Recently in Deception Category

New York Times published this article talking about how innocent people confess to crimes they did not commit.  Anytime you are questioned, or think you are helping someone by giving information for a crime HAVE A LAWYER PRESENT!!! 

As stated in this article, "Proving innocence after a confession, however, is rare. Eight of the defendants in Professor Garrett's study had actually been cleared by DNA evidence before trial, but the courts convicted them anyway."

Look around this page and be sure to take the time to look at this article by Professor Garrett.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/us/14confess.html?_r=1&no_interstitial

The case I'm going to discuss is several years old but I found it very interesting and relevant to psychology and law. In 1992, a hunter found the body of a decomposing woman while hunting. After the police found out that the dead woman had been a prostitute, it led them to believe that a possible suspect was Thomas Huskey, a man known for bringing woman to the area. Huskey had a reputation for taking women, tying them up behind the zoo, beating them, and then having sex with them.

About a week after the first body was found, police searching the area found three more dead women. Huskey was arrested and confessed, on tape, to all four murders. During the confession, Huskey changed his voice and expressions and said that he was now "Kyle". Apparently, "Kyle" was the one who killed the women, not Thomas. After "Kyle" emerged, "Philip Daxx", a British man, surfaced. This lead investigators to believe that Huskey had multiple personality disorder.

After 6 years had passed, the trial finally began. Huskey plead not guilty by insanity. The defense psychologist said that Huskey suffered from multiple personality disorder, however, the prosecution psychologist said that Huskey simply created these personalities to manipulate the court. During the course of the trial, the cellmate of Huskey, testified that Huskey had read Sybil and was going to try to make it seem like he had multiple personality disorder to avoid the death penalty. Huskey's mother also agreed that he did not have this disorder. To further the case against Huskey, the prosecution noted that he gave specific details about the crime while he was Tom but if he really did have multiple personality disorder, he would have no recollection of these memories, since they belong to "Kyle".

After the jury deliberated for quite some time, they still had not come to a unanimous decision. The judge declared a mistrial. Huskey was to be tried again in 2002 but he asked for a lawyer during his confession, which was then ruled inadmissible. Huskey is currently in prison for 44 years for previous rape charges.

On another website, I found that the murder charges against Huskey were dropped due to detective errors. He is still in jail for the rape charges mentioned earlier.

Psychology is obviously present here. Because multiple personality disorder is so rare, it probably wasn't Huskey's  best idea to pretend he had it. Any personality disorder is severe and it's likely that Huskey may have had some other form of one. Although he wasn't proven guilty, it seems pretty possible that he did commit the four murders. I'm glad that he's at least in jail for the rape crimes he committed so that he can't go out and murder more innocent women.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/psychology/multiples/index.html 

Have you ever wondered whether someone was lying to you or telling the truth?  I was stumbling and found an article in which goes through 5 signs in which you can detect whether someone is lying to you or not. These signs and techniques are used mainly by police and security experts. 

These five signs are:

1. Body Language Use

2. Emotional Gestures and Contraditions

3. Interactions and Reactions

4. Verbal Context and Content

5. Quick Subject Change.

 

These five signs are just rough outlines of what is covered on this website.  It is very fascinating and is fun to read and understand.  The psychology and law aspect of this would have to be the fact that knowing when someone is lying can help jurors determine wheter a person's testimony in court is truthful by the expressions shown on that person's face.

 

If you comment on this blog.  I would like to know some of your own personal experiences in detecting whether a person was lying or truthful, and if any of these signs were present.  

Why on earth would somebody falsely confess to a crime they didn't commit, especially since they are aware of its consequences?  This website highlights some of the reasons why an individual may falsely confess.

This article points out some of the characteristics which make individuals vulnerable to interrogation and more likely to falsely confess.  Individuals with low IQs, suggestible personalities, anxiety problems, drug addictions, and children are more likely to confess for numerous reasons. 

Why are individuals who fit these categories more likely to confess?  It is suggested that when police bring about false evidence, vulnerable individuals may doubt their memories, fill in the gaps with the false evidence, and internalize the idea that they did indeed commit the crime.

Why would police departments purposefully introduce false evidence, offer compensation for telling the "truth," etc. when they know what they are doing isn't right?  Maybe some departments feel pressure to solve a case to put the public at ease and regain/maintain trust; however, I feel that it is very possible that the opposite can happen.  For example, after the department successfully gets somebody to falsely confess, they close the case leaving the actual perpetrator on the loose in society.  Let's say for instance that the real perpetrator commits another crime after the previous case has been closed, he is eventually convicted, and later admits to the crime that somebody was coerced into falsely confessing.  If I lived in that community, I would definitely lose respect for the department, especially if I found out that the police played a part in the confession.

