Primal Fear

All I have to say is that this movie was incredibly good. It deserved every award and nomination it received. Edward Norton was simply phenomenal. The movie also tied in so well with the things we have been discussing this semester. There were so many psychological and legal aspects present within the movie.
Richard Gere’s character, Marty, is a defense attorney in Chicago. Defense attorneys to me are very interesting. I don’t think that I would ever be able to do it, for many reasons. The public perception is mostly negative; as Marty puts, they are thought to be as creepy as the men and women they defend. They also makes decent amounts of money defending those who may or may not have committed terrible crimes, which doesn’t help the public’s outlook. Marty makes a point of saying several times that he just has to do his job well and not care whether or not the defendant actually committed the crime in question. It is important to separate believing that someone has committed the crime and protecting him or her legally. Defense attorneys also have to work against the societal notion of assumed guilt. Thought the law says that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty, we often find that defendant are perceived to be guilty by the community and media before a verdict is reached. The notion just doesn’t match the societal perception. It would be difficult job, there is no doubt about that.
At the beginning of the movie, Edward Norton’s character, Aaron, is caught fleeing the scene of the Archbishop’s murder. Marty immediately seeks him out and asks to defend him in his trial pro bono. He begins to discuss what happened with Aaron and learns that he has spells that cause him to “lose time,” or black out and have no memory of the situation. This brings us back to conversations we have had in class previously regarding memory and law. It also raises a question of sanity. Little did I know at this time in the movie that an even bigger question of sanity was soon arise. Aaron tells Marty that he didn’t murder the archbishop and only ran from the police because he was scared and confused. Aaron insists that there was someone else in the room who killed the archbishop, but he doesn’t know who it was because of his blackout.
As the trial begins, it becomes evident that the prosecution has no motive to go on. They have no evidence as to why Aaron might have wanted to kill the archbishop. This provides the opportunity for the defense to push their idea that there was someone else in the room. All they have to do is convince the jury that someone else could have possibly committed the murder. Since the prosecution has no motive, the job to raise reasonable suspicion becomes slightly easier. The prosecution wants to seek the death penalty for this case because of the public pressure for retribution and violent nature of the particular crime. Marty looks into bringing a psychological expert into the case to find out more about Aaron’s memory problems and state of mind during the time of the alleged crime. Marty has Aaron plead the fifth is his first appearance, meaning that he utilizing his right to not self-incriminate himself.
This movie doesn’t spend much time focusing on juries. However, since this has been a topic of our reading recently in this class and in my Criminal Justice Systems class I was able to pick out a few times where movie was relevant to the topic of juries. Marty protests the use of the crime scene photos in court because he believes they will not only shock the jury, but they will also influence the desire to convict Aaron for retribution. He believes that the jury seeing these photos will hurt his case and sway the jury based on the gruesome nature of the crime. At another point in the trial, the prosecutor objects to Marty’s questioning of two separate witness based on the speculations being made and the relevance to the case. In both times, the judge has the testimony stricken from the record and asks the jury to ignore the information gathered during these particular questionings. While it is important to catch and remove inadmissible testimony, it is difficult to have a jury disregard the information. This action doesn’t change the fact that the jury has already heard the information. If someone tells you to not think about something, the first thing you do is think about it. This can be explained by either the reactance theory or ironic process, both of which are discussed in the chapter that is due for next week.
Before the plot twist at the end of the movie, I was really excited about the time I was going to be able to spend discussing dissociative identity disorder and it’s relevance to this movie. However, as relevant as it is, it became only a part of what was happening in the movie. In the interviews with the psychiatrist and Marty, Aaron slowly reveals that he is suffering from multiple personality disorder. We know it know as dissociative identity disorder (DID), but at the time of the movie I do not believe the DSM had been updated to call the disorder DID. Aaron alternate personality is referred to as Roy. During these spells, he is aggressive and loses his stutter. Often, those with DID have no memory of the the actions they take while experience other personalities.
This matches closely with what Aaron describes as “losing time.” Roy admits to Marty that he killed the archbishop to end the sexual abuse that was taking place, but Aaron has no memory of the murder or the confession Roy makes. At this point in the trial, however, it is too late to change Aaron’s plea to not guilty by reason of insanity. As I mentioned before, this brings us back to what we have already learned about the insanity defense. Mens rea, which is a characteristic of crime, means that a guilty state of mind must be present at the time of the crime. If Aaron didn’t know he was even committing a crime, can he be found guilty?
During the trial, Marty lets the prosecutor push Aaron until Roy emerges on the stand. When he is stressed or upset, he is likely take on the personality of Roy and his aggressive behavior shows. Roy attacks the prosecutor and is taken into custody by the bailiff. Back in the judge’s chambers, the judge tells both attorneys that she will declare a mistrial and dismiss the jury. Aaron will be retried with a bench trial where he will plead not guilty by reason of insanity and likely be sentenced to a psychological institution. It finally seems as the the correct course of action is going to be taken, and then sh*t gets real.
Marty visits Aaron in the holding cell where is being kept and delivers the news of what just happened. Aaron has no memory of what took place in the courtroom just minutes before. All seems well and you feel kind of happy the Marty was able to uncover the truth about the murder, but as he is leaving, Aaron says to tell the prosecutor that he hopes her neck is alright. SAY WHAT? I should have seen it coming, but I was completely blindsided. Marty catches on and returns to the cell where Aaron/Roy tells him that it was all a lie. Aaron never existed. He made the whole thing up to get away with the murder of the archbishop. He confesses to killing his girlfriend, Linda, as well. I don’t know how he did it, but somehow he was smart enough to come up with the idea and execute it quite perfectly, revealing the right amount of information at the right time. He is a smart and devious man. I feel the need to give him the same slow clap he gave Marty. This point of the movie brings up the very important issue of malingering. This case is similar to the “hillside strangler” case in Los Angeles where Ken Bianchi invented five alternate personalities, one of which confessed to the murders. In this case, an expert was able expose the fact that Ken was lying and he was convicted. However, in the movie, it is said that Roy is likely to only serve a short amount of time in an institution. Whether this would actually happen is questionable.
All in all, this movie was fantastic and I really enjoyed watching it. This was a great choice for this class simply because it encompasses so many different aspects of psychology and law. At the very beginning of the movie, Marty says that, “If you want justice, go to a whorehouse. If you want to get f*****, go to court,” which is an interesting though to consider.

Terms: defense attorney, defendant, assumed guilt, verdict, reasonable doubt, pro bono, memory, perception, prosecution, motive, evidence, experts, jury, death penalty, plea, fifth amendment, testimony, inadmissible evidence, ironic process, reactance theory, dissociative identity disorder, DSM, insanity, mens rea, mistrial, bench trial, malingering, not guilty by reason of insanity

The movie Primal Fear was a very interesting movie that pertains to this class in a number of different ways. This movie, being about a trial, obviously fits the law aspect of this class, but the psychological concepts in this film fit into the psychological part of our class.

At the beginning of this movie I originally thought it would be mostly based on court hearings and some sort of gang, which Marty Vail would help to keep out of jail using different things we have learned in this chapter. Early in the movie however there was an interesting twist where the Grand Arch Bishop was murdered in his home, and Aaron was caught fleeing from the scene of the crime covered in blood. This brought a whole new aspect into the movie that I did not see coming.

When Vail saw Aaron get captured on TV he quickly made the decision that he wanted to represent Aaron and be his defense attorney. At first when Vail talked to Aaron in his jail cell I was expecting him to have some sort of mental problems, based on his extreme shyness and speech problem. I also thought their might have been some mental problems that associated the fact that he had no parents and was homeless for a period of time.

When Vail first went to see Aaron, he told Aaron that he would represent him for free, or he could be represented by the court appointed public defender, which he said would most likely mean Aaron would be charged with the murder and sentenced to death. I thought it was interesting that Vail would be willing to take Aaron's case for free, because I am sure that usually never happens in real life. Vail makes a point to Aaron not to talk to anyone at all except for him, unless he says so.

Next Vail met with his defense team which would help him to build up his defense case for Aaron. When Vail first told his team about the information he had collected on the case they thought that he was guilty and they should plead guilty. Vail on the other hand did a good job of continuously saying he was alleged to have murdered the Bishop. Vail immediately told his team to find a psychiatrist, "and not the kind that lives in the witness box either". I thought that was an interesting statement, because we have learned about the experts that are basically paid advocates for the case, but Vail wanted to get a psychiatrist to show the truth about Aaron.

It was interesting to me how Vail's plan was to have Aaron plead the fifth until a psychological evaluation could be completed. I figured he would have tried to plead insanity, or incompetency to stand trial. However, the prosecution told him that they would have destroyed his insanity plea, so it was probably a good decision for him to not plead insanity.

Aaron met with the psychiatrist for a total of around 60 hours before she was called to testify in the trial. This amount of time gave her plenty of time to learn more about Aaron. While she was talking to him and ask him questions about his girlfriend, he began to get a headache. He appeared to get very irritated and then he changed. His personality had changed from Aaron, the innocent boy, to Roy, the violent murder. This gave the psychiatrist the observation that Aaron suffered from multiple personality disorder.

While the psychiatrist was meeting with Aaron, Vail was attempting to find Alex, another altar boy that Vail believes could have been involved in the murder. Alex shared with Vail that there was a porno the Bishop had filmed of Aaron, his girlfriend, and Alex. When Vail found this tape he was furious, and no longer believed that Aaron was telling him the truth.

Now this is where Aaron's multiple personality disorder got interesting because, while Vail was yelling at Aaron he unleashed Roy, who began beating up Vail, making him realize that Aaron did not commit the murder, but in fact it was Roy.

Now that Vail had this new evidence (the porno) he wanted someway to get it included into the trial, but he would not be able to do it mid trial, for it would be inadmissible evidence. He ended up getting it into court through the prosecution.

