Pub Date : 2023-02-28DOI: 10.1177/13657127231155798
R. Allen, Michael S. Pardo
A paradigm shift is occurring in legal epistemology, replacing probability theory as the best explanation of juridical proof with a form of explanationism that has come to be known as the “ relative plausibility ” theory (see Allen and Pardo, 2019a). The probabilistic paradigm saw the common law legal systems as one large probabilistic event best explainable by reference to the probability calculus. The primary suc-cesses of that approach were to offer widely accepted explanations of burdens of persuasion as probabilistic thresholds and the meaning of the legal concepts of relevance and probative value. After a remarkable burst of enthusiasm reached its apex in the latter part of the twentieth century, dif fi culties began to be perceived — irritants in the language of Thomas Kuhn — that could not easily be accommo-dated within the reigning paradigm. As Kuhn observed and predicted, painting on a much larger and more important canvas than legal epistemology, the initial reaction of the adherents to the reigning paradigm is to attempt to explain away irritants, but in this case the irritants also led to new theorizing about the object of inquiry. That initial theorizing evolved over time into an explanation of common law legal systems that preserves a place for probabilistic reasoning but is dominated by the idea that the parties create and liti-gate alternative explanations for the events under consideration. The fact- fi nder (judge or jury) weighs their various merits and decides between them, or in their light creates the fact- fi nder ’ s own explanation of what happened — and that explanation wins the day. 1
{"title":"Evidence, probability, and relative plausibility: A response to Aitken, Taroni, and Bozza","authors":"R. Allen, Michael S. Pardo","doi":"10.1177/13657127231155798","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13657127231155798","url":null,"abstract":"A paradigm shift is occurring in legal epistemology, replacing probability theory as the best explanation of juridical proof with a form of explanationism that has come to be known as the “ relative plausibility ” theory (see Allen and Pardo, 2019a). The probabilistic paradigm saw the common law legal systems as one large probabilistic event best explainable by reference to the probability calculus. The primary suc-cesses of that approach were to offer widely accepted explanations of burdens of persuasion as probabilistic thresholds and the meaning of the legal concepts of relevance and probative value. After a remarkable burst of enthusiasm reached its apex in the latter part of the twentieth century, dif fi culties began to be perceived — irritants in the language of Thomas Kuhn — that could not easily be accommo-dated within the reigning paradigm. As Kuhn observed and predicted, painting on a much larger and more important canvas than legal epistemology, the initial reaction of the adherents to the reigning paradigm is to attempt to explain away irritants, but in this case the irritants also led to new theorizing about the object of inquiry. That initial theorizing evolved over time into an explanation of common law legal systems that preserves a place for probabilistic reasoning but is dominated by the idea that the parties create and liti-gate alternative explanations for the events under consideration. The fact- fi nder (judge or jury) weighs their various merits and decides between them, or in their light creates the fact- fi nder ’ s own explanation of what happened — and that explanation wins the day. 1","PeriodicalId":54168,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Evidence & Proof","volume":"27 1","pages":"126 - 142"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47658648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-04DOI: 10.1177/13657127221150451
Lewis D. Ross
Criminal juries make decisions of great importance. A key criticism of juries is that they are unreliable in a multitude of ways, from exhibiting racial or gendered biases, to misunderstanding their role, to engaging in impropriety such as internet research. Recently, some have even claimed that the use of juries creates injustice on a large scale, as a cause of low conviction rates for sexual criminality. Unfortunately, empirical research into jury deliberation is undermined by the fact that researchers are unable to study live juries. The indirect sources of evidence used by researchers suffer from various problems, the most important of which is dubious levels of ecological validity. Real jury research—studying live jury deliberation—is controversial. However, as I argue, the objections to it are unconvincing. There is in fact a moral imperative to facilitate real jury research.