Personally, I think that police shouldn't be given all the freedoms that we talked about in class (e.g. providing false information, interrogating for long hours, offering compensation) because I don't think it benefits anyone.  Hopefully someday psychology can do something to help put an end to police coercion!

 

   

This article talks about how lying tendies can actually be genitic even though they are more dependent on the situiation. There are many types of lies and reasons people lie. Is it ever ok to lie? effects of lying. There is even a new show on spike tv called 1,000 ways to lie (spin off of 1,000 ways to die). How should the law punish liars is what i have always wanted to know. Everyone probably wants to know how to tell when someone is lying, but some people are so good it is crazy think off all the ways law enforcement agencies try to detect lying. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A996942 

Talking Tuesday in class I realized how uneducated I am when it comes to police officers. I didn't know that they could lie to no end just to get a confession or anything else we really learned Tuesday. I decided to do some research on the topic. The site I found-- i'm not sure how credible-- reinstated a lot of the things we were told in class. For the record, I LOVE police officers! In the end they do accomplish a LOT of good through their jobs. They protect those who need protecting and uphold a lot of good in the world. So keep in mind while reading this= they are doing their jobs as they were taught to do. They don't know who is truly guilty or innocent and part of their job is to decipher the differance, through whatever means.

I do NOT agree however with the sites "golden rule:" Don't trust cops. Cops are there for the better of society as a whole and we should keep that in mind. At the end of the day, cops are the good guys. Good guys that just want answers. So while this site is informative I'm choosing not to believe everything in it because it seems very opinion based to me.

I was not aware that cops do not have to read you your Miranda Rights- I was under the impression that your rights were there for you regardless, yet they can still use whatever you say against you in court. From class I know that during interrogation they can lie to get any confession possible. I had never really thought about the lie they tell when they're going to charge someone for... who knows what. They can't charge us with anything! So why have we not learned this earlier? We wait until we're 20 years old to find this stuff out. What about those who still have no idea!?

But how fair is it for a police officer to trick an innocent citizen? A citizen who believes that he or she is in good hands. A citizen who believes they are being protected, not tricked. So it should be common sense to any judge or jury that any confession given should be looked at critically because people will say anything to "help" those who are supposed to "help" us.

http://www.rense.com/general72/howto.htm

In my Psych and Gender class we watched a video about a set of twins. As the twins were being circumsized (mind you, they're both boys) one of the nurses accidently burned off one of the boys penis's. The doctor told the parents of the boys to raise the boy who got his penis burnt off as a girl. The doctor was doing an experiment of Nature v. Nuture. This relates to this class because the doctor reported that the experiment was a success, when it really wasn't. They tried to sue, but they couldn't prove anything. It ended up that both of the twins committed suicide later on in life. Here's the sight....
http://www.rightcelebrity.com/?p=4426

 

            When I think of lie detection I think of the movie Meet the Parents when the dad hooks the daughter's boyfriend up to the lie detection test in his secret room in the den. However, everyone knows that lie detection tests are not always accurate, and there are some ways of tricking the test to make it appear like you are telling the truth. This got me thinking about other ways, besides a test, that people give off the impression that they are lying. I came upon a website that lays out four different categories in which Police and other people such as managers and employer go about determining if someone is lying. The four categories include deception, emotional gestures, interactions/reactions, and verbal. Each of these categories provided many interesting tests that give away that a person is most likely lying. However there were a couple that stood out.  For example; people that are lying are more likely to not use contractions. If someone accuses you of stealing money out of his wallet, if the person is telling the trust they are more likely to respond by saying "I didn't steal money out of your wallet" vs. "I did not steal money out of your wallet."  Also, another way in which you can test to see if someone is lying is to change the subject. Ironically if you are the person lying and your confronter changes the subject you most likely think you got a way with the lie; however, this is the catch. If you are telling the truth you would be thrown off by this subject change and want to revisit the discussion on lying because you want to make sure the person realizes that you were telling the truth. There are many more examples of how you can tell people are lying so if you are interested I would check out the website!

 

 

 

http://www.blifaloo.com/info/lies.php

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/10/new.york.teen.rape.case/index.html?iref=allsearch

Cult: a group of people who organize around a strong authority figure.

well that's not too bad. Anything could be classified as a cult then- Religion, households, classrooms, etc. So what makes Christianity differant from "The Family"?

Cults have always interested me. Not because of the leaders, but because of the followers. How can someone be brainwashed so completely that they forget about everything they once held dear. Granted, if you look at the time span of most cults, the 60's and 70's were largely the history base of these happenings. Now i'm not saying drugs was the only thing to do with it but.... you understand, it had a large part to play. As did having a leader who was a great speaker and very persuassive.