The court hearing contained a number of different things we have learned about in this class. One thing I was surprised we were not shown was the jury selection, because we have learned how important the jury selection is in the court process. We did however see a lot of interesting things that happened throughout the trial. One Thing that interested me was the judge. She appeared to believe before the trial even began that Aaron was guilty, because it seemed like she kept allowing the prosecution to do whatever it wanted, while objecting to the defense. While this was happening repeatedly Vail made a point that it is innocent until proven guilty not the other way around.

When the psychiatrist was called up to the stand there was a lot of interesting things that happened. First of all the expert witness appeared to be answering the questions in order to help the defense, which in my opinion is how it should have worked because Aaron seemed to be insane. The problem with this was that she was indeed attempting to make Aaron seem insane so the jury would not find him guilty and sentence him to death.

The most interesting part of this movie was when the prosecution was asking Aaron questions and basically saying he was guilty of the murder. Roy gained control and grabbed the attorney by the neck. This obviously showed the whole courtroom that Aaron was in fact insane. After he was restrained, Vail, the prosecution and the judge met in private where the judge said there could be a mistrial or Aaron could be found insane and sentenced to serve in a mental hospital. The prosecution allowed him to be sent to the mental hospital.

Throughout the movie I continually believed that Aaron was innocent. At the end of the movie when Vail went to talk to Aaron for the last time to let him know that he was being sent to a mental hospital instead of to death row, Vail found out the truth about Aaron. He had been faking his symptoms the whole time in order to win the case. I did not see that unexpected twist coming and neither did Vail.

Terms: judge, jury, defense, prosecution, attorney, evidence, plea, fifth amendment, verdict, incompetence, insanity, multi-personality disorder, inadmissible evidence, and expert witness.

I watched the 1997 version of Primal Feat starring Edward Norton and Richard Gere. Edward Norton’s performance in the film was remarkable because of his ability to fake the Multiple Personality disorder so well. Richard Gere also did an excellent job as the lawyer because at time he showed his ignorance in dealing with Aaron, but the audience understands his knowledge of the law.
This particular film did not deal with juries as much as it dealt with representing a client during a long legal process. Richard Gere’s ego was magnified when playing Martin Vale because he categorized himself as a hot-shot lawyer and took Aaron’s case pro-bono as a means of upping his reputation and credibility. One scene helped explain this to the audience, when a reporter and Vale meet in a bar to discuss a possible article being written on the lawyer, Vale, after having a few drinks, admitted he doesn’t take cases for the money, although that is an added perk as a lawyer, but rather takes cases because he has so much confidence in his ability in his skills that he knows he cannot possibly lose. He appears in over his head when he cannot coax any sort of relevant information from his client because of an apparent stutter and nervous tension experienced when talking about the killing. Frances McDormand played the part of the hired psychiatrist tasked with figuring out why Aaron supposedly blacks out at odd times. She treads lightly at first, but ultimately has to proceed urgently because the defense is losing the case. McDormand asks Aaron about his girlfriend Linda and we see the first glimpses of the alleged multiple-personality disorder. When angered or flustered, Aaron turns into his alter-ego Roy who is the exact opposite of Aaron. Roy is aggressive, speaks well and clearly, and isn’t afraid to use anger or violence to get his point across. Vale sees this alternate state of Aaron and blames Roy for killing the priest, although they are the same person.
Elements and themes of Chapter seven of our Minds on Trial book are present in the film. The first example would be the hiring of an outside source, the psychiatrist, attempting to figure out the reasoning behind the black outs. As either the prosecution or the defense you are able to summon an expert to take the stand as a witness in order to shed some light on the trial. According to the document on http://www.wisspd.org/htm/ATPracGuides/Experts/ExpertGuidelines.pdf, which was used a source for one of our earlier blog posts, a psychiatrist costs anywhere from 125-200 dollars per hour to speak with a client and gather any information possible on the case. The psychiatrist in Primal Fear was being used to explain the mysterious black outs, but once no further information could be gathered from Aaron, she was mainly used as bait for the prosecution. Vale understood that he had very little going for him in the case, and it was also too late to change to an insanity plea, so he had the psychiatrist take the stand and be cross-examined by the prosecution in hopes of seeing Roy’s personality state emerge. His plan worked, but almost at the cost of the prosecuting attorney getting her neck snapped.
Richard Gere playing Martin Vale had many memorable quotes in the film that can be compared to many of our lecture notes and textbook readings. The first quote was during the bar scene when he was being interview by the reporter. He was asked a question as to how he can represent a client if he knows they are guilty. His answer was simple; he first told the reporter that the legal system assumes that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, belief in a just world. He continues by saying he believes in the genuine goodness of people, that not all crimes are committed by bad people and that some very, very good people do some bad things. Basically, whether or not his client is innocent or guilty is beside the point. The legal system offers Vale a chance to represent the hell out of client until the trial is complete. That is how he represented Aaron/Roy. Since he had so little wiggle room and wasn’t able to get any relevant information out of his client, he was forced to use a reverse psychology tactic. This is shown in the scene where he gives the videotape over to the prosecuting attorney, knowing that she will use the tape as evidence.
Terms used: pro bono, belief in a just world, cross-examination, expert witness, insanity plea, multiple personality disorder

Primal Fear was a great movie, but left me really mad at the end. Even though Aaron (or Roy if you wish) didn’t claim to have multiple personality at the end of the movie and was said to have faked the whole thing I still believe that he had a psychological problem. No normal person would fake a disorder, kill someone, and take advantage of someone who is trying to help you. That is just not right. Although this is the first time I had ever watched this movie before, but it held my attention the whole time.
A few different things that were said in the movie that sparked my attention of topics we have covered throughout class were: the insanity defense, juries, crime scenes, and defense and prosecution to name a few.
To start with the insanity defense, the problem they had using this defense in the movie was that they didn’t find out that Aaron had what seemed to be multiple personality disorder until the trial had already started, Vail stated in the movie, “you can’t change a plea in the middle of a case, the judge won’t allow it.” In my eyes they could have also used competency to stand trial considering in the movie Aaron has a break down and attacks the prosecuting attorney after she questions him.
However, even if Aaron really had been viewed as insane at the beginning of the trial most people don’t use the insanity defense because of how often they are not successful. The textbook states that “even people who clearly suffer from severe mental illness may not qualify as “insane” using the legal definition of insanity (Costanzo & Krauss 2012).”
One interesting question that I thought of while I was watching the movie was why didn’t they test Aaron for psychological problems before his plea? I hate to be judgmental but he did come off, at least to me, as having some sort of social impairment. I just figured that if they could have found out sooner that he had these “spells” that they could have used the insanity defense sooner if that’s what would have helped them win the case. Even though they didn’t test Aaron at the beginning, they did bring in a nuero psychologist to question Aaron. I believe that this was the smartest and most helpful thing to the trial. This is how Vail finally found out about Aaron’s multiple personality disorder, and they finally felt that they had a chance and potentially winning the case.
As far as the jury goes, Vail also stated in the movie when he was talking to the prosecuting attorney, Janet, that is only takes 1 juror, one person who thinks that Aaron is innocent and the prosecution would lose the case. We read about this in our textbook and how important it is to bring everything you have to the table and make the jury believe that your side of the story is the correct one. He also jokes to the Janet not to use a certain word when she is in trial because it was classified as attorney jargon and that the jury wouldn’t understand what it meant and it might hurt her case. That is an example of how important it is to watch how to state everything to the juror in hopes that they understand, because like we learned in class, the jury can’t ask questions during the trial.
Vail mentions when he is interviewed at the beginning of the movie that the thing he believe in most is that everyone is proven innocent until proven guilty and he is in charge of showing that. Another thing that Vail mentions in his interview is that not all crimes are committed by bad people and that some very good people do very bad things. To me, this reminded me of the humanistic approach, especially Rogerian theory. Rogers believe that all people are initially good people and that they just get lost along the way.
Another aspect that I related to class reading was looking at crime scenes. Although we didn’t get to view in the movie so much them dissecting the crime scene and having forensic psychologist takes notes, we did see how much stealing property from the crime scene could change the trial. Vail stole what ended up being a sex tape from the Arch Bishops home. This sex tape led the prosecution to having alibi to why Aaron would want to kill the Bishop and it also showed how Aaron was used by the bishop to create sexual video tapes.
On last part of the movie that I was little shocked by was when Vail ended up chasing down Alex, the boy that they found in Aaron’s room while they were looking for evidence. I’m not sure if this actually takes place in real cases? And without a warrant for arrest, I am pretty sure the attorneys couldn’t make Alex come with them. I would be interested in asking about this in class…
Legal Terms: jargon, prosecution, defense, insanity, competency to stand trial, jury, multiple personality disorder, social impairment , forensic psychology

I have seen the movie before but I vaguely remember the psychological aspects of the movie so I watched the 1997 version of it. After watching it again and thinking about the aspects of psychology we have talked about in class, I found that this movie dealt directly with the abnormal side of psychology. This is because the defendant supposedly suffers from a multiple personality disorder and/or antisocial disorder. This movie also deals with a court case. Martin Vale defends Aaron to help advance his career and make himself look like a respectable lawyer. This movie also incorporates using a psychiatrist to help determine psychiatric problems.

I’ll start with the abnormal psychology aspect of the movie. Aaron, an altar boy, has been accused of murdering the archbishop. After the murder was reported, Aaron was found covered in the archbishop’s blood after running from the crime scene. The evidence against him was pretty strong, and Aaron couldn’t even give information because he only recalled being in the room at some point. This gives insight that he is either lying, or he has some sort of psychiatric problem. Like we talked in class, a defendant must retain sanity in order to help defend their own case. We don’t really know what’s going on with Aaron, but he is able to stand trial. This is all abnormal psych because this side of psychology relates directly with conditions in people’s brains that limit their functions or thinking. Aarons antisocial disorder and multiple personality disorder obstruct his memories, why he does the things he does, and he almost doesn’t know right from wrong because sometimes he’s a totally different person and holds no control over that side of himself.