{"title":"The curious case of the jury-shaped hole: A plea for real jury research","authors":"Lewis D. Ross","doi":"10.1177/13657127221150451","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13657127221150451","url":null,"abstract":"Criminal juries make decisions of great importance. A key criticism of juries is that they are unreliable in a multitude of ways, from exhibiting racial or gendered biases, to misunderstanding their role, to engaging in impropriety such as internet research. Recently, some have even claimed that the use of juries creates injustice on a large scale, as a cause of low conviction rates for sexual criminality. Unfortunately, empirical research into jury deliberation is undermined by the fact that researchers are unable to study live juries. The indirect sources of evidence used by researchers suffer from various problems, the most important of which is dubious levels of ecological validity. Real jury research—studying live jury deliberation—is controversial. However, as I argue, the objections to it are unconvincing. There is in fact a moral imperative to facilitate real jury research.","PeriodicalId":54168,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Evidence & Proof","volume":"27 1","pages":"107 - 125"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46569440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-27DOI: 10.1177/13657127221140469
Tina Pereira, M. Aldridge
This study investigates the manner in which two types of communication aids (wooden mannequins and line drawings) that are selected, introduced and managed in real intermediary-mediated police investigative interviews, improve the quality of evidence with vulnerable witnesses and victims with an intellectual disability. Multimodality interactional work carried out by the interviewing police officer, an intermediary and the vulnerable witness with limited verbal abilities to answer the open question, ‘What happened?’ is analysed. We demonstrate that low technology communication aids can successfully be utilised to elicit the same type of information from those with limited verbal abilities, as the verbal open question ‘What happened?’, in an unrehearsed and unbiased manner. Aids used in this manner retain the functionality of open questions while reducing their linguistic complexity. This validates the importance of adopting special measures such as the involvement of an intermediary and communication aids in investigative interviews to promote equal opportunities and a fair trial for all.
{"title":"‘Show me what happened’: Low technology communication aids used in intermediary mediated police investigative interviews with vulnerable witnesses with an intellectual disability","authors":"Tina Pereira, M. Aldridge","doi":"10.1177/13657127221140469","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13657127221140469","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates the manner in which two types of communication aids (wooden mannequins and line drawings) that are selected, introduced and managed in real intermediary-mediated police investigative interviews, improve the quality of evidence with vulnerable witnesses and victims with an intellectual disability. Multimodality interactional work carried out by the interviewing police officer, an intermediary and the vulnerable witness with limited verbal abilities to answer the open question, ‘What happened?’ is analysed. We demonstrate that low technology communication aids can successfully be utilised to elicit the same type of information from those with limited verbal abilities, as the verbal open question ‘What happened?’, in an unrehearsed and unbiased manner. Aids used in this manner retain the functionality of open questions while reducing their linguistic complexity. This validates the importance of adopting special measures such as the involvement of an intermediary and communication aids in investigative interviews to promote equal opportunities and a fair trial for all.","PeriodicalId":54168,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Evidence & Proof","volume":"27 1","pages":"83 - 104"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48216098","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-27DOI: 10.1177/13657127221140459
Matt Thomason
This article presents a socio-legal analysis of the use of non-defendant bad character evidence in Crown Court criminal trials in England. Combining an in-depth doctrinal analysis of s. 100 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 with original qualitative empirical methods (interviews with trial counsel and observations of real Crown Court trials), the article explores the real-life practical operation of this rule of exclusion and its associated inclusionary exceptions, and the role that non-defendant bad character can have on trial tactics of counsel. In doing so, it argues that illogical Court of Appeal decisions on the use of bad character for credibility purposes are causing confusion in practice, that the ‘tit-for-tat’ gateway for defendant bad character is a more significant hurdle than s. 100 itself, and that counsel often eschew bad character applications for fear of alienating the jury.
