Mistaken Conviction Research Articles

Conceptions and degrees of innocence: the principles, pragmatics, and policies of the innocence movement

ABSTRACT Over the last few decades, the innocence movement in the United States and the United Kingdom has contributed to the correction of many hundreds of mistaken convictions. Complacency about the accuracy of convictions has been displaced by ‘innocence consciousness’. The movement has highlighted underlying problems with the criminal justice process, giving impetus for reform. However, the innocence movement has traditionally had a confined focus, excluding defendants convicted of murder who actually killed accidentally, and sexual assault defendants where the complainant actually did consent. These exclusions appear to be the product of pragmatism rather than principle. They make it easier to achieve exoneration, and tell a story that is simpler and more palatable. However, these restrictions potentially create policy blind spots. The current challenge for the maturing movement is to be conscious of, and seek to overcome, these limitations.

Decision-theoretic and risk-based approaches to naked statistical evidence: some consequences and challenges

Abstract In the debate about the legal value of naked statistical evidence, Di Bello argues that (1) the likelihood ratio of such evidence is unknown, (2) the decision-theoretic considerations indicate that a conviction based on such evidence is unacceptable when expected utility maximization is combined with fairness constraints, and (3) the risk of mistaken conviction based on such evidence cannot be evaluated and is potentially too high. We argue that Di Bello’s argument for (1) works in a rather narrow context, and that (1) is not exactly in line with the way expert witnesses are required to formulate their opinions. Consequently, Di Bello’s argument for (2), which assumes (1), does not apply uniformly to all convictions based on naked evidence. Moreover, if Di Bello’s analysis is correct, it applies also to eyewitness testimony, given empirical results about its quality, and so the distinctions drawn by DiBello cut across the distinction between naked statistical evidence and other types of evidence. Finally, if we weaken the rather strong requirement of precise measurability of the risk of mistaken conviction, to the availability of reasonable but imprecise and fallible estimates, many field and empirical studies show that often the risk of mistaken conviction based on naked statistical evidence can be estimated to a similar extent as the risk of mistaken conviction based on any other sort of evidence.

Profile Evidence, Fairness, and the Risks of Mistaken Convictions

Many oppose the use of profile evidence against defendants at trial, even when the statistical correlations are reliable and the jury is free from prejudice. The literature has struggled to justify...

Crime, Punishment, and Legal Error: A Review of the Experimental Literature

When individuals violate the law, detection and verification of the violation are rarely, if ever, perfect. Before the state can dole out punishment, it must first identify a suspect and then produce sufficient evidence to persuade a judge and/or jury beyond some threshold level of confidence that the suspect, in fact, violated the law. The court might be uncertain that the state has the right person. If the suspect is undoubtedly the one who caused the harm, the court might be unsure about whether his act constitutes a violation of the law (e.g., whether the suspect was, in fact, speeding). The state, given the level of resources allocated to law enforcement, might not be able to produce a suspect. Limitations on enforcement resources lead to imperfect detection. Evidence production and proof problems cause both mistaken convictions and mistaken acquittals. Errors have many sources, including hindsight bias, lack of complete information about the defendant’s possible options and chosen action, untrustworthy eyewitness testimony, the admission of impartial evidence in trials, and unwillingness or inability to expend resources on detection, among others. We focus here not on the sources of errors, but rather on their effects on deterrence and punishment policy. Our purpose is to briefly summarize the theoretical literature that studies the effects of legal errors on crime and punishment rates, and to critically review studies that report on experiments conducted to test such theories. The theoretical literature includes analyses of both criminal law and civil law violations, and so we cover both here. Part 2 summarizes theories offered to explain and predict how imperfect detection and guilt-determination errors affect crime and punishment rates. Part 3 summaries, synthesizes and critiques experimental studies designed to test the theories. Part 4 catalogs, in broad terms, where we are and offers ideas for potentially fruitful avenues for continued exploration in the lab.