This movie also has a classic court scene throughout it. Our last post was all about jury selection, and even though this movie didn’t show how the attorneys went the process of weeding out possible jurors, we can assume that they went through the long process. The movie also has a pretty accurate court room setting, in which the jury is on the side, the judges desk is up front, bystanders sit at the back, and the prosecutor and defendant’s desks were on the correct side. The court proceeding also followed the correct guidelines. It started with opening statements, which lead to calling up witnesses, cross examinations, and finally closing statements to try and persuade the jury one way or the other. I figured this movie would be more about the whole criminal court procedures, although it did show a pretty good representation of how a court proceeding would happen; it more focused on psychological aspects like Aaron’s state of mind. An expert witness (psychiatrist) was called to testify to help explain why Aaron blacks out and loses his sense of where he has been or what he was doing. The expert witness is used to help shed light on information that is difficult to understand for the jury and the judge. In one of our posts, we were given a link on the amount of money some attorneys should expect to spend on certain experts. Although Vale said he wasn’t doing this case for the money, we can assume the expert’s testimony didn’t come cheap. There was also tape evidence used in the trial, in which the archbishop had videotapes of Aaron and another altar boy committing sexual acts. This all had to be taken into account, including the fact that Aaron was sexually abused as a young child.

It isn’t until the end of movie that you find out Aaron had been faking his illness just to get out of trouble. It become apparent that his motive for killing is the archbishop making him perform on tape, and having his girlfriend make a tape.

Terms: abnormal psych, multiple personality disorder, antisocial disorder, lawyer, psychiatrist, crime scene, evidence, sanity, jury selection, prosecutor, defendant, opening statement, witness, cross examinations, closing statements, expert witness, videotape evidence, motive, sexual abuse

I thought that Primal Fear was an incredibly interesting movie and all the actors did an incredible job with their roles in said film. Going into watching this movie I thought that it was going to be primarily based off of court processions and things of that nature so I was not too excited about it. Marty Vail is a hotshot famous defense attorney who is known for being able to getting people off of their charges. When hearing about a young man named Aaron Stampler who was being charged for the murder of archbishop Rushman of Chicago. Aaron was an alter boy who was homeless and living on the streets. Once Marty Vail saw Aaron on television he quickly decided that he would like to be the individual who was his defense attorney. Aaron was presumed to be guilty because he was found running away from the crime scene covered in the archbishop’s blood, yet he did not remember what had happened. Being found with DNA evidence on you is an incredibly bad look; it makes you come off as guilty straight off the bat.

It came out that Aaron may have had a motive to kill archbishop Rushman, he had something incriminating against Aaron. Archbishop Rushman had a pornographic film that he had recorded of Aaron, another altar boy, and Linda (who Aaron said was his girlfriend) performing sexual acts with each other. Aaron had undergone abuse from his father while growing up and sexual abuse from archbishop Rushman.

Throughout the trial Aaron is talking to a psychiatrist, later on in one of these meetings Aaron was triggered and a second personality immerged named Roy. It became apparent that Aaron suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder. To Marty this means that he can use insanity as a defense. Since Aaron had said that he had no recollection of the crime, this could mean that Roy committed the crime and Aaron was not conscious whilst the crime was occurring. This also meant that Marty could call the psychiatrist to the stand and use said psychiatrist as an expert witness. As an expert witness the psychiatrist can testify to the fact that it was not Aaron who committed the horrendous act, but it was Roy.

I know that Dissociative Identity Disorder is said to be a result of extreme abuse, the individual dissociates and creates another personality, so the abuse is not happening to them but they are instead being protected by the personality they have created. Knowing this it is incredibly plausible that Roy may have snapped and murdered archbishop Rushman in order to protect Aaron from the abuse that is occurring. I was upset by the verdict because I was rooting for Aaron throughout the entire movie. Having a mental disorder should protect them from being put in prison for something that they did not necessarily do, even though it was Aaron whose body committed the murder. He was not present for it and have no recollection of it occurring. This should have protected him.

Terms: Dissociative identity disorder, trial, expert witness, defense attorney, DNA, evidence,

Primal Fear was a very interesting film. The reason that the film was interesting was the fact that it had to do with the use of expert testimony during a trial. The film starts off with the murder of the Bishop. The Bishop is getting changed and then is attacked by an unknown person. The next scene is Aaron (who is covered in blood from head to toe) running away from the scene of the crime. Aaron is eventually put into custody. This whole thing was covered by the news and one of the people who were watching the news was a hot shot defense attorney Marty. He is watching and decided that he would defend Aaron. This is the first part of the film where we see one of the aspects discussed in the book “Forensic and Legal Psychology.” This aspect is called the arrest. When Aaron was arrested, he was entering the system that the book talks about is the initial process before a defendant can enter the trial process. However, this is not the main aspect that I will be discussing in this paper. The first area that we see some sort of area of psychology in the movie is when Aaron talks about how ever since he was little, he had experienced blackouts, and spells that made him forget certain things. This is one of the first times for me that I thought to myself that there might be something wrong with him. Also, another thing that showed to me that he might have something wrong is that when Marty was interviewing him after he had been arrested, Aaron talked about how he basically just blacked out during the crime even though he was there. This for me would indicate that maybe there was something wrong with him and maybe he should be evaluated by a psychologist. After viewing the scene where Aarons says that he can’t remember anything I instantly thought that maybe they should bring in a person to try to use hypnosis on him. Even though this wasn’t mentioned in the film, hypnosis has been used in the past to help people remember very traumatic information that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to remember. The area of psychology that we do see in the movie is something called cognitive interview. The cognitive interview according to the book “Forensic and Legal Psychology is the step-by-step procedure designed to relax the witness and to mentally reinstate the context surrounding the crime. We see this when the psychologist is introducing herself to Aaron and trying to make him comfortable during the interview. She tells him that she has to record this and that she might be called in court. The thing is that she tried to make Aaron feel comfortable so he would be able to recall what actually happened during the murder. In fact, the psychologist is able to observe him so much; she actually starts to think that there might be something wrong with Aaron, and that she believed that Aaron couldn’t have done the crime. The conclusion that the psychologist comes up with is that Aaron has multi-personality disorder. The multi-personality disorder basically means that because Aaron was abused as a child by his father (as well as the Bishop as we learn later in the film) that Aaron created another personality to deal with the abuse and pain to protect him from it. In the case of the movie, this other personality is Roy. Roy is a much different person compared to the stuttering Aaron who couldn’t hurt anything. Roy is actually mean and abusive and admitted to killing the preacher for making the boys and girls do what he did; so because of the traumatic experiences that they both experienced during the making of the porno (which the Bishop forced them to do) along with the abuse of him as a child from his father. The next area of psychology that we see in the movie is insanity. The definition of insanity according to the book “Forensic and Legal Psychology” is the legal concept referring to the criminal’s state of mind at the time of the crime was committed. To prove insanity in court, it is required that the insanity is caused by a mental illness, and the defendant should therefore not be punished, but instead be placed under psychiatric care. Even though Marty couldn’t use the plea of insanity in the case of Aaron, it was shown in the film that Aaron wasn’t guilty of the crime because of the fact that Roy had taken over and had done it. Aaron had no idea what was going on and couldn’t control his actions during the murder and therefore it was argued that Aaron shouldn’t be held responsible for the murder and sent to death row, rather, he should be sent to get the medical care that he needs. This insanity is seen throughout the movie in the case of when Aaron has an episode during an interview where he says “How the FUCK SHOULD I KNOW.” This, if you have watched the movie, isn’t a response that you would think that Aaron would say. In fact, after Aaron had said that he couldn’t remember what he had said. Also, before he had responded to this he was being pressured by the psychologist to give a response. In fact, the only time that we see Roy in the film is when Aaron is being pressured into a corner and he has no other place to go. Roy was created so that Aaron could deal with the pressure. This also relates back to what the psychologist said for the reason of why Aaron created this other personality. Another area of psychology that we see in the film is when after Aaron/Roy has his episode in court the judge decides to change the trail from a jury trial to a bench trial. This basically means that the judge will be the one to make the decision on the case. Another area of psychology that we see in the movie is the use of experts in the trial. I am for one skeptical of experts; in fact, in the movie it talks about how the psychologist wasn’t even a specialist in the area of multi-personality disorder. However, the expert was used to introduce the fact that Aaron did have a problem and that there was no way that Aaron could have actually committed the crime. In fact, it was Roy who had committed the crime and that Aaron should be treated for a mental illness rather than being put to death. Another area of psychology that we see in the movie is the psychology of the jury trial. When the prosecutor was arguing against the possibility of Aaron having another personality, she actually made it seem so farfetched and acted as though she couldn’t understand how this could be possible. She wasn’t doing this for the fact that she was actually confused, she was doing it so that she could confess the jury that this idea was so farfetched, in fact, it probably actually worked. Some jurors have their set values and goals that could actually cause them to be biased. This is probably why the judge ended up moving the trial from a jury trial to a bench trial. One of the final areas of psychology that we see in the film is that Aaron could have had multi mental issues such as thought disorder as well as well as delusions. The reason that I bring these up is because of the fact that Aaron said that he saw a third person when he was in the room when the Bishop was being murdered. The final area that we see psychology in the movie is the competence to stand trial. Based on the information said, it would seem that Aaron is competent to stand trial, however, Roy is questionable. However, because they are both the same person it makes it very interesting. Overall it was a very interesting film.
Terms: thought disorder, delusions, experts, bench trial, insanity, multi-personality, cognitive interview, hypnosis, psychologist

This movie contained a lot of what we talked about in class throughout the semester. The movie starts out with Marty the famous defense attorney, and how he just cut a deal with the DA on another one of his clients for a million five and he has to leave town. It is easy to say that Marty is a good lawyer. The movie continues on to the next crime, the murder of the Archbishop. They think they caught the suspect on the run and his name was Aaron Stampler.