But what explains how 40 individuals can enter a death pact together- and all but one keep it? Or how a group of people can live thinking they are in a space ship- when really they're in an underground house?

Cult Psychology- its an interesting thing. You should look it up!

Cult Psychology: http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/cultdyn.htm

Manson Family Cult: http://www.religioustolerance.org/dc_charl.htm

Top 10 Cults: http://listverse.com/2007/09/15/top-10-cults/

 

The life and story of the BTK killer, also known as Dennis Rader. This 53 page story takes you through everything! His life as the BTK killer in Wichita, Kansas and his life as Dennis Rader in Wichita, Kansas. This is a chilling story that gives you the complete facts, details, and photgraphs. It is worth reading!

 

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/unsolved/btk/index_1.html 

 

Perhaps on of the best know and worst school shootings in history, the Columbine school massacre has for years made people think bullying lead to all of the destruction.  With this news piece written a year ago is talks about another angle that after years of investigation has lead to show that the two responsible were actually not just two regular boys but two that would be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.  Basically saying they were psychopaths and there is more to the story then once told.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-04-13-columbine-myths_N.htm 

 

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/police_investigate_911_call_ma.html

Rev. Edward Hinds made a 911 call while supposedly being beaten up the man who would later murder him. A new look at the case says it is possible that when the 911 dispatcher called back the murderer answered and said there was no problem. After class on Tuesday I realized how important 911 calls are. Not only because it brings us emergency help, but in cases it can gives us important clues and leads.

Recently, I just started watching the show "Dexter" on TV.  It made me think of all the "greatest" serial killers of the world.  Did you notice that they were all people that just lived next door that you would have never imagined in that role?  Well watching the show has really made me interested in the topic.  Below is the "Dexter" website.  You should really check out the show if you haven't already.

http://www.sho.com/site/dexter/about.do 

This article is based off a true story, yet it is so unbelivable. What is so crazy about it, is that the cops didn't look into the situation because they had been told by the serial killer (Jeffrey Dahmer) that the boy was his lover, turning it in to a homosexual aspect. Could that have been why the cops were so eager to get rid of the kid? How can cops know who to believe when they're involved in a sistuation like this, The moral of the story relates to psychology because you can't necessairly place people in groups of innocent or not you have to use the law and procedures to come to the best choice. Here is the link the first page describes it and the following pages explain more in depth http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/dahmer/index.html 

I'm doing my book report on "Psychic Criminology" a book about the use of psychics in law enforcement.  My research brought me across the following article regarding the use of Remote Viewing by the CIA.

http://www.mceagle.com/remote-viewing/refs/science/air/hyman.html

First a little background information.  Parapsychology is the branch of psychology studying various kinds of psychic phenomena, known to the scientific community at large as anomalous mental phenomena.  Parapsychology research encompasses various abilities including telepathy (communication between minds), clairvoyance (acquiring information without the use of the 5 known senses), Precognition (predicting something in the future), Dowsing (locating something, generally water or minerals with a dowsing rod or a pendulum), Psychometry (acquiring information about the history of an object by touching the object), and Remote viewing (the ability to describe very distant objects, really this is a form of clairvoyance).

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20051009/NEWS01/510090392/A-hoax--most--cruel--Caller-coaxed-McDonald%5C-s-managers-into-strip-searching-a-worker

Many of you may have heard about the story above where a man called a McDonalds claiming to be a police officer and had a young female employee strip-searched and sexually assaulted claiming that it would help an ongoing investigation concerning her as a possible suspect.

http://www.spring.org.uk/2010/01/the-7-psychological-principles-of-scams-protect-yourself-by-learning-the-techniques.php

According to Dr. Paul Ekman, "a very small percentage of people (less than 1%) are natural lie detectors who can detect microexpressions and lies without being trained...."  A woman, called "Eye's for Lies" is one of those 1% of people who can detect whether or not a person is lying.

Below is a link to her website.  There is a TON of information on there that you can browse though including videos, information about her, and what other are saying about her abilities.

The website is loaded with interesting information that is very relevant to this class, so I encourage you all to check it out!

http://www.eyesforlies.com/

Recently in my economics classes we have been talking at length about the economic theory of "Prisoner's Dilemma." Prisoner's Dilemma uses a combination of psychology and economic theory to asses a situation in which two people (commonly prisoners) can be made better off by working together rather than working individually, but because of psychological decisions, both prisoners chose a strategy that better suits them, thereby, making both prisoners worse off than they would be if they decided to work together. To illustrate this idea here is the following example.

"Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal. If one testifies (defects from the other) for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent (cooperates with the other), the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10 year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only 6 months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a 5-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation."  