{"title":"Non-defendant bad character and s. 100 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003: A socio-legal analysis of admissibility gateways and trial tactics","authors":"Matt Thomason","doi":"10.1177/13657127221140459","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13657127221140459","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents a socio-legal analysis of the use of non-defendant bad character evidence in Crown Court criminal trials in England. Combining an in-depth doctrinal analysis of s. 100 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 with original qualitative empirical methods (interviews with trial counsel and observations of real Crown Court trials), the article explores the real-life practical operation of this rule of exclusion and its associated inclusionary exceptions, and the role that non-defendant bad character can have on trial tactics of counsel. In doing so, it argues that illogical Court of Appeal decisions on the use of bad character for credibility purposes are causing confusion in practice, that the ‘tit-for-tat’ gateway for defendant bad character is a more significant hurdle than s. 100 itself, and that counsel often eschew bad character applications for fear of alienating the jury.","PeriodicalId":54168,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Evidence & Proof","volume":"27 1","pages":"26 - 50"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45622195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-27DOI: 10.1177/13657127221139505
Ruth Coffey
This paper argues that it is long past time that res gestae evidence under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 s. 118(1)4(a), described here as ‘emotionally-overpowered statements’, was abolished. Res gestae adds nothing to the hearsay regime under the CJA 2003, apart from blurring the operation of s. 114(1)(d), and it is still frequently misapplied. However, it also rests on a false premise that runs counter to modern neuroscience and embeds outdated myths about trauma victims into the law – even when the law has moved on from those assumptions in other contexts. Using comparison with excited utterances under the USA's FRE 803(2), critiques from US scholars, and insights from neuroscientific research, this paper calls for the abolition of res gestae evidence, despite recent interest in its use in cases of domestic abuse, and advocates instead for the use of the s. 114(1)(d) interests of justice test.
{"title":"Fight, flight, freeze…or lie? Rethinking the principles of res gestae evidence in light of its revival","authors":"Ruth Coffey","doi":"10.1177/13657127221139505","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13657127221139505","url":null,"abstract":"This paper argues that it is long past time that res gestae evidence under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 s. 118(1)4(a), described here as ‘emotionally-overpowered statements’, was abolished. Res gestae adds nothing to the hearsay regime under the CJA 2003, apart from blurring the operation of s. 114(1)(d), and it is still frequently misapplied. However, it also rests on a false premise that runs counter to modern neuroscience and embeds outdated myths about trauma victims into the law – even when the law has moved on from those assumptions in other contexts. Using comparison with excited utterances under the USA's FRE 803(2), critiques from US scholars, and insights from neuroscientific research, this paper calls for the abolition of res gestae evidence, despite recent interest in its use in cases of domestic abuse, and advocates instead for the use of the s. 114(1)(d) interests of justice test.","PeriodicalId":54168,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Evidence & Proof","volume":"27 1","pages":"51 - 82"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43656445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-27DOI: 10.1177/13657127221139506
Nikunj Kulshreshtha
This article critically analyses the current status of rape shield laws in India. The article begins by assessing the effectiveness of these laws by examining the statutory provisions and judicial precedents in India using a doctrinal methodology. The article would then assess the status of rape shield laws and their jurisprudence in England and Wales, and Canada for a comparative assessment and to draw valuable lessons for the Indian jurisdiction. It would also help address growing concerns about the possible overreach of these laws on the defendant’s right to a fair trial. Finally, the article will conclude with possible solutions for effectively implementing these laws in India while balancing the interests of the accused and the complainants.
{"title":"The contemporary status of rape shield laws in India","authors":"Nikunj Kulshreshtha","doi":"10.1177/13657127221139506","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13657127221139506","url":null,"abstract":"This article critically analyses the current status of rape shield laws in India. The article begins by assessing the effectiveness of these laws by examining the statutory provisions and judicial precedents in India using a doctrinal methodology. The article would then assess the status of rape shield laws and their jurisprudence in England and Wales, and Canada for a comparative assessment and to draw valuable lessons for the Indian jurisdiction. It would also help address growing concerns about the possible overreach of these laws on the defendant’s right to a fair trial. Finally, the article will conclude with possible solutions for effectively implementing these laws in India while balancing the interests of the accused and the complainants.","PeriodicalId":54168,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Evidence & Proof","volume":"27 1","pages":"3 - 25"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47278793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-10DOI: 10.1177/13657127221124362
C. Griffiths
This article evaluates the recent Attorney General's Guidelines on disclosure in criminal cases. These Guidelines signal a further step away from adversarialism, towards an internally incoherent justice system which incorporates managerial characteristics, alongside increasing elements of inquisitorialism. Whilst still promoting the rhetoric of adversarialism, these changes have the potential to reconfigure the role of the suspect and the court in such a way as to circumvent the protections inherent in the adversarial system. This article considers two areas of the Guidelines, pre-charge engagement and the enforcement of a ‘thinking manner’ approach to the disclosure exercise. By considering these two expansive areas, a broader perspective of the Guidelines is taken in order to fully appreciate their significance. The impact of these newly minted Guidelines is not yet apparent, but this article postulates the potential longer-term ramifications of the changes and ultimately concludes that the Guidelines will result in further systemic incoherence which undermines suspect and defendant rights, and fundamentally reconstitutes courts as adjudicators of criminal investigations.
