpass's Lab

http://eyewitness.utep.edu/

The Eyewitness Identification Research Laboratory in the Psychology Department at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) focuses on research in eyewitness memory, eyewitness identification, expert testimony and many aspects of face recognition. The Laboratory offers instruction and research training for both graduate and undergraduate students.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1623747

January 29, 2004

Georgia's Supreme Court reviews the sentence of Marcus Dixon. The 18-year-old African American was convicted of aggravated child molestation for having sex with a 15-year-old girl, a crime that carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. The case is fueling a debate on the fairness of mandatory sentences. Hear NPR's Ari Shapiro.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1613583

An investigation by reporters for The Miami Herald alleges white criminal offenders in Florida are more likely to have their convictions quashed than blacks who are charged with the exact same crime. The report sheds light on apparent abuse of a law meant to give a fresh start to first-time criminals. NPR's Tony Cox speaks with a reporter for The Miami Herald, as well as a former head of the Black Lawyers Association.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/mccleskey.html

This case presents the question whether a complex statistical study that indicates a risk that racial considerations enter into capital sentencing determinations proves that petitioner McCleskey's capital sentence is unconstitutional under the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendment.

Bureau of Justice Statistics provides comprehensive data on criminal justice systems.

http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/tost_1.html#1_aa

The Bureau of Justice Statistics provides comprehensive data on criminals and types of crime.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm#sex

APLS offers this useful listing of graduate programs in psychology and law.

http://www.ap-ls.org/education/GraduatePrograms.php

Our listing of academic programs that offer education and training in psychology and law is divided into three degree categories: Clinical Doctoral Programs, Non-Clinical PhD Programs, and Masters Programs. 

This site provides useful information about careers, training, and education.

http://www.unl.edu/ap-ls/student/careers.html

The field of psychology and law involves the application of scientific and professional aspects of psychology to questions and issues relating to law and the legal system. There are a number of specialties that psychologists may pursue within the larger area of psychology and law. This field encompasses contributions made in a number of different areas--research, clinical practice, public policy, and teaching/training among them--from a variety of orientations within the field of psychology, such as developmental, social, cognitive, and clinical.

http://www.crimeandclues.com/

We have articles and news items primarily targeted towards Police Officers, Detectives, Crime Scene Investigators and Forensic Scientists.

APLS's undergraduate teaching resource guide for Psychology & Law

http://www.ap-ls.org/education/Resources%20for%20teaching%20undergraduate%20psychology%20and%20law%20courses%202008.pdf

http://truthinjustice.org/shomberg2.htm

A step by step demonstration of an autopsy procedure.

http://www.deathonline.net/movies/mm/autopsy.cfm

view information from cases and make decisions about cause of death

http://www.le.ac.uk/pa/teach/va/welcome.html

article about software enabling a virtual autopsy including gallery images of virtual autopsies

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16637-virtual-autopsy-inside-the-skull-of-a-suicide-victim.html

video of a real autopsy

http://www.psychologicalscience.com/psylaw/2010/02/online-autopsy--not-virtual.html

http://www.patbrownprofiling.com/

The Pat Brown Criminal Profiling Agency

Providing crime scene analysis, behavioral profiling, and life advice to attorneys, producers, businesses and individuals

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kuni/news.newsmain/article/0/0/1566455/news/Talk.of.Iowa.101509

Host Greg Shanley talks with the Director of Leadership Studies at the University of Northern Iowa, Gerri Perreault, about lying in personal and public life. Then, Shanley talks with psychology professor at UNI, Otto Maclin, about how the brain causes misperceptions.

Search Wisconsin court records online

http://wcca.wicourts.gov/simpleCaseSearch.xsl

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norm-stamper/a-month-of-killing-more-o_b_186433.html

A Month of Killing, More on the Way

Search Minnesota court records online

http://pa.courts.state.mn.us/default.aspx

This site provides a list of readings on psychology and law.

http://comp.uark.edu/~lampinen/read.htm

The Law and Psychology Lab is run by Dr. James Lampinen of the Psychology Department at the University of Arkansas. The lab conducts research and publishes articles on missing persons, protecting children from violence, false memories, eyewitness testimony, police interrogations, children's memory, jury decision making, and the relationship between states of consciousness and memory.  

This blog is being developed by the students in the Eyewitness Identification Seminar at the University of Northern Iowa.

http://www.psychologicalscience.com/eyewitnessid/

Go inside a real life murder investigation. Examine crime scene photos, collect and analyze evidence and watch fascinating interviews with forensics experts who convicted Delaware's first serial murderer.

http://www.hbo.com/autopsy/swf/casebook1/cb1.html

Trace the history of forensic science and criminal detection through our exclusive Forensic Timeline. Learn about ballistics, fingerprinting, DNA profiling, Scotland Yard and more!

http://www.hbo.com/autopsy/swf/timeline/timeline.html/