The Case for Varying Standards of Proof

In this article, I defend a system with a greater variation in the number of standards of proof than we currently have as both normatively and descriptively valuable. Standards of proof are a mechanism for allocating the risk of factual error between parties. For example, the heightened beyond a reasonable doubt standard in criminal cases reflects an aspiration for a legal system erring more in favor of mistaken acquittals than mistaken convictions. Surprisingly, we then assign the same standard to very different cases under the justification that we accept (or should accept) the same error-distribution for those cases. However ubiquitous, this justification is twice mistaken. First, it is normatively mistaken. There are important arguments in support of a system with varying standards of proof based on welfare, fairness, and distributional considerations. Second, this justification is also positively mistaken. Decades of behavioral psychology research on jury decision-making suggests that jurors do not make decisions based on the same error-distribution for all cases. I also reply to objections against my proposal, two of which stand out. According to some scholars, for my proposal to work we would need a lot of empirical information which is difficult to obtain. I argue that, while we wait for the data, we should understand standards as sub-optimal generalizations, with concrete results that might be hard to verify. Another important objection is that we already adjust the error-distribution with other legal mechanisms, such as by adding or removing causes of action. Even if that is true, I show how such strategy is inferior to my proposal. All these considerations push in the direction of a greater variation in the number of standards. Profound policy consequences follow. We become hard-pressed to reevaluate the socially optimal error-distributions on different types cases and what should be the corresponding standards of proof.

Narodowe formacje wojskowe w Rosji bolszewickiej i Związku Sowieckim w latach 1918–1943 i ich rola w polityce ekspansji imperium

National Military Formations in Bolshevik Russia and the Soviet Union in 1918–1943 and Their Role in the Policy of Imperial ExpansionNational military units appeared in Bolshevik Russia already during the so–called October Revolution and predominantly the period known as the “Civil War” or the “Struggle against the Counter–Revolution”. It is highly probable that upon this stage in the history of Bolshevik Russia the existence of such armies was supposed to bolster the self–esteem of the vanquished nations and their elites and to preserve the mistaken conviction that Red Russia respected their right to self–determination and was devoid of imperial or Russification leanings. These armies, based on voluntary recruitment and during the winter even disbanded, resembled rather a Red militia, not to mention a commonplace gang. Nonetheless, the application of a national rhetoric made it easier to conceal the true Bolshevik targets, i.e. the reconstruction and even the expansion of the former tsarist Empire. It seems worthwhile to draw attention to a certain continuum of the Russian/Soviet or Putinesque line pursued by the Russian state and a strategic scheme planned at least decades ahead, regardless of its provenance. Today, the counterpart of the ”national” armies and governments involves ”independent” separatists and their military and political structures as well as long ago devised models of conduct (elections, plebiscites, rhetoric suitable for a presentation of arguments, etc.). Hence an analysis of former military–political conceptions may well serve contemporary objectives.

Wielka Emigracja w Belgii (1831–1870) — wizerunek bez heroizmu

This article reflects on the broadly understood functioning of Polish political émigrés at the time of the nineteenth-century national uprisings (1831–1870), and specifically those refugees who found themselves in Belgium. A pretext for embarking upon this topic was provided by the publication of a book by the Belgian historian Idesbald Goddeeris: La Grande Emigration polonaise en Belgique (1831–1870). Elites et masses en exil à l’époque romantique (Frankfurt am Main 2013). The study in question applied a prosopographic research method based on an extensive source survey conceived as a foundation for the formulation of theses and conclusions and often verifying mistaken convictions propagated in previous historical writings. The Great Emigration in Belgium is presented in an in-depth statistical and comparative approach referring also to other political emigrations of the nineteenth century. The reader has thus received a thorough description of the settlement geography, the reasons for choosing Belgium as the place of residence, professional and political activity, mobility, living conditions, and assorted factors determining the conduct of the émigrés in all the aforementioned aspects. The author also took into consider­ation the attitude of the host country towards arrivals from Poland — motives shaping the attitude of the Belgians — including the attitude of the political elites towards the Polish émigrés and the Polish question. Separate analyses deal with refugees in the 1831–1863 period and the post-January Uprising émigrés, who in numerous respects differed from their post-November predecessors. Polemical accents are discernible in assessments of the extent to which political factors affected the decisions made by the Polish émigrés, and the ultimate verification of the degree of the effectiveness of their efforts on the political arena, i.a. a different understanding of their independence or the subjectivity of their endeavours ­vis-à-vis suggested and divergent opinions about the instrumentalization and passivity of the émigrés in the face of the game concerning them and played by the powers.