Aaron was immediately arrested and put in prison; Marty saw the footage on the news and immediately went to take the case. He went to the prison and told Aaron that he would take the case pro-bono because he knew that Aaron did not have any money. The prosecution wanted to get him for murder in the first degree and sentenced to the death penalty. During the opening statements Marty told Aaron to plead the 5th, so he did not have to say innocent or guilty, because he was questioning his competency to stand trial. He thought that Aaron was confused about what had happened with the brutality of the murder. There was a psych evaluation being done on amnesia and whether or not Aaron could remember what happened at the Archbishops house. Aaron kept saying that he had lost time or blacked out during certain periods of time so he couldn’t remember anything.

Marty asked leading questions to Aaron in saying could there have been a third person? Or could the third person have killed the Archbishop? Leading Aaron to believe that there could have been another person hence them looking around for the other altar boys of the Archbishop. Aaron tells Marty that he saw a shadow over the Archbishops body, but then he loses time. Marty is using confirmation bias; he is only looking for things in the case to prove that there was another person at the crime scene that killed the Archbishop.

There were many witnesses called to the stand, some that were questionable, but both sides examined and cross-examined these witnesses. The one questionable piece of evidence that was brought to court was the videotape of the Archbishop having Aaron and another altar boy perform sexual acts with Linda, the girl that Aaron claims to be his girlfriend. This could be seen as planting evidence because he technically wasn’t even supposed to have it in his possession to begin with.

One witness that was brought to the stand was Marty’s neuropsychologist that had been working with Aaron for about 60 hours. They are trying to follow along with the original plea of the third person and to not plea insanity, which Marty would be in contempt of court and barred. The psychologist states that Aaron suffers from multiple personality disorder that could explain for his loss of time and the reason that he was experiencing the memory loss. Aaron had a bad childhood with an abusive father and a mother who died, not to mention the acts that Aaron was forced to perform for the Archbishop. When Aaron’s personality was suppressed Roy the other side of him would come out and show his true colors. Roy was an aggressive, rude, and nasty person where Aaron was sweet, kind, and thoughtful. These clearly did not mesh with each other.

The neuropsychologist was asked questions by the prosecution on whether she was some sort of expert in the area of multiple personality disorder, the prosecution was trying to discredit her and make it seem that she did not really know what she was talking about not being a proper expert in the field. After the neuropsychologist the defense decided to bring Aaron on the stand to rile him up a bit. Marty first asked the questions and tried to get him angry so that “Roy” would show his face and the courtroom would see the other side of Aaron. The defense asked the questions and then the prosecution. She was getting him angrier and angrier until finally he flipped and grabbed her. The courtroom was in shock that what they were saying was true. In the meeting with the judge the opportunity to plead insanity I believe was recognized and Aaron/Roy would receive the proper treatment that he needed instead of receiving the death penalty.

We later find out in the meeting after case closed, that Aaron was not Aaron at all and that Roy was the real criminal and the real person being put on trial in this situation. Roy was just a good actor and he even fooled his attorney. He would be able to go on with life because he could act the way he did and plead insanity or that he lost time when it was really him that committed it full and knowingly. This just goes to show that this is why the insanity plea is not as credible and very hard to prove, but it does happen and it does get the wrong people off scot-free.

Terms: defense attorney, prosecution, pro-bono, competency to stand trial, opening statements, amnesia, psych evaluation, leading questions, confirmation bias, cross-examined, witness, evidence, neuropsychologist, contempt, insanity plea, multiple personality disorder, and expert.

Primal Fear was an interesting movie for several reasons. It showed a lot of good scenes of what happens in a courtroom as well as diving into a lot of psychological issues. Anyhow Marty is a defense attorney for the city of Chicago. He is one of those lawyers who likes to look really good to the public and tries to get his clients off on any technicality he can. It is later revealed he actually does this because he believes everyone has good in them and so he tries to get them off so they can make something better of themselves. But we start the movie off watching the archbishop being killed by an unknown assailant. Shortly later there is a t.v. sequence that shows a kid running from the cops covered in blood. Marty sees all this and after the suspect is captured Marty goes to him and becomes his Lawyer Pro Bono(free). Aaron the kid who was caught tells Marty and the police that he didn’t do it. According to him there was a 3rd person in the room with them however due to a blackout he wasn’t able to see who it was. Apparently Aaron has these blackouts quite often. At the same time this is going on Marty’s former lover and partner is going to be the prosecutor for this crime. Legally it looks like this crime is a pretty obvious win for the prosecution as everything places Aaron at the crime with the weapon. However as Marty points out quite often is Aaron had no reason at all to kill the archbishop. So the first time they go to court Marty issues a pleading of the fifth until they can get a psych evaluation done. One thing that confuses me is they still continue to go to court even though this psych counsel is ongoing. I bring this up because it will eventually make a confusing point in the story. But ill bring that up in a bit. So one of Vail’s (marty) coworkers go to where Aaron was staying so they can look around and see if they can find anything interesting. In this time he is attacked by who is later identified as another altar boy. They eventually track the altar boy down again who tells them that the archbishop was sexually abusing the altar boys and girls specifically Linda a girl who is now missing. Knowing this would be a motive and horrible to his case Vail goes into the archbishops office and finds the tape of the sexual acts. He sends it to the prosecutor knowing that she would show it in court and that her boss would get angry as it showed his dealings with the archbishop. Vail then goes to confront Aaron who when pushed a little turns into “roy” a very angry foulmouthed version of aaron. Roy admits to having killed the archbishop and talks to vail about all the sexual stuff that went on. The psychiatrist presiding over Aaron realizes that he suffers from multiple personality disorder. However going back to the issue I raised earlier it is now too late to plea an insanity defense. In this meantime Vail is searching for linda and he finds her corpse. Now when he goes back to court he is trying to drop hints that he is insane, and about all the stuff he finds. During a particularly rough cross examination Roy emerges and attempts to hurt Janet the prosecutor. Eventually he is subdued and he is found not guilty due to reasons of insanity. Eventually it is revealed that Aaron actually made up his innocent persona of Aaron and was in fact Roy. He admits to having killed the archbishop and linda and made it seem he was insane so he wouldn’t get the death penalty.
So this movie is overly rich in psychological and legal terms. First I think it shows a great job of how court proceedings can go. One thing it discusses is that whole innocent until proven guilty concept that our society has seemed to forgotten. We all know now its you are guilty until proven innocent. Which is a shame that we go about that way now. But its also interesting to see that Vail is a defense attorney and one who doesn’t actually care if you did it or not. If he can prove that your not guilty he will. Which is what every defense attorney would do, since that’s their job. It would be a really hard thing to do however. Next is the insanity plea that could have been entered had a proper psych evaluation been done. However it is apparent that it was an ongoing psych evaluation and if that’s the actual law why wouldn’t they have gotten that done before proceeding to trial. Another thing usually murder trials or any other form of trial takes years of processing to actually get them to trial. However, because it was such a high profile case they made an “exception” and proceeded very quickly which I believe is wrong as well. In a court setting it shouldn’t matter who or what you are outside of it and should proceed like every other case. Because to a family your case is the most important one and when one drags out for multiple years it just hurts the family more.This movie also very accurately portrays what happens in a courtroom as far as showing what a direct and cross examination goes. It shows how to put in evidence and talks about from the defense side how they have to prove Beyond a reasonable doubt that Aaron was guilty. That’s why Vail asks multiple times Is it possible. That provides an inch of doubt that the person was innocent then they have to decree not guilty. Now going into the psychological issues. One is the memory issues that Aaron seems to suffer due to his “blackouts”. It is later revealed that he gets those blackouts due to his Multiple personality disorder in which he switches over to Roy. All of this was later discovered to have been false however the depiction of what would happen if fairly accurate. Also it talks a lot about the psychological damage of having been sexually abused especially by someone you would find as a fatherly figure.
So overall it was a very interesting movie that discusses a lot of different legal and psychological things we have talked about. Memory issues, psychological issues, cross/direct examinations, etc.

This movie was extremely interesting to watch as it had many concepts from the book. I have always wondered how someone is able to be a defense attorney, especially if you know the person is guilty. In the case of the boy the defense did not think he was guilty and they did everything in their power to make sure he was not convicted. In the end the attorney finds out his client lied to him and that he was guilty. This caused the attorney to be distraught right away, as he realized that a killer was going to be on the loose once he clears evaluations from the mental health institute. There were a lot of psychological and legal aspects presented in this movie. I also noticed some flaws that would not happen in a real case.

I was surprised that forensic evidence was not a key part in the prosecution’s case. Typically this is what proves who was at the scene of the crime, and essentially who is guilty. According to the text, forensic identification is the process of linking a piece of physical trace evidence to an individual. The only piece of trace evidence was the video tape. I don’t think this piece of evidence should have been allowed in the court because it was tampered with by the defense. Also I would have thought that the police would have been with the defense attorney when he went into the crime scene.