{"title":"Getting people thinking and talking: An exploration of the Attorney General’s 2020 guidelines on disclosure","authors":"C. Griffiths","doi":"10.1177/13657127221124362","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13657127221124362","url":null,"abstract":"This article evaluates the recent Attorney General's Guidelines on disclosure in criminal cases. These Guidelines signal a further step away from adversarialism, towards an internally incoherent justice system which incorporates managerial characteristics, alongside increasing elements of inquisitorialism. Whilst still promoting the rhetoric of adversarialism, these changes have the potential to reconfigure the role of the suspect and the court in such a way as to circumvent the protections inherent in the adversarial system. This article considers two areas of the Guidelines, pre-charge engagement and the enforcement of a ‘thinking manner’ approach to the disclosure exercise. By considering these two expansive areas, a broader perspective of the Guidelines is taken in order to fully appreciate their significance. The impact of these newly minted Guidelines is not yet apparent, but this article postulates the potential longer-term ramifications of the changes and ultimately concludes that the Guidelines will result in further systemic incoherence which undermines suspect and defendant rights, and fundamentally reconstitutes courts as adjudicators of criminal investigations.","PeriodicalId":54168,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Evidence & Proof","volume":"26 1","pages":"359 - 380"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49546870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-10DOI: 10.1177/13657127221124361
Forest Yu
This article tackles the question: can the Presumption of Innocence (PoI) be a presumption? Whereas many criminal law theorists rejection such a notion, I draw inspiration from argumentation theorists and philosophers—in particular, Petar Bodlović and Edna Ullmann-Margalit—and argue in favour of it; indeed, argumentation theory often holds the PoI out as a paradigmatic presumption. My argument proceeds in three sections. I first show that criminal law theorists writing on the PoI have understood presumptions as evidentiary devices in the form of a modus ponens. On that understanding, the PoI cannot be a presumption. Attention is then drawn to the field of argumentation theory, which teaches us that there are other types of presumptions that are non-evidentiary, not in the form of a modus ponens, require a tentative commitment to q, and require an agent to proceed (act) as if q; viz practical presumptions. The PoI can be understood as such. Finally, it is argued that the PoI, insofar as it requires a tentative commitment to q (here, ‘the defendant is innocent’), can be thought of as a propositional imagining of q (ie, an agent presuming innocence is to propositionally imagine the defendant's innocence).
{"title":"Putting the ‘presumption’ back in the ‘presumption of innocence’","authors":"Forest Yu","doi":"10.1177/13657127221124361","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13657127221124361","url":null,"abstract":"This article tackles the question: can the Presumption of Innocence (PoI) be a presumption? Whereas many criminal law theorists rejection such a notion, I draw inspiration from argumentation theorists and philosophers—in particular, Petar Bodlović and Edna Ullmann-Margalit—and argue in favour of it; indeed, argumentation theory often holds the PoI out as a paradigmatic presumption. My argument proceeds in three sections. I first show that criminal law theorists writing on the PoI have understood presumptions as evidentiary devices in the form of a modus ponens. On that understanding, the PoI cannot be a presumption. Attention is then drawn to the field of argumentation theory, which teaches us that there are other types of presumptions that are non-evidentiary, not in the form of a modus ponens, require a tentative commitment to q, and require an agent to proceed (act) as if q; viz practical presumptions. The PoI can be understood as such. Finally, it is argued that the PoI, insofar as it requires a tentative commitment to q (here, ‘the defendant is innocent’), can be thought of as a propositional imagining of q (ie, an agent presuming innocence is to propositionally imagine the defendant's innocence).","PeriodicalId":54168,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Evidence & Proof","volume":"26 1","pages":"342 - 358"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47676476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-24DOI: 10.1177/13657127221120955
J. Chalmers, F. Leverick, V. Munro
It is unclear how effectively jurors perform their task of assessing witness credibility. Drawing on evidence from a mock jury study involving 863 mock jurors deliberating across 64 juries, and building on existing research, this paper explores juries’ reliance on demeanour. While jurors make use of factors which the research literature suggests are often appropriate credibility markers, for example external consistency of accounts, there is cause for concern over the nuance with which jurors apply those assessments in high stakes contexts. The manner in which jurors look to manner of delivery as evidence of credibility is also problematic. The paper makes the case for a more circumspect approach towards jurors’ use of demeanour assessments. At a minimum, this requires that judicial directions no longer advocate their reliability, but remind jurors of the complexities associated with such assessments and the need to treat any conclusions grounded on presentational cues with caution.