Intérêt curatif et préventif des thérapies cognitives et comportementales (TCC) dans le traitement de croyances délirantes schizophréniques criminogènes : TCC d’une conviction délirante ayant généré un double homicide à l’extérieur de la famille

Resume Sujet et problematique Les delires de persecution et de prejudice sont les themes delirants les plus frequents. Ils induisent chez les sujets psychotiques (schizophrenes ou paranoiaques) qui en souffrent un climat emotionnel fait d’angoisse et de peur qui suscite la plupart du temps des reactions pathologiques de defense et/ou de vengeance. Ces reactions sont faites de comportements d’evitement ou de fuite, voire quelquefois d’agressions contre les persecuteurs. Dans ce cas, ces passages a l’acte violents sont destines a maitriser ou a aneantir la source de la persecution ou des prejudices eprouves. De nombreux exemples l’attestent regulierement. Certaines de ces reactions pathologiques peuvent meme donner lieu a des homicides uniques ou multiples. Les therapies cognitives et comportementales sont un vecteur therapeutique utilisable pour traiter certaines de ces croyances delirantes. Patient et methode Nous presentons dans cet article une therapie cognitive et comportementale de ce type de croyance delirante criminogene. Nous avons realise cette therapie avec un schizophrene dangereux auteur d’un double homicide par vengeance pathologique. Ce patient etait convaincu depuis quatre ans que la mere de sa petite amie lui avait volontairement transmis le virus du sida en lui faisant boire un cafe et qu’il allait de ce fait mourir dans d’atroces souffrances. Resultat Remission de la conviction delirante criminogene en fin de therapie. Discussion/conclusion Apres l’echec des therapies psychiatriques traditionnelles a resoudre ou a abraser le delire de ce patient et la symptomatologie reactionnelle a ce delire, nous constatons le resultat positif de l’approche cognitiviste et regrettons qu’elle n’ait pas eu lieu avant les passages a l’acte criminel. Ce resultat a certainement ete facilite par la relative recence de la conviction delirante, par l’investissement total du patient dans la psychotherapie pour « echapper a la mort », par sa suggestibilite de ce fait accrue et par l’existence d’un psychisme majoritairement sain. Il faut egalement remarquer chez ce sujet la disproportion existant entre l’extreme sectorisation (une seule croyance maitresse erronee), voire la banalite du delire et sa puissance criminogene (deux homicides precedes et suivis d’une velleite suicidaire et vindicative importante et recurrente). De la meme facon, la relative facilite a resoudre le probleme cible parait disproportionnee par rapport a sa puissance emotionnelle et psychodynamique. La dissolution non confrontative et progressive des composantes du delire avec participation tres active de ce patient chimioresistant a constitue l’axe central et efficace de cette therapie realisee en 1994. Depuis, la litterature scientifique a regulierement confirme l’interet des therapies cognitives et comportementales dans le traitement de certaines croyances delirantes schizophreniques. Associees a des strategies traditionnelles (hospitalisations, chimiotherapie psychotrope, etc.) ou a des techniques plus nouvelles et complementaires (modules de rehabilitation des habiletes sociales, modules neuroleptiques, psychoeducation, etc.), ces therapies semblent d’autant plus efficaces qu’elles sont realisees tot dans la genese des croyances delirantes.

Adjudication Error, Finality, and Asymmetry in the Criminal Law

All forms of criminal charge adjudication produce errors of mistaken conviction or acquittal. Yet in most criminal justice systems, an endpoint of sorts is eventually reached and further attempts to correct errors are disallowed. The first issue discussed is whether such “finality” in charge adjudication should be presumptive or non-presumptive. My contention is that it should be presumptive. But should it be presumptive only for convictions or also for acquittals? As against strong forms of asymmetry, I urge weaker forms, according to which we should seek to correct both kinds of errors while exhibiting some degree of preference for correcting errors of wrongful conviction over those of wrongful acquittal. The issues that must be faced if we are to set up procedures allowing rebuttal of the presumption of finality are then surveyed. Doing so reveals the forms that weak asymmetry might take.

Patriotism for Citizens of the Penultimate Superpower

Abstract: The United States of America confesses its penultimate status as “One nation under God.” Yet this relationship—of the ultimacy of God and the penultimacy of nations—is frequently forgotten when foreign policy is crafted. The arrogant autonomy of such superpowers operates on the mistaken conviction that they will not be called into account. But the preacher says otherwise. The Old Testament witness teaches us that there is a grave danger to nations making such unrestricted claims of temporal ultimacy. Any state that imagines that it can use its power in unrestrained ways against any other state or vulnerable population—no matter how weak—misunderstands its place in a world under divine rule. It is thus essential that the preacher, along with the congregation, must dare to recover the rhetoric of prophetic imagination concerning God's governance in the public sphere. Empowered and humbled by the mandate of scripture, the preacher must counter the rhetoric of popular patriotism and witness to God's sovereignty over nations. We may then move beyond analysis to alternative, and finally set our hearts and minds on the evangelical task of empowering the faithful to alternative forms of citizenship.