It was fascinating to watch the suspect switch back and forth from himself to Roy. By the boy showing he had multiple personality disorder, even though he didn’t, it allowed the defense to get an insanity plea once Roy appeared in court. If the defense would have known that the boy had multiple personality disorder they would have changed their plea from not guilty to insanity or incompetent. According to the text defendants tend to have a history of treatment for mental illness, to show obvious symptoms of current mental illness, to have a history of drug abuse, and to be charged with a less serious crime. Overall the boy appeared to suffer from the disorder based on his previous history of abuse. They also would have examined his mental state at the time of the crime as well as at the time of the trial. Competency to stand trial is the ability to participate adequately in criminal proceeding s and to aid in one’s own defense at the time of the trial. Apparently we did not see this happen as Andrew took the stand even though he appeared to be very sick. While insanity refers to the mental state at the time of the crime, and due to a mental illness they are not morally responsible for the crime and should not be punished. If these two concepts would have been examined the case probably would have been handled differently. Even though the boy admitted he did not have the disorder in the end, I think he had something, or he was just a sick individual. I would think it would be challenging to act like two different people. What the boy did is known as malingering, which is intentionally faking a mental illness or disability motivated by an external incentive. The incentive in this case was that he would rather go to a mental health hospital for treatment for a couple months than receive the death penalty; he basically wanted to avoid a negative outcome. I think it is fair to assume that it is very difficult to fake a mental illness due to the fact that we have several testing techniques and different procedures to go through to prove. As we learned in class it is difficult for and individual to obtain an insanity plea.

A clinical psychologist was brought in to examine the mental health of the boy and she quickly learned that he was sick. During court she had stated he had the disorder and that Roy committed the crime, not Andrew. Therefore she thought he should not be punished for a crime his alter personality committed. She was the expert witness for the defense, and basically the only witness that was able to make a huge difference in the case other than Andrew. Expert witnesses appear in court and their testimony is based on specialized knowledge, training, or expertise. I was surprised that even the psychologist was unable to see that Andrew did not have multiple personality disorder.

Overall I thought this movie was very interesting to watch from the point of view of this class. I wonder how many individuals attempt to get an insanity plea when they are not actually sick. And I also wonder how defense attorneys are able to not feel guilty for standing up and winning a case for an individual who committed the crime. This movie expressed several psychological and legal characteristic.

Terms: forensic evidence, defense attorney, prosecution, trace evidence, multiple personality disorder, incompetent, incentive, malingering, expert witness, clinical psychologists, insanity, competency to stand trial.

The movie Primal Fear is great movie that shows ins and outs of how lawyers figure out different angles to win the case. I really enjoyed this movie and have always been a big fan of Richard Gere, he had been in some excellent movies and this one is just as good as the other ones. This one movie had more twists and turns throughout the entire movie then I thought were going to happen. I found many connections between the book and the movie, and it gives great examples of what lawyers do either to win or prove their case.
Throughout this movie we get great insights on how a defense lawyer works for his clients and how far they are willing go to win their case. From the beginning we Mr. Vail take the case for free away from his usual cases that he’s paid for. It’s a high profile case and Mr. Vail meets the offender and doesn’t care if he did it or not, he wants the case to get his name in the papers more. Then further on in the case we see Mr. Vail truly believe that the defendant didn’t commit the murder. At the start of the trial Mr. Vail does everything possible to prove that there was a third person in the room. For every person called to the stand to prove that the defendant committed murder Mr. Vail cross examined by asking questions that there could have been a third person. He was different line of questioning and angle to put the idea in the minds of the jury that it’s possible that there could have been somebody else there. He even admits in the beginning of the movie that all he has to do is convince the twelve of the jury that his client is innocent. As a lawyer he wants the jury to be fair, think clearly, and consider all sides of the case. He tried to eliminate pictures of the sense because they could influence the jury to believe the defendant. Mr. Vail said that many people don’t like defense lawyer because they are sitting next a monster and they automatically believe that person is guilty. Many juries go into court believe the person is already guilty either by their own belief or by media influence.
In chapter eight we read about how a defendant must be prove competent to stand trial and Mr. Vail tried to prove to the judge that he needs to test his client first. But we see that Stampler says he knows what’s going on and is working with his lawyer. He knows what kind of punishments that could result of him being found guilty. A man that would kill somebody is such a horrible manner could have some sort of psychological disorder. Mr. Vail found a professional to interview and work with Stampler and possible find out reason for the murder. One thing the professional didn’t expect find was that Stampler had Multiple personality disorder brought on by high levels of stress and abuse throughout his life. Once Mr. Vail found this out he was faced with a major problem because he could change his defense in the middle of trial. In our reading it said that a plea of insanity was extremely hard to prove and Mr. Vail admitted that as well. This movie showed how a lawyer must come up with different angles to prove his point. Mr. Vail had to show to the court that high stressful situations and a history of abuse and lead his client to have a split personality. The two lawyer in the movie almost seemed to be playing a chess game, each trying to predict what the other is doing.
A major surprise in this movie was when we find out that Stampler is faking his illness to get am easier punishment. In chapter eight this is known as malingering and Stampler does a great job of faking his psychological illness and even gets a professional to believe that he is mentally ill. In the movie the professional does a series of interviews like the SIRS and this doesn’t help detect if Stampler is faking or not.
From the Minds on Trial talked about experts giving testimony to help either side of the courts. Mr. Vail calls the doctor that has been interviewing Stampler to try and show that his client has a history of abuse and is possible mentally ill. Even though they can’t change their plea to insanity, he still tries to prove with the professional that Stampler is sick. Then on cross examination the prosecution tried to discredit the doctor. Showing that the doctor isn’t valid professional in psychologically and she can’t prove that Stampler has a multiple personality disorder.
Key Terms: experts, SIRS, Multiple Personality Disorder, malingering.

Primal Fear is a movie that I have seen in the past, but it had been a while so I was excited to get to see it again. There were a lot of different aspects from our text book that can definitely be linked to the movie. The most prominent chapter from our book that related to the film was the chapter on insanity. When Vail first takes the case, he seems very confident that Stampler committed the horrific crime that he was being accused of because he was at the scene and covered in blood. The story that Stampler is telling him just doesn’t add up and he thinks he is catching him in a lie. This leads him to bring in a psychologist in order to try and get him off on an insanity plea, which is the hardest kind of plea there is to successfully get. He eventually does bring in a psychiatrist to interview him and try and find anything that could help get the insanity plea. However, after spending more time with Stampler, Vail begins to really believe that he is innocent but is unsure as to how he could have been there covered in the victim’s blood while claiming to not remember what happened. While Vail is trying to figure out how his client could possibly be innocent like he believes, the psychiatrist that was hired begins discovering a supposed serious mental illness that Stampler shows strong symptoms of that could potentially explain his blackout and his actions. The psychiatrist diagnoses Stampler with multiple personality disorder, and claims that his other personality named “Roy” is really responsible for the killing. This all adds up to Vail because it explains how Stampler would not have been able to remember the murder, simply because it wasn’t really “him” that committed the crime; it was his split personality that was a lot more dangerous and capable of such an act. Because Vail was so sure that his client didn’t commit the crime but wasn’t sure what the circumstances were, he overlooked the insanity plea was too late in regards to filing the plea on his clients behalf. Even though we go on to find out that Stampler was faking the illness the entire time (and may I add that Edward Norton did a fantastic job portraying him!), if he was really suffering from such a serious mental disorder then I feel that the insanity plea would be necessary in such a case if the defense were able to effectively prove that their client suffered from the illness. People who are debilitated by such illnesses are in serious need of mental help, not prison. Prison would not do them any good simply because an environment like that would only make them worse, and would probably turn them into even worse criminals than they were when they entered. For something like multiple personality disorder specifically, mental help is necessary as soon as possible because if they were capable of committing a murder while switching personalities, then who knows what else they may be capable of as well. If they are able to get the proper help and stay up on their treatments, then they can more than likely be a benefit to society. In regards to the trial portrayed during the film, I think the correct decision was made in the end in terms of getting the defendant mental help and not a prison sentence (once again, even though it was later revealed that he was lying; it fits for someone who really had the illness and all the circumstances that the film portrayed).
Eyewitness memory also played a role in the film. Aaron Stampler was asked over and over by Vail about what happened at the crime scene. Stampler was able to tell him that he was there and that he remembered seeing a third person in the room with them, but ended up blacking out and doesn’t recall why he was covered in blood or what happened to the victim. If you are interviewing or interrogating a witness to a crime and they claim to have blacked out for some reason or another, then you have a serious issue. This would render you unable to get crucial details about the crime from someone who was there and was supposed to have witness what happened first hand. If this person can’t tell you details, then who else would be able to do that for you? Not a good situation for police or an attorney trying to represent someone who maintains their innocence but can’t actually tell you if they committed the crime or not because they don’t remember.
Vail was also faced with using his skills of lie detection on a regular basis while interviewing Stampler. At the beginning of the film, Vail was very sure that he knew Stampler was lying about the whole ordeal (and he should have stuck with that instinct because he was indeed lying). But after he started to believe his story, Vail had to constantly change his approach while talking to Stampler because he was lying or failing to inform him of certain things related to the case. It almost seemed like Vail was expecting Stampler to lie or leave important details out every time he would go and talk to him. I definitely think that his lie detection skills were on high alert while working this case. All of the misunderstandings and lying is probably what caused so much confusion for Vail and why he was unable to pick up on the MPD until he was ultimately faced with it in the interview room when Stampler “switched personalities” and become violent. When it comes down to it, there was lots and lots of lying going on in this film and Vail had to always be on his game in regards to lie detection.
In terms of psychology alone, clinical psychology played an enormous role in the film. The entire file revolved around the mental issues that Stampler supposedly had and trying to diagnose it from the psychiatrist’s point of view. Not only was Stampler pretending to have a mental illness that people really believed to be an issue and that would cause serious issues for someone who really had it, but he was clearly a sociopath to have been able to commit the crime he did and then put on such a show about the MPD. So there was a pretend mental illness and a real mental illness involved. After learning that he was lying about the whole thing, the characteristics of sociopath really started to come out. He took an innocent man’s life and had no remorse about it. But he also lied to his attorney and then admitted to him that he was lying the entire time and that he really was a cold blooded killer, not even caring what kind of effect that would have on Vail. As an attorney, I can’t imagine anything worse that getting someone off for something like that when you really believed in their innocence, and then finding out that they were lying to you the whole time and will probably kill again because you got them off. I just thought it was interesting that the movie revolved around a mentally ill person PRETENDING to be mentally ill. Psychology of personality was also represented by the fake multiple personality disorder portrayed by Stampler. If someone really has this disorder, then these issues with their personality are what make up their mental disorder. I also thought that there were a lot of different strong personalities in the film as a whole. Almost always with prosecuting and defense attorneys you are going to find who conflicting personalities while in the court room simply because they are fighting for different things. I personally think that it takes two different personality types to be a defense attorney versus a prosecuting attorney. You are required to do much different things in those jobs and the way you view cases has to be different as well. You could really see the conflicting personalities in the film with Vail and the female prosecutor. They apparently were romantically involved, but you could definitely see the differences in their actions and their views on law.