From this analysis, one might think that both prisoners will choose to remain silent in order to receive only the minor charge and both prisoners are better off. But, assuming that both prisoners are somewhat rational, psychology and economics tells us that both prisoners will choose the strategy at which (on an individual level) each prisoner will be better off. Therefore, the prisoners will both choose to betray the other and both will serve a harsher sentence because of this.

This theory is not only applicable in a prisoner-type scenario. Watch the video I have attached below and see how quickly personal greed takes control of our decision making process. Not only is greed a factor here, but also there is the factor of fear of betrayal. Both prisoners can safely assume that the other is being made a similar deal and does not know which strategy the other will choose. In order to not be completely "screwed" by the other person, the prisoner must choose to betray the other in order to protect one's self. This is a perfect example of how behavioral psychology and economic theory coincide. Watch the video below and pause it at 2:46 and try to guess the outcome. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3Uos2fzIJ0

I found this article using StumbleUpon.com regarding how people conform to other people's expectations in various situations. This article does not really tie into a certain area of Law, however, I feel that the content contained within this article would be helpful to an investigator dealing with witnesses and perps. 

http://truthinjustice.org/Omaha-CSI.htm

This case has a little something for everyone.  The commander of the Douglas County (Southeast Nebraska) CSI unit has been charged with planting false DNA evidence in a vehicle the police thought belonged to the perpetrator of a double murder.  He is also charged with falsifying documents in a federal investigation, and mail fraud for sending some of these false documents.

Two primary suspects (a father and son) were held for several months before eventually being cleared.  These suspects have since filed charges due to having been harassed into providing a false confession.  The father, who is mildly retarded, was interviewed for 11 hours before confessing to the crime and implicating his son.

Numerous other cases have now been called into question following this investigation including several murder cases in which the defendant is now serving a life-sentence. 

This highlights the need for strict internal control of forensic evidence.  If the system places to much emphasis on achieving convictions, and 'putting bad guys away' field-workers, and law enforcement personnel may be motivated to falsify documents in order to get ahead or keep their jobs. 

'Beyond a Reasonable Doubt' starring Jessie Metcalfe, Amber Tamblyn, and Michael Douglas is a recent movie dealing with this issue.  Metcalfe plays a news reporter who is convinced that Douglas, a powerful D.A. interested in running for mayor, has been searching for cases with only circumstantial evidence available then planting evidence to win convictions.  Metcalfe frames himself for a murder in order to expose Douglas.  Watch the trailer here.  Great movie, horrible ending. 

http://www.hulu.com/watch/73536/movie-trailers-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt

In a program series called Discovering Psychology, Philip Zimbardo narrates a particular program called Applying Psychology in Life.
 In the program, Research Psychologist Stephen Ceci is interviewed about child witness testimony. He discusses how investigators can inadvertently alter a child's memory by asking leading questions. His research has also laid down groundwork for interviewing children in many jurisdictions.
 This segment was extremely interesting to me and I encourage you all to watch it. It's roughly 7 minutes long but it is filled with a lot of  useful and interesting information.

http://www.learner.org/vod/vod_window.html?pid=1521
*Please note, this video link is for the entire show. You may need to download Media Player 11 to watch it. To get to Ceci's segment, pull the video's progress bar to 12 minutes and 40 seconds into the video. Also, directly following the segment is a different segment about conflict management that begins with images from the Columbine incident (this begins around 19 minutes and 20 seconds). Please note that this segment is entirely different and strictly pertaining to conflict management among youth and not the judicial system. 

A man gets out with no sentence after he kills his wife, all evidence pointed to him. A woman drowns her five children in the bathtub, because she hears the voice of satan. Many more of these cases have been dealt with and guilty people get off! Is there really justice in the Insanity Plea? Can anyone be "insane?" Is "insanity" a luxury only certain people can afford, or do you really have to be *coo-coo for cocoa- puffs* to be let off regular sentence all because you weren't thinking right? To me the insanity plea is outdated and not just- at all! After doing a search on it though I came across a history put out by IPTV on the Insanity Plea. While my opinion is anyone who commits crime is "insane" and needs punished to the just degree, maybe someone is looking out for the rare percent that actually is "insane" in what they do.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/crime/trial/history.html

This is a very interesting viedo from you tube that points out how influenced people can actually be , especially with money, it shows two groups of people one counting money and the other paper, the group who counted money ate 50 percent more sweets,  were less likely to help someone out, and were able to endure physical pain longer. It just shows how easily people can be manipulated without even knowing it.It could also be looked at as a possible stimulus for crime, there are many ways that priming is happening.We could all be in a stage of priming right now and not even know. Must watch video it is astonishing!   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW2SByfHpYg 

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

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