A Priori Convictions about Psychology: A Response to Sosa and Taylor

In their helpful criticisms of Coming to Our Senses (1996) both David Sosa (1997) and Kenneth Taylor (1997) resist idea that they are revisionists about meanings. I shall argue that they must accept idea. Of course, to be revisionist is not necessarily to be wrong: many parts of theoretical status quo have been wrong in past and some are surely wrong now. Most of one's best friends are revisionist about something. However, I shall argue, revisionisms of Sosa and Taylor are wrong. Sosa's rests on popular but mistaken conviction that a properly scientific explanation of behavior must ascribe narrow properties to thoughts. I shall call this the narrow conviction. Taylor's eliminativism rests on popular but mistaken conviction that explanation must ascribe cognitively rich properties. I shall call this the rich conviction.

Tax Amnesties as Asset-Laundering Devices

This article analyzes the effect of a one-time tax amnesty intended to induce private citizens to voluntarily declare black assets accumulated from past tax evasion. In a dynamic setting, we find that such an amnesty tends to enhance voluntary taxpayer compliance and reduce the size of the underground economy. However, it also generally tends to reduce aggregate net revenues collected by the government in the long run, provided black assets command a higher pretax rate of return than white assets. This is due to a post-amnesty reduction in involuntary revenue collections that outweighs direct amnesty receipts and the increase in voluntary compliance. The desirability of such amnesties thus depends on the importance of unearthing black assets per se, relative to increasing revenue collections. High levels of income tax evasion often result from failure to impose strong penalties for tax offenses. This view obtains support from theoretical analyses of Becker (1968) and Allingham and Sandmo (1972) that predict that tax evasion is unambiguously reduced by higher penalties, thus suggesting that enforcement policies should optimally involve the use of maximal penalties. In practice, penalties for most offenses tend to be nonmaximal. A large body of literature has explored modifications to the Becker-Allingham-Sandmo model to explain why optimal penalties may be nonmaximal. Explanations range from heterogeneity and risk-aversion of citizens and the likelihood of mistaken convictions, to the infeasibility of graduating monitoring effort according to the seriousness of the offense, prosecution costs that rise with the penalty, and the impact of the penalty level on the likelihood of conviction (Andreoni, 1991a; Bolton, 1986;

Effects of Pretrial Publicity on Male and Female Jurors and Judges in a Mock Rape Trial

A study explored influence of pretrial publicity and gender identity on verdicts and severity of sentence in a mock rape trial. Mock jurors and judges were exposed to four pretrial publicity conditions before watching a simulated rape trial. After viewing the trial, jurors rendered a verdict (guilty or not guilty) and judges prescribed a sentence. The Bern Sex-role Inventory was used to analyze gender identity and its relation to verdict and sentencing. Verdicts were not influenced by pretrial publicity, but sentencing was more severe following exposure of mock judges to pretrial publicity about a mistaken acquittal and less severe following exposure of these judges to pretrial publicity about a mistaken conviction. Subjects classified by the Bern inventory as feminine or androgynous rendered a verdict of “guilty” more often than subjects classified as masculine or undifferentiated. Men who rendered verdicts of “guilty” had less confidence in their judgments than men who found the defendant “not guilty.” Conversely, women who found the defendant “not guilty” expressed less confidence than women who found the defendant “guilty.” The findings are compared and contrasted with similar studies and discussed in regards to gender identity, subjects’ characteristics, and mode of presentation.