Terms: clinical psychology, psychology of personality, lie detection, insanity, insanity plea, eyewitness identification, interrogation, prosecution, defense, multiple personality disorder

Primal fear plays on several aspects of the legal system and how closely it is related to Psychology. I believe that the area of social psychology is seen throughout this entire movie. Aaron/Roy does an amazing job picking up on the cues of others and using his knowledge to act a certain way to gain sympathy from those around him. He appears to be a kind hearted boy with a speech impediment. He is polite, soft spoken and the stutter he has makes him almost seem simple minded. These three characteristics, among other things such as facial expressions, body language and lack of eye contact, were made up to manipulate the jury into believing he was incapable of such a brutal crime. Aaron/Roy wasn’t the only one to use psychology to their advantage.
Marty knew that the jury was only going to look for evidence that confirmed what they already believed, Aaron/Roy killed the Archbishop. This is actually a social psychology phenomenon called expectation confirmation. (We just went over this in my Social Psych class, very convenient.) This phenomenon says the humans, by nature, seem to only want to look for evidence that confirms our pre-existing beliefs and we tend to ignore other unexpected characteristics. With this knowledge, Marty had to change the jury’s view of Aaron/Roy’s character. He delves into his client’s background and finds a weak point in his life, the alleged abuse he suffered by his father. Also, Marty stresses that Aaron had no motive to actually kill the Archbishop. Marty then brings in a psychologist to assess the mental state of Aaron/Roy.
She finds that his traumatic past has caused him to create an alternate personality, Roy. Creating this other identity and not being able to remember when he shifts to this place indicated that Aaron/Ray had dissociative identity disorder (DID), aka multiple personality disorder. Marty played up this because it was Aaron Stampler that was on trial and not Roy. Aaron was actually not guilty while Roy was, even though they were technically in the same body they are not the same person. Also, how could Aaron be held accountable for something that he was unable to remember.
Along side of the psychology in this movie there were also some questionable acts that could be considered illegal. The main illegal act in this movie, besides the murder, was when Marty took the tape from the Archbishop’s room. He didn’t have documentation saying that he could search and take anything from the room and also he tampered with evidence at the crime scene. This evidence should have been thrown out in the courtroom because it was obtained illegally. It is obvious that the lines are blurred in this movie between right and wrong. By this time it is too late for Marty to have Aaron/Roy plea Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity.
Marty puts Aaron/Roy up on the stand to be cross-examined by the prosecutor. Marty knows that this will send Aaron/Roy over the edge to the jury can see that Aaron is actually suffering from DID. The prosecutor pushes him so hard that Roy attacks her. The case is eventually thrown out and Aaron/Roy will have a ‘Bench Trial’ and be sent to a mental institution. By the end of the movie we find out that Aaron/Roy is actually just Roy. Roy was actually malingering the entire time and had everyone fooled. Malingering is when a client fakes being mentally ill/incompetent. Once Marty figures this out it is too late for another trial. Because of Double Jeopardy Roy cannot stand trial for the same crime. He will be sent to a mental institution and will be let go instead of receiving the death penalty.

Terms: Legal System, Psychology, Social Psychology, Sympathy, Jury, Crime, Expectation Confirmation, Evidence, Motive, Psychologist, Mental State, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Multiple Personality Disorder, Crime Scene, Courtroom, Not Guilty By Reason Of Insanity, Prosecutor, Bench Trial, Malingering, Incompetent, Double Jeopardy, Death Penalty.

The first thing I noticed while watching the movie was when the police were collecting evidence at the scene of the arch bishop’s murder, there were no photos taken, and they moved the body almost right away. There was blood everywhere that would suggest a struggle of a rather severe kind, but because the entire room was carpeted it was difficult to tell what sort of blood patterns they were. If there were more blood on the walls, or if the floor had been tile or wood, it would have been easier to determine if blood splatter had been pre or post mortem. I also noticed that a mail man who saw the window break was the one who phoned it in to 911, I have to wonder if the dispatcher recognized the address or location of such a prominent public figure and asked leading questions that may have altered his memory or perception of the event.
I also find it interesting how Marty views his defense attorney job. He tells the journalist that he doesn’t know nor does he care about the guilt of the person he’s defending, he simply cares that he does the best job he can to defend that person. He also says that it’s important to listen to your client and take his story for what it’s worth until the facts of the case may prove it wrong.
The media also shows a horrible picture of Aaron running from the police before he was apprehended. The news covers the story extensively as the chase is happening, and in the following days as the case begins to enter the court. This could potentially cause the trial to be held in a different location because it would be impossible to find an impartial jury who had not seen or heard at least some thing about the facts of this case.
You also notice Marty’s attitude to the jury when he’s talking to the lady lawyer at the scene of the crime. He tells her not to use big words because half the jury won’t know what she’s talking about. This really plays into how the jury is selected and the true randomness of the jury pool. Because they simply call upon everyone in an area who would be considered the defendant’s peers, it is almost impossible to control for intelligence and for those who would be able to understand and interpret intricate details of a complicated case. The voir dire process is designed to at the very least find those who have heard basic legal terms before and have at least a rudimentary understanding of their value in a court room, but that could also lead to only including those who watch a lot of courtroom dramas or took a simple law class at some point during their school career.
It’s a great idea for Marty to hire a psychologist, but he makes a specific distinction between a “real” psychologist and “one that lives in a witness box”. The psychologist that he does hire agrees to do an evaluation, but she refuses to search for Marty’s version of the truth in Aaron’s mind. During the evaluation, it comes apparent that Aaron suffers from some sort of personality disorder, because it appears that whenever he goes through one of his spells and blacks out, he doesn’t actually pass out but he in fact adopts a separate personality. Aaron appears to have multiple personality disorder, and his other violent personality named Roy is the one who killed the Arch Deccan. Multiple personality disorder apparently has several big signs, as stated in the movie: abusive background, multiple black outs, and being ambidextrous. These are actual signs that someone may have a multiple personality disorder, however they aren’t conclusive signs. This sets up the perfect insanity defense, if they can convince the jury.
Due to the heavy burden of proof that is involved in a murder trial, beyond a reasonable doubt, I find it very smart that Marty isn’t trying to convince anyone that there was without a doubt a third person at the crime scene, he is however making sure that every single one of the prosecutions witnesses explicitly states that there is a possibility. Because if he can ensure that idea in the minds of the jury, then he can at least get Aaron’s sentence reduced or possibly get him off completely.
Woah! Talk about a turn of events at the end. Most people do not have the ability to fake a mental illness, and whenever they try usually their lawyer, or their psychiatrist or the jury/judge can see right through them, because at some point something’s got to give. The fact that Roy had the ability to so convincingly exhibit accurate traits of a complex personality disorder, implies high intelligence, attention to detail, and having studied the illness fairly closely.

Terms: police, evidence, blood patterns, pre or post mortem, leading questions, memory or perception, defense attorney, impartial jury, jury pool, voir dire, psychologist, evaluation, personality disorder, multiple personality disorder, insanity defense, burden of proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, prosecutions witnesses, sentence, mental illness

There were several interesting psychological principles that I saw within this movie. The first I saw was at the beginning of Aaron’s trial. The Prosecution was questioning an investigator who had been assigned to the case. Janet Venable held up the shoes for the investigator to recognize. She asked him to state whether the shoes contained evidence from the crime scene of the archbishop. He replied that the blood on the shoes matched the blood type as well as shared DNA characteristics with the victim’s DNA. This is the real process in which investigators and scientists go about “matching” evidence to people. It was really nice to see a movie mention the correct process about obtaining “matching” DNA and also to use the correct terms.
Another huge principle that relates to psychology was Defense attorney Martin wanted to get a mental evaluation of Aaron before the trial started. However, the Judge denied his request. During the trial however, Martin still made Aaron see a psychiatrist. Throughout the movie, viewers see that Aaron has another personality. Molly, the psychiatrist believes Aaron may have multiple personality disorder. Due to Martin scoffing Molly off, he encounters Roy (Aaron’s other personality) when he begins to yell at Aaron. However, due to being in the middle of the trial, Martin cannot plea Insanity. After careful thought and consideration, Martin puts Aaron on the stand. While he is in the witness box, Aaron begins to switch personalities from Aaron to Roy, showing everyone in the courtroom. Roy ends up attacking Prosecutor Janet. This leads the Judge to make the final decision about the charges. Aaron was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Martin visits Aaron in his jail cell after the trial is over and told him the final decision. Martin mentions that due to being found mentally insane, he will probably spend a few months in a mental institution and then be released back into society. However, this is untrue. Many people, who are found to be guilty by insanity, will spend the rest of their lives if not equal time they would do in prison, in a mental institution where they will lose some if not all of their rights. When Martin is about ready to leave, Aaron says to tell the prosecutor sorry about her injuries. Martin quickly returns to the cell after figuring out that what Aaron just said contradicted what he had said when Martin first entered the cell. Finally Aaron said there was no Aaron or Roy and that none of it mattered. I could not tell if Aaron had been malingering or if it was another personality of Aarons in which we had not encountered in the movie.
A smaller principle I noticed during the movie was when Martin and Janet were discussing why Martin left the DA’s office and started his own practice. Martin said he believed Aaron was not guilty. Janet responded with “I sleep great at night.” This relates to psychology because high stress cases can cause emotional, mental, and physical issues. This can be seen in defense attorneys. Attorneys may not know whether their client is guilty or not guilty of the crime the prosecution is trying to charge them with. If the defense wins the case and the attorney finds out they helped the perpetrator get away with their crime. However, if the prosecutors try their best they may feel better about putting away people they may deem guilty. This is not necessarily a good thing due to the amount of innocent people who spend time in prison because they were found guilty.
The last thing I noticed in the movie was the relationship between Martin, the Defense attorney, and Janet, the Prosecution. When Janet was first put on the case, she went to visit the crime scene and met Martin on her way out. When they talked, Janet shared her knowledge about the crime scene as well as the photos. This is consistent with how the real justice system works. However, as the movie continued on, Janet surprised Martin with a book whose reference number from the church library had been carved into the archbishop’s chest. The book was the scarlet letter. Due to not having any knowledge about the carving or the book, Martin was taken by surprise. This was frustrating to see the movie making progress in portraying how the justice system actually works, however, movies have to be suspenseful.
Keywords: Prosecution, Defense, DNA, mental evaluation, multiple personality disorder, insanity, witness, not guilty but mentally insane, malingering

