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In law,a witness is someone who has knowledge about a matter,whether they have sensed it or are testifying on another witnesses' behalf. In law a witness is someone who,either voluntarily or under compulsion,provides testimonial evidence,either oral or written,of what they know or claim to know.
Kenneth Bancroft Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark were American psychologists who as a married team conducted research among children and were active in the Civil Rights Movement. They founded the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem and the organization Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited (HARYOU). Kenneth Clark was also an educator and professor at City College of New York,and first Black president of the American Psychological Association.
Weapon focus is the concentration on a weapon by a witness of a crime and the subsequent inability to accurately remember other details of the crime. Weapon focus is a factor that heavily affects the reliability of eyewitness testimony. This effect involves a witness to a crime diverting his or her attention to the weapon the perpetrator is holding,thus causing memory impairments and leaving less attention for other details in the scene,such as the attacker’s face,clothing or vehicle.
Together,legal psychology and forensic psychology form the field more generally recognized as "psychology and law". Following earlier efforts by psychologists to address legal issues,psychology and law became a field of study in the 1960s as part of an effort to enhance justice,though that originating concern has lessened over time. The multidisciplinary American Psychological Association's Division 41,the American Psychology-Law Society,is active with the goal of promoting the contributions of psychology to the understanding of law and legal systems through research,as well as providing education to psychologists in legal issues and providing education to legal personnel on psychological issues. Further,its mandate is to inform the psychological and legal communities and the public at large of current research,educational,and service in the area of psychology and law. There are similar societies in Britain and Europe.
Maryland v. Craig,497 U.S. 836 (1990),was a U.S. Supreme Court case involving the Sixth Amendment. The Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause,which provides criminal defendants with the right to confront witnesses against them,did not bar the use of one-way closed-circuit television to present testimony by an alleged child sex abuse victim.
Stephen J. Ceci is an American psychologist at Cornell University. He studies the accuracy of children's courtroom testimony,and he is an expert in the development of intelligence and memory. He has been the recipient of numerous awards,including the prestigious Lifetime Contribution Awards from the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Association for Psychological Science (APS) as well as many divisional and smaller society awards.
Wee Care Nursery School,located in Maplewood,New Jersey,was the subject of a day care child abuse case that was tried during the 1980s. Although Margaret Kelly Michaels was prosecuted and convicted,the decision was reversed after she spent five years in prison. An appellate court ruled that several features of the original trial had produced an unjust ruling and the conviction was reversed. The case was studied by several psychologists who were concerned about the interrogation methods used and the quality of the children's testimony in the case. This resulted in research concerning the topic of children's memory and suggestibility,resulting in new recommendations for performing interviews with child victims and witnesses.
Richard Jason Ofshe is an American sociologist and professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California,Berkeley. He is known for his expert testimony relating to coercion in small groups,confessions,and interrogations.
Kathy Pezdek is Professor and Associate Dean of the School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences (SBOS),Claremont Graduate University in Claremont,California. Dr. Pezdek is a cognitive psychologist specializing in the study of eyewitness memory. She frequently serves as an expert witness in the area of eyewitness identification and has testified on this topic in Federal,State and Superior Court cases. Her extensive research has focused on a range of topics related to Law and Psychology that apply to both adults and children. These topics include face memory,false memory,suggestibility of memory,lineup techniques,and detecting deception. Kathy Pezdek is a Fellow of the American Psychological Society,has served as Editor of Applied Cognitive Psychology and is currently on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Applied Psychology and Legal and Criminological Psychology.
In eyewitness identification,in criminal law,evidence is received from a witness "who has actually seen an event and can so testify in court".
Eyewitness testimony is the account a bystander or victim gives in the courtroom,describing what that person observed that occurred during the specific incident under investigation. Ideally this recollection of events is detailed;however,this is not always the case. This recollection is used as evidence to show what happened from a witness' point of view. Memory recall has been considered a credible source in the past,but has recently come under attack as forensics can now support psychologists in their claim that memories and individual perceptions can be unreliable,manipulated,and biased. As a result of this,many countries,and states within the United States,are now attempting to make changes in how eyewitness testimony is presented in court. Eyewitness testimony is a specialized focus within cognitive psychology.
Forensic developmental psychology is a field of psychology that focuses on "children's actions and reactions in a forensic context" and "children's reports that they were victims or witnesses of a crime". Bruck and Poole (2002) first coined the term "forensic developmental psychology". Although forensic developmental psychology specifically focuses on a child's reliability,credibility,and competency in the courtroom setting,it also includes topics such as autobiographical memory,memory distortion,eyewitness identification,narrative construction,personality,and attachment.
Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts,557 U.S. 305 (2009),is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that it was a violation of the Sixth Amendment right of confrontation for a prosecutor to submit a chemical drug test report without the testimony of the person who performed the test. While the court ruled that the then-common practice of submitting these reports without testimony was unconstitutional,it also held that so called "notice-and-demand" statutes are constitutional. A state would not violate the Constitution through a "notice-and-demand" statute by both putting the defendant on notice that the prosecution would submit a chemical drug test report without the testimony of the scientist and also giving the defendant sufficient time to raise an objection.
Perry v. New Hampshire,565 U.S. 228 (2012),is a United States Supreme Court case regarding the constitutionality of eyewitness identifications.
Eyewitness memory is a person's episodic memory for a crime or other dramatic event that he or she has witnessed. Eyewitness testimony is often relied upon in the judicial system. It can also refer to an individual's memory for a face,where they are required to remember the face of their perpetrator,for example. However,the accuracy of eyewitness memories is sometimes questioned because there are many factors that can act during encoding and retrieval of the witnessed event which may adversely affect the creation and maintenance of the memory for the event. Experts have found evidence to suggest that eyewitness memory is fallible.
Gary L. Wells is an American psychologist and an internationally recognized pioneer and scholar in eyewitness memory research. Wells is a professor at Iowa State University with a research interest in the integration of both cognitive psychology and social psychology and its interface with law. He has extensive research on lineup procedures and the reliability and accuracy of eyewitness identification,and has been widely acknowledged in both the field of psychology and the criminal justice system. Wells has received many awards and honorary degrees and been widely recognized for his work and contributions to psychology and the implications his research has made to the legal system.
An eyewitness testimony is a statement given under oath by a person present at an event who can describe what happened. During circumstances in which a child is a witness to the event,the child can be used to deliver a testimony on the stand. The credibility of a child,however,is often questioned due to their underdeveloped memory capacity and overall brain physiology. Researchers found that eyewitness memory requires high-order memory capacity even for well-developed adult brain. Because a child's brain is not yet fully developed,each child witness must be assessed by the proper authorities to determine their reliability as a witness and whether or not they are mature enough to accurately recall the event,provide important details and withstand leading questions.
Simona Ghetti is Professor of Psychology at the University of California,Davis,where she is affiliated with the University of California Davis Center for Mind and Brain. She is known for her research on the development of episodic memory,reconstructive memory,and metamemory in youth,with a specific focus on individuals who have had traumatic experiences.
Karen Jill Saywitz was an American psychologist,author,and educator. She worked as a developmental and clinical psychologist and professor at the UCLA School of Medicine and Department of Psychiatry and Development. For more than 20 years Saywitz taught child development and was director of several mental health programs for families. She also developed "non-leading" techniques for interviewing child witnesses and victims,based on cognitive and developmental psychology principles. She died of cancer in 2018.
Jodi Anne Quas is an applied developmental psychologist who is known for her work on how maltreatment and abuse affect memory development and children's ability to give eyewitness testimony after experiencing trauma. She holds the position of Professor of Psychological Science and Nursing Science at the University of California,Irvine School of Social Ecology.
References
- ↑ (2005). Gail s. goodman: award for distinguished professional contributions to applied research. American Psychologist, 60(8), 870-872. doi : 10.1037/0003-066X.60.8.870
- ↑ Goodman, Gail S. and Michelli (1981) 'Would You Believe a Child Witness?' Psychology Today Nov.
- ↑ Goodman, Gail S., Rudy, L., Bottoms, B.L. and Aman, C. (1989) 'Ecological Issues in the Study of Children's Eyewitness Testimony', in R. Fivush and J. Hudson (eds) What Young Children Remember and Why New York: Cambridge University Press
- ↑ Goodman, Gail S., Golding and Haith (1984) 'Jurors Reactions to Child Witnesses' Journal of Social Issues vol. 40, no. 2.
- ↑ Goodman, G. S., Levine, M., Melton, G., & Ogden, D. (1990). Craig vs. Maryland. Amicus Brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the American Psychological Association.
- ↑ Myers, J. B., Goodman, G. S., & Saywitz, K. (1990). Wright vs. Idaho. Amicus Brief to the U. S. Supreme Court on behalf of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of Counsel for Children, the National Organization of Women, and several other organizations.
- ↑ "Utenlandske medlemmer" (in Norwegian). Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters . Retrieved 4 July 2021.