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:CRIME AND SOCIETY The New Criminology: for a social theory of deviance. By Ian Taylor, Paul Walton and Jock Young, Routledge and Kegan Paul.Deviance and Society. By Laurie Taylor, Michael Joseph.Law Enforcement and the Youthful Offender. By Edward Eldefons, John Wiley.Israeli Studies in Criminology, 1972/3 Ed. S. Shoham.Violence in Human Society. By John Gunn, David and Charles, Newton Abbot.Girl Offenders Aged 17 to 20 years. By Jean Davies and Nancy Goodman.Misfits. By Paul and Patricia de Berker.Addicts: Drugs and Alcohol re‐examined. By James Willis.A Practical Guide to the Drug Scene. By Kenneth Leech.PRISONS Punishment, Prison and the Public. By R. Cross, Stevens.People in Prison. By Hugh Klare.Prisons Under Sentence. By H. W. Chatfield.Making It In Prison. By Esther Heffernan, John Wiley.Psychological Survival: Experience of Long‐term Imprisonment. By Stanley Cohen and Laurie Taylor.Dartmoor to Cambridge: the Autobiography of a Prison Graduate. By Douglas Curtis.LAW Wrongful Imprisonment: Mistaken Convictions and their Consequences. By Ruth Brandon and Christie Davies, George Allen & Unwin.Knowledge and Opinion About Law. By Adam Podgorecki, Wolfgang Kaupen, J. Van Houtte, P. Vinke, Berl Kutchinsky.CHILDREN Social Adjustment and Personality Development in Children. By Merrill.Children Still in Trouble?Juvenile Justice ‐ the demands of treatment. By John C. Spencer.Bert The Hell Driver. By P. Stevenson.SOCIAL WORK Advise, Assist and Befriend: a history of the Probation and After‐care Service. By F. V. Jarvis.RESEARCH INTO DETERRENCE Deterrence: the Legal Threat in Crime Control. By F. E. Zimring and G. J. Hawkins.

Wrongful Imprisonment: Mistaken Convictions and Their Consequences. By Brandon Ruth and Davies Chrisrie. [London: George Allen &Unwin Ltd. 290 and (Index) 6 pp. £4.50 net.] - Reliability Of Evidence. By Trankell Arne. [Stockholm: Beckmans. 1972. 167 pp.

Wrongful Imprisonment: Mistaken Convictions and Their Consequences. By Brandon Ruth and Davies Chrisrie. [London: George Allen &Unwin Ltd. 290 and (Index) 6 pp. £4.50 net.] - Reliability Of Evidence. By Trankell Arne. [Stockholm: Beckmans. 1972. 167 pp.] - Volume 32 Issue 2

Wrongful imprisonment: Mistaken convictions and their consequences : by Ruth Brandon and Christie Davies Archon Books (995 Sherman Avenue, Hamden, Connecticut 06514), 1973, 296 pp., hardcover—$12.00

Wrongful imprisonment: Mistaken convictions and their consequences : by Ruth Brandon and Christie Davies Archon Books (995 Sherman Avenue, Hamden, Connecticut 06514), 1973, 296 pp., hardcover—$12.00

General Considerations on Method in Research

THIS statement on in research and inquiry was first developed to aid Ph. D. students in the field of Religion and Personality at The University of Chicago. Without some such aid as this, most of them tended to assume that method referred only to technical procedures. And yet, important as technical procedures are in any inquiry, they can not be regarded as exhausting The present statement is, then, an attempt to recapture a more balanced comprehension of method. It is not intended to depreciate the importance of technical procedures. Written for those planning to study in the area relating religion to studies of personality, this statement is not guaranteed to be equally relevant to other realms of inquiry in the psychological sciences. But at least in a general way, we believe it may be relevant; and we solicit comment as to how alterations in it could make it more useful beyond the special field of study that gave rise to it. Two principal temptations seem to confront the beginning researcher in this general field. According to the first, he begins by selecting some very large area of interest (e.g., the relation between psychotherapy and religious redemption), and then proceeds to read or count or measure at a great rate, in the mistaken conviction that things will become more specific and clear as he goes along. What he will find instead is that he will have, as Sam Goldwyn is reported to have put it, included nothing out. His project may be full of thought-starters, but none will have been pursued. The second temptation is for the researcher to concentrate so exclusively upon his technical procedures-even to the point of equating those with the entirety of his method-that the other necessary aspects of are not examined critically. When this is done, the mountain may labor and bring forth a mouse or, more probably, a specimen that defies any classification at all. At first glance, these two temptations appear to be almost opposite logically. Psychologically, however, they are similar, for both play into an illusory economy of mental effort. If this illusion can be resisted in the early stages of planning a study, then a genuine economy of effort can be reached later on at those points in the study when the consumption of time is greatest; i.e., when the data must be brought together to confront relevantly and significantly some specific problem, or to sharpen issues demanding further attention. With these temptations in the mental background, it becomes possible and desirable to state the several aspects of the total of a study. These, as enumerated below, tend to move from chronologically early to chronologically late, in the sense that explicit attention is given to one before another. But the chronological movement does not mean that the first is taken care of once the second has been entered upon. Each of these aspects becomes clarified as the next is entered upon. In addition, backtracking of all kinds, and steadily, is needed.