Okay, this movie was just awesome. I’m so glad it was on our list for the semester, otherwise I probably never would have watched it. There were several concepts related to things we have read and discussed in this class; I will only talk about a few of them.

First, I’ll briefly discuss the term of pro bono. In Primal Fear, Marty took on the case pro bono. In his words, “You get all of my hard work and expertise for free.” Our textbook discusses this as a hot topic in the ethics of jury consulting. Marty did not use a jury consultant in the movie, but I think the topic is still relevant. Good attorneys make very good money, and are able to pay for very good help. Marty hired an expert witness, and was probably able to get a more experienced one than a weaker attorney would have been able to. The book talks about how wealthy law firms are able to hire the best jury consultants. And wealthy defendants have the advantage of hiring the best lawyers, who use these expert jury consultants because they can afford it. It seems that the scales of justice are tilted in favor of the rich. While it is true that some lawyers provide pro bono like Marty did, these services are only a small fraction of the cases taken on by consultants.

The next concept I will discuss is expert witnesses. Expert witnesses provide judges and jurors with technical or specialized knowledge that will help in the process of making legal decisions. Marty hired Dr. Arrington, a neuropsychologist, to evaluate his client for competency, and later testify in court. Expert witnesses are meant to be helpful the judge’s and juror’s decision of the verdict, which is exactly what Dr. Arrington’s intention was. However, we must be careful not to fully except expert testimonies just because they are an authority figure and an “expert.” Dr. Arrington’s field of expertise was neuropsychology, not forensic psychology or multiple personality disorders. This may have been why she was unable to detect that the client was faking his symptoms of a multiple personality disorder.

Dr. Arrington thoroughly interviewed the client, Aaron Stampler, and diagnosed him with an acute dissociative condition, specifically multiple personality disorder. Dissociative disorders are presumed to be caused by a common mechanism, dissociation, wish results in some aspects of cognition or experience being inaccessible consciously. Theorists consider these disorders to be an avoidance response that protects the person from consciously experiencing stressful events. We know Aaron was faking the symptoms, but he did a pretty darn good job of it. Supposing Aaron didn’t fake the symptoms, Dr. Arrington diagnosed him right on the money. For the rest of this paragraph, let’s just assume that Aaron really did have a dissociative disorder. Aaron’s past of physical and psychological abuse was the trigger for the dissociative disorder. Unconsciously engaging in dissociation is what protected him from the extreme stress of the abuse. High levels of stress hormones interfere with memory formation. Dr. Arrington used the term multiple personality disorder, which is the old term for what we now call dissociative identity disorder. This disorder is exactly what we saw in Aaron. It requires that a person has at least two separate personalities – different modes of being, thinking, feeling, and acting that exist independently or one another and that emerge at different times. Each determines the person’s nature and activities when it is in command. The primary personality may be totally unaware that the other personality exists and may have no memory of what the other personality does and experiences when it is in control. Aaron (the primary personality) had no idea that his other personality, Roy, existed, and had no memory of what Roy did or experienced. Usually the different personalities are very different from one another, even polar opposites. Aaron was quiet, shy, polite, submissive, and stuttered. Roy was bold, dominant, physical, and did not have a stutter. Aaron was left-handed while Roy was right-handed. One of the defining features is the inability to recall information experienced by one personality when a different personality is present. Aaron described these experiences as “blackouts” or “losing time.”

Marty was not aware of Aaron’s dissociative disorder until after the trial had already started. Although Marty could not change the plea mid trial, he did try to work in Aaron’s dissociative disorder to give the jury an idea of his insanity. Dr. Arrington said the following during her expert testimony: “He is not capable of murder, he is far too traumatized to express normal anger and frustration. He keeps his emotions repressed, which is why he created Roy, who is capable of such a crime.” If Aaron really did have dissociative disorder, he should have been found not guilty by reason of insanity. Marty stated, “Aaron is innocent; Roy is guilty.” Aaron was experiencing a dissociative experience during the murder of the Arch Bishop. His other personality, Roy, had emerged, and Aaron had no memory of the murder even happening. After Aaron attacked Janet during the trial, the judge decided to dismiss the jury in favor of a bench trial and a blind plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Insanity refers to the psychological state of the defendant at the time of the crime. Insanity means that a defendant lacked moral responsibility and culpability when they committed the crime, and therefore should not be held responsible for their actions, or be punished. BUT, as we found out, Aaron was faking the whole time and fooled everyone into believing he was insane at the time of the crime.

Terms: pro bono, jury, jury consultant, expert witness, neuropsychology, multiple personality disorder, dissociative disorder, cognition, dissociative identity disorder, insanity, not guilty by reason of insanity

I absolutely loved this movie, I have always been a fan of Edward Norton, but his performance in this movie was one of my favorites. Initially I struggled to see the connection between Martin Vail’s first client and Aaron (the altar boy charged with murder). This movie brings in several different areas of psychology. When Aaron was first captured by the police and questioned by his lawyer, he tells a story of someone else being in the room. He talks about his girlfriend and is a very shy, likeable person. Aaron’s baby face helps with looking innocent as well. One thing that bothered me within the justice portion of the movie is that everything went so fast, it seemed as if the defense had not prepared for the case or didn’t have enough time. I realize that there is a time limit, but when it comes to higher profile cases I always figured that they would provide more time, especially when someone’s life is on the line. As the story line progressed I found myself wanting Aaron to be innocent, honestly I thought he was just so cute to have done something so heinous. I was fooled like the majority of people. When Roy came out for the first time I felt as if it was so obvious and dumb that I had looked over it. With his abusive background he hit every point that would trigger dissociative identity disorder (split personality disorder). After that everything seemed to make sense, and although it was halfway through the trial already, they would have no way to change the plea. I knew what they had to do; the only was to get a mistrial was to bring “Roy” to the stand. As Marty was provoking Aaron, I knew exactly what he was trying to do and my nerves were going wild. I kept thinking if they could only prove it, then he would be able to get the help that he needed. When Roy finally came out he lashed out and attacked Janet (the prosecution). After that the case was deemed a mistrial and Aaron was not guilty by reason of insanity. He would be going to an evaluation and had the chance to be free within a month. As Marty was talking to his client afterword, he felt that justice had been served for a kid who wasn’t bad; he had just been through a lot of trauma. This is when my heart dropped; as Marty was leaving Aaron said that he hoped the woman’s neck gets better. But in order to know that her neck was injured, he would have had to have memory of what happened in the courtroom. Proving that he hadn’t blacked out at all. At this moment I felt a wave of emotions, I felt frustrated because I am usually able to catch these types of twists in movies, as well as angry because Marty was so happy to have helped someone that he legitimately believed to be innocent.
This brings up another psychological aspect, what made Martin Vail choose to become a defense attorney, many people believed because it stroked his narcissistic ego, but as Marty confesses in a drunken stupor, he does it because he legitimately believes that some people are innocent. That bad things happen to good people and that he is helping those people make things right. After Aarons trial, that all goes to hell. He spent so much time searching for a way to get someone whom he legitimately believed to be innocent off, and when he finally did, he learned that it was all a lie. There was no Aaron; there was only the evil Roy. He had been tricked, and the worst part of it was that Roy believed that Marty knew what he was doing the whole time. He thought that he was just playing the part with him. This thought broke my heart, because it is so easy for bad people to walk all over others with good intentions.

