Margaret Bull Kovera

City University of New York - John Jay College of Criminal Justice | John Jay CUNY · Department of Psychology

Racial disparities in the criminal justice system are well documented and widespread. The present review examines racial disparities in three areas of the system: policing, prison populations, and participation on juries. Some, but not all, of these disparities may be the result of implicit racial bias. Even if the disparities are caused by implici...

Objective: The Executive Committee of the American Psychology-Law Society (Division 41 of the American Psychological Association) appointed a subcommittee to update the influential 1998 scientific review paper on guidelines for eyewitness identification procedures. Method: This was a collaborative effort by six senior eyewitness researchers, who...

Much of the literature on eyewitness identification neglects the social context in which identifications are made. As the number of cognitive psychologists conducting eyewitness research increased so did the use of signal detection theory and ROC analyses. With the resulting need for larger sample size, researchers moved toward conducting studies o...

Objective: The present research examined whether concurrent expert testimony ("hot tubbing") and court-appointed testimony reduced adversarial allegiance in clinical experts' judgments compared with traditional adversarial expert testimony. Hypotheses: We predicted Hypothesis 1: Defense experts would render more not responsible judgments and low...

Objective: We explored whether racial disparities in evidence-based suspicion (i.e., evidence of guilt prior to placement in a lineup) provide a better explanation of racial disparities in exonerations based on eyewitness misidentification than the own-race bias in eyewitness identifications. Hypotheses: We predicted that the own-race bias in id...

The field of psychology–law is extremely broad, encompassing a strikingly large range of topic areas in both applied psychology and experimental psychology. Despite the continued and rapid growth of the field, there is no current and comprehensive resource that provides coverage of the major topic areas in the psychology–law field. The Oxford Handb...

Objective: Valid guilty pleas must be made voluntarily, yet most defendants report that they did not feel part of the decision-making process or responsible for the decision. Defendants and judges both play a role in determining whether guilty pleas are voluntary. The actor-observer bias suggests that defendants and judges perceive the decision-ma...

Valid guilty pleas must be made voluntarily, yet most defendants report that they did not feel part of the decision-making process or nor repsonsible for the decision. Defendants and judges both play a role in determining whether guilty pleas are voluntary. The actor-observer bias suggests that defendants and judges perceive the decision-making pro...

Prosecutors have a complicated role in which they are tasked with convicting the guilty while also protecting the innocent. However, prosecutors sometimes abrogate their duties, which can result in miscarriages of justice. Prosecutorial misconduct includes activities like failure to disclose evidence favorable to the defense, improper argument (e.g...

Objective: We examined whether variations in the strength of the evidentiary connection between a suspect and the crime under investigation affected officers’ decisions to place suspects into an identification procedure and whether education about the problems associated with base-rate neglect sensitized officers to variations in evidentiary connec...

For almost 70% of the wrongfully convicted defendants who have been exonerated by new DNA evidence, one or more mistaken eyewitness identifications played a role in their wrongful convictions.1 In recognition of the significant role that mistaken identifications play in miscarriages of justice, social scientists have spent the last 40 years studyin...

Objective: We examined whether variations in the strength of the evidentiary connection between a suspect and the crime under investigation affected officers' decisions to place suspects into an identification procedure and whether education about the problems associated with base-rate neglect sensitized officers to variations in evidentiary conne...

The present research builds on previous models of jury diversity’s benefits by exploring how diversity impacts the deliberation process. In Study 1, community members ( N = 433) participated in a jury decision-making study manipulating the strength of evidence (ambiguous vs. weak) and the diversity of the jury. When the evidence in the case was amb...

Lineups are conducted in the course of police investigations when a crime has been witnessed by one or more people. A lineup typically consists of a person whom