Science in the jury box: Jurors’ comprehension of mitochondrial DNA evidence.

Kaye, David H.; Dann, B. Michael; Farley, Erin J.; Albertson, Stephanie

doi:10.1007/s10979-010-9222-8

Cited by 34 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Only a handful of studies have directly assessed jurors' beliefs about forensic science. These studies suggest that people do hold beliefs about the reliability and validity of different forensic techniques, which tend to be overestimated (Hans, Kaye, Dann, Farley, & Albertson, 2011;Lawson, 2014;Lieberman et al, 2008).…”

Section: Directly Assessing Beliefs About Forensic Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Beliefs about error rates and human judgment in forensic science

Ribeiro

Tangen

McKimmie

2019

Forensic Science International

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Forensic science techniques are often used in criminal trials to infer the identity of the perpetrator of crime and jurors often find this evidence very persuasive. Unfortunately, two of the leading causes of wrongful convictions are forensic science testing errors and false or misleading forensic testimony (Saks & Koehler, 2005). Therefore, it is important to understand jurors' pre-existing beliefs about forensic science, as these beliefs may impact how they evaluate forensic evidence in the courtroom. In this study, we examine people's perceptions of the likelihood of error and human judgment involved at each stage of the forensic science process (i.e., collection, storage, testing, analysis, reporting, and presenting). In addition, we examine people's perceptions of the accuracy of -and human judgment involved in -16 different forensic techniques. We find that, in contrast to what would be expected by the CSI effect literature, participants believed that the process of forensic science involved considerable human judgment and was relatively error-prone.In addition, participants had wide-ranging beliefs about the accuracy of various forensic techniques, ranging from 65.18% (document analysis) up to 89.95% (DNA). For some forensic techniques, estimates were lower than that found in experimental proficiency studies, suggesting that our participants are more skeptical of certain forensic evidence than they need to be.

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Section: Directly Assessing Beliefs About Forensic Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Beliefs about error rates and human judgment in forensic science

Ribeiro

Tangen

McKimmie

2019

Forensic Science International

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In a criminal court, forensic examiners must testify about their analyses relating to the evidence. This testimony can be both technically and scientifically complex for laypeople, such as the jury who may only have a basic high-school level understanding of science and mathematics (Howes, 2015;Hans et al, 2011). Broadly, this PhD thesis aims to examine how jurors evaluate the reliability of expert forensic testimony and investigate a novel way to present information about examiners' error and expertise so that jurors can accurately understand and evaluate the forensic evidence presented to them.…”

Section: List Of Abbreviations Used In the Thesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Only a handful of studies have directly assessed jurors' beliefs about forensic science. These studies suggest that people do hold beliefs about the reliability and validity of different forensic techniques, which tend to be overestimated (Hans et al, 2011;Lawson, 2014;Lieberman et al, 2008).…”

Section: Directly Assessing Beliefs About Forensic Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The aim of the study described in Chapter 2 was to determine the existing beliefs people may have about the accuracy and error rates of forensic science. Previous studies (e.g., Hans et al, 2011;Lawson, 2014;Lieberman et al, 2008) had investigated jurors'…”

Section: Chapter 2 Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Prior to the work described in Chapter 2, research had been focused on how individuals perceived the source of the expert testimony, the expert themselves, but had not yet investigated individuals beliefs and perceptions about forensic evidence itself. While a handful of studies (e.g., Hans et al, 2011;Lawson, 2014;Lieberman et al, 2008) had examined people's beliefs about the reliability and validity of forensic techniques, the number of forensic techniques assessed was limited and assessing reliability and validity is only one aspect of the beliefs jurors may hold about forensic science before attending a trial.…”

Section: Theoretical and Practical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Communicating error and expertise in forensic expert testimony

Ribeiro¹

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Forensic comparison evidence, such as fingerprints, plays an important role in criminal investigations and proceedings. For more than 100 years, forensic examiners were permitted to testify that two prints, marks, or samples matched to the exclusion of all other people, with some even claiming that their decisions were infallible. However, numerous wrongful identifications have demonstrated that these claims of infallibility simply are not true. In fact, forensic science testing errors and false or misleading forensic testimony are two common factors leading to the wrongful conviction of innocent individuals. As a result of these misidentifications, forensic expert testimony is now beginning to reflect the uncertainty of forensic comparison evidence but the method in which experts should communicate uncertainty is under debate. Many have supported the use of likelihood ratios-which communicates the probability of an observation given two competing hypotheses: that the two samples share the same source (H1), or that the two samples originate from different sources (H2). However, others have argued that communicating a specific likelihood ratio is a futile endeavour when considering that the probability of a false positive (e.g., mislabelling of samples) is far greater. The overall aim of this thesis is to introduce a diagnostic information approach to communicating forensic expert testimony, which draws on signal detection theory to convey examiners' accuracy and error. Specifically, I aim to a) determine people's existing beliefs about accuracy and error in forensic science, b) determine whether likelihood ratios affect sensitivity to exculpatory evidence, such as an alibi, and c) compare the likelihood ratio approach to the diagnostic information approach to determine which results in better sensitivity to the strength of the evidence. There are three main empirical chapters of this thesis. In Chapter 2, I explore laypeople's perceptions of error and involvement of human judgment in forensic science, both in terms of the stages of the forensic science process (e.g., collection, storage) and for specific forensic techniques. I find that people do not necessarily have blind faith in forensic sciences, as participants believed that there was quite a high likelihood of error, as well as a high level of human judgment involved, in the forensic science process. Furthermore, participants had lower perceptions of accuracy for specific forensic techniques than expected, ranging from 65.18% for document analysis to 89.95% for DNA analysis.

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