Key words: Justice, psychology, innocence, psychological evaluations, defense, prosecution, dissociative identity disorder, trauma, insanity, guilty, not guilty, mistrial, narcissism, memory, blackout, sentence, jury

Primal Fear was a great movie containing many sticky situations relating to both psychology and law. Although there were many different examples, I would like to mainly focus on traits relating to multiple personality disorder and psychopaths and sociopaths. I tried to find more information relating to multiple personalities in the text book, but I did not have much luck. I ended up looking up more information on WebMD about it at the following site: http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder. First off, I found out that this type of disorder is also called "dissociative identity". WebMD states that it involves a person with split identities and each identity has a certain control over the person. When we still do not know that Aaron is faking his disorder, we see that with one identity, his demeanor is very soft spoken, polite, agreeable, and is even topped off by a stutter. People feel compassion for "Aaron" and want to help him because he is so pitiful and kind of adorable. On the other hand, the "Roy" identity is very rude, absurd, loud spoken, and sure of himself. He does not take crap from anyone. He comes off as the guy who has to do all the dirty work and isn't afraid to. I think it is so weird yet interesting that a person suffering from this disorder can have completely different ways of not only acting but even talking. On the web site I also learned that while under this alter identity, patients can still respond to psychotherapy as this identity. We see this in the movie when Aaron goes under psychiatric analysis and gives more information as Roy than Aaron because Roy is really who killed the archbishop. People usually suffer from dissociative identity disorder because of a traumatic life event, according to this website as well. It is their brain's way of trying to cope, and if it is too much for them to handle, another personality is created to try to process and deal with the situation. It's almost as if this personality is doing all of the things that the real person would like to do but is too afraid because of social norms. Aaron, or I guess it's really Roy, really did his homework because he even played up the fact that his mother died and his father abused him, making the psychologist believe that this was the traumatic event that set off his disorder. WebMD also stated that there are certain stimuli and "triggers" that can cause a person to switch from one personality to the other. In the film, Aaron switches to Roy when people start asking him upsetting questions or badger him about the archbishop, what happened, the sexual activity that took place, his girlfriend Laura, his past abuse, etc. At the time we think Aaron is really struggling with his multiple personalities, but in reality he probably was just getting angry and had to answer the questions some how. I didn't dig too much into the biopsychology of dissociative identity disorder, but I did find on http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~jdbremn/papers/DID_MRI.pdf that there are abnormalities in the hippocampus and the amygdala. This makes sense, as the hippocampus is in charge of both short term and long term memory, and the amygdala is involved in fear, anxiety and other negative emotions.
Next, I would like to spend a little time on the real "personality", who we find out to be Roy in the end. This COMPLETELY threw me for a loop, as I did not expect the personality disorder to be fake. It then led me to wonder if Aaron or Roy wasn't multiple personality, what on earth is wrong with him? Is he a psychopath? Sociopath? Well, in doing more research, I think he is both. I found an awesome chart online that separates the differences between sociopaths and psychopaths: http://www.diffen.com/difference/Psychopath_vs_Sociopath. Based on this chart, Roy seems like a psychopath to me based on the fact that he really doesn't feel bad for what he did to the archbishop or for his violent actions toward others. He is in the impulsive category in the sense that he quickly acts out with violence when he is angry, and he demonstrates erratic behaviors that he cannot control. I found it very interesting that the website said that psychopaths tend to leave clues as part of their criminal behavior. We see this at the crime scene, as Roy carved numbers into the archbishop's chest as well as underlined a certain portion of The Scarlet Letter. Finally, according to the Sociopath area on the chart, Roy appears to also be a little sociopathic. Although his behavior is erratic, he can definitely control it as well, and we see this in how he devised his plan of faking his other personality of Aaron. Also, although he leaves marks and clues in his crime scene, Roy also takes the time to devise a plan on how to cover it up. In my opinion, Roy is more of a psychopath, but it is interesting to see how he display a few traits of each.
In conclusion, this movie definitely taught me a lot about multiple personality in the legal system. Although it was too late for the lawyer to try the insanity approach, he did bring what he thought was a personality disorder in play by his line of questioning as well as the prosecutor's. Although this topic may be dramatized in this film, it really makes a person wonder how often disorders like this are faked, and if they are, what is the real underlying psychological disorder?

Terms: psychology and law, multiple personality disorder, psychopaths, sociopaths, dissociative identity disorder, split identities, psychotherapy, psychiatric analysis, traumatic life event, social norms, stimuli, triggers, biopsychology, hippocampus, amygdala, impulsive, erratic behaviors, criminal behavior, crime scene, legal system, insanity, psychological disorder

The movie Primal Fear played on many aspect of clinical as well as abnormal psychology and parts of memory. Martin Vail, a big shot lawyer, decides to take the case of Aaron Stampler after he was accused of killing the Archbishop in a very violent manor. Seen fleeing from the scene of the crime with blood all over him, Aaron Stampler was thrown in jail as the only leas suspect connected to the murders. Throughout many turn of events, Aaron was eventually found not guilty thanks to Mr. Vail and in the end admits to faking the circumstances which determined the jury’s verdict.
Regarding Aaron Stampler there are various facets of memory that could be thought of as causes to his black outs. While I was watching the movie I tried thinking of reasons why Aaron could be experiencing his black-out. I thought that maybe there was some sort of retrieval inhibition happening in that he could remember running, he remembered returning a book, and remembers seeing someone else in the room yet he couldn’t remember anything in between. Retrieval inhibition occurs when one selectively retrieves only some aspects of a scene which inhibits the recall of other aspects of that same crime. However it became clearer as the movie progressed that Aaron suffered from much more than just a retrieval problem. When Dr. Molly Arrington started evaluating him, she uncovered truths about Aaron’s past that made it seem like he had been abused. Through further questioning it was revealed that Aaron had another side to him; Roy. Roy was a very assertive person unlike Aaron who stuttered. Roy used violence as a means to get his point across and seemed as if he had no moral boundaries. Knowing that Aaron possessed two distinct and relatively persistent identities that alternately controlled his behavior, and that those two states were accompanied by memory impairment (his blackouts) that involved forgetting important information not explained by ordinary forgetfulness led me to believe that Roy suffered from DID or Dissociative Identity Disorder. Beings that Dissociative Identity Disorder is not a very well understood disorder, Martin Vail knew he would not be able to plead insanity or incompetency during the trial. Pleading to be incompetent means that the defendant does not know what is happening during court procedures or at different stages of the criminal justice process and clearly Aaron knew what was happening. He understood his rights, what his charges were and what the consequences would be if he were found guilty.
When reaching a verdict it is important to understand what the jurors go through to get to their conclusions. While this movie did not display many aspects of the jury in it, there were a few parts in which I believe jurors were affected. In the scene where both the prosecuting attorney and Martin Vail were discussing evidence, the prosecuting attorney and Martin both started arguing about what evidence should be allowed in a court room. The prosecuting attorney felt it was necessary to bring in photos of the body showing all of the stab wounds while Martin Vail did not. This argument took place while the jury stepped out. This happened because of the likelihood that they would hear what they were talking about and then base their decisions off of what could have been inadmissible evidence. Inadmissible evidence comes from attorneys and witnesses. A judge can tell a jury to ignore what has been considered inadmissible evidence but through the process of irony (ironic process), jurors will sometimes devote more thought to the evidence they were told to ignore simply because they were told to ignore it. This also pertains to the reactance theory in that when people are told to ignore something they feel is important they feel it is a threat to their freedom and therefore are more likely to place a greater weight on the inadmissible evidence in lieu of what the judge tells them.
Terms:
Incompent, insanity, reactance theory, dissociative identity disorder, memory, retrieval inhibition

Primal Fear was a very intense movie with a lot of twists and turns. There were many aspects of law and psychology throughout the movie, but I’ll just name a few.
First and foremost clinical and abnormal psychology were apparent when it came to the defendant Aaron. He had suffered from abuse as a child and abuse from the bishop. This in turn caused him to develop, what they thought, was multiple personally disorder because when Aaron was provoked he turned into Roy. In the end of the movie, we find out that the personality of Aaron doesn’t actually exist; his personality is really that of Roy. This leads me to believe that he suffers from some other psychotic disorder, maybe antisocial personality disorder? Aaron was also malingering, meaning he was faking his MPD illness, maybe to try and get a lesser sentence, or because he was just crazy.
There were legal terms used all throughout the movie. Richard Gere was the defense attorney and his main motto that he quoted over and over again was that a defendant needs to be convicted “beyond a reasonable doubt”, meaning that the defendant needs to be convicted based on the fact there are no doubts. Gere’s job is to prove that doubt to the jury. This is something he says to his lead investigator and the prosecutor. Gere also talked about the idea of a unanimous jury when he has a conversation with the prosecutor. He states that he just needs one juror to have doubt in his/her mind about the defendant, and the jury will either be hung or have to come to a unanimous decision.
Something I found interesting that I didn’t realize happened, was that Gere said it was very difficult to change the plea to insanity in the middle of the trial because the judge would never accept it. I don’t know if I agree with this, based on the fact that they were getting new evidence, but I also don’t really think during a trial, the defense attorney is going out and finding new evidence all too much. With the idea of insanity, Aaron was charged with first degree murder, meaning that he knowingly killed the archbishop. If he was given the insane verdict, it would be stating that although he killed the bishop, he was either not aware that what he was doing was wrong. He could be charged with not guilty but mentally ill or not guilty by reason of insanity. One thing I was confused about was why Aaron was not given psychological screening before the trial even began. This could also get confusing though, because Aaron faked turning into Roy, therefore I don’t know if he could fake the same thing during the time of his psychological screening and then turn the tables in his favor.
Another aspect of law I found while watching the movie as during the trial. I noticed that whenever Gere said something that the judge didn’t agree with, she would tell the jury to dismiss it from the record. This brought to my mind the idea of ironic processes, meaning that although the jury was told not to pay attention to what was just said, this would in turn make them pay even more attention. Gere was smart in continuing to finish his sentence, even though it was dismissed, because he knew that it would still stick in the jurors mind. That still didn’t stop him from getting into trouble though with the judge.
At the end of the trial Gere obviously won and he and the prosecutor went into the judges chamber. The judge offered to mistrial the case, but the prosecutor declined because she said that no other prosecutor would take it. The part that confused me was when the judge was able to decide herself that Aaron would be declared insane and would go to a mental hospital for evaluation. I figured they would have to still go and get a verdict from the jury, and I didn’t realize judges could make that kind of decision.
All in all, this was one of my favorite movies to watch. If I had watched this movie before taking this class, I would’ve just watched it and not formed any of the ideas I have been able to form from the information I’ve learned.
KEY TERMS: insanity, multiple personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, ironic processes, abnormal psychology, clinical psychology