{"title":"Handle with care: Jury deliberation and demeanour-based assessments of witness credibility","authors":"J. Chalmers, F. Leverick, V. Munro","doi":"10.1177/13657127221120955","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13657127221120955","url":null,"abstract":"It is unclear how effectively jurors perform their task of assessing witness credibility. Drawing on evidence from a mock jury study involving 863 mock jurors deliberating across 64 juries, and building on existing research, this paper explores juries’ reliance on demeanour. While jurors make use of factors which the research literature suggests are often appropriate credibility markers, for example external consistency of accounts, there is cause for concern over the nuance with which jurors apply those assessments in high stakes contexts. The manner in which jurors look to manner of delivery as evidence of credibility is also problematic. The paper makes the case for a more circumspect approach towards jurors’ use of demeanour assessments. At a minimum, this requires that judicial directions no longer advocate their reliability, but remind jurors of the complexities associated with such assessments and the need to treat any conclusions grounded on presentational cues with caution.","PeriodicalId":54168,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Evidence & Proof","volume":"26 1","pages":"381 - 406"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49448824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-22DOI: 10.1177/13657127221119545
E. Rassin, N. Arbiyah, Irena Boskovic, H. Otgaar, H. Merckelbach
In various countries, forensic scientists have begun to express their expert opinion in terms of the likelihood of observing the evidence under the primary and under an alternative hypothesis (i.e. the likelihood-ratio approach). This development is often confined to technical domains such as fingerprint analyses. In forensic psychological expertise, likelihood ratios are largely absent. In this contribution, we explain how forensic psychologists can employ likelihood ratios, and we describe two illustrating cases. We also present two studies in which we examined how (Dutch) professional judges appreciate psychological expertise framed in likelihood ratios. Findings suggest that judges (N = 39) appreciate a fictitious expert witness report framed in likelihood-ratios similarly to an opinion framed one-dimensionally. Judges’ (N = 79) understanding of a psychological expert opinion framed in likelihood ratios was satisfactory as measured by self-report and an actual test We conclude that, as is custom in forensic technical domains, psychological expert opinion can be expressed in likelihoods. Two of the hypothesised flipsides, namely, lawyers’ dislike of likelihoods, and their lack of proper understanding, may be surmountable.
{"title":"Likelihood ratios in psychological expert opinion, and their reception by professional judges","authors":"E. Rassin, N. Arbiyah, Irena Boskovic, H. Otgaar, H. Merckelbach","doi":"10.1177/13657127221119545","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13657127221119545","url":null,"abstract":"In various countries, forensic scientists have begun to express their expert opinion in terms of the likelihood of observing the evidence under the primary and under an alternative hypothesis (i.e. the likelihood-ratio approach). This development is often confined to technical domains such as fingerprint analyses. In forensic psychological expertise, likelihood ratios are largely absent. In this contribution, we explain how forensic psychologists can employ likelihood ratios, and we describe two illustrating cases. We also present two studies in which we examined how (Dutch) professional judges appreciate psychological expertise framed in likelihood ratios. Findings suggest that judges (N = 39) appreciate a fictitious expert witness report framed in likelihood-ratios similarly to an opinion framed one-dimensionally. Judges’ (N = 79) understanding of a psychological expert opinion framed in likelihood ratios was satisfactory as measured by self-report and an actual test We conclude that, as is custom in forensic technical domains, psychological expert opinion can be expressed in likelihoods. Two of the hypothesised flipsides, namely, lawyers’ dislike of likelihoods, and their lack of proper understanding, may be surmountable.","PeriodicalId":54168,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Evidence & Proof","volume":"26 1","pages":"325 - 341"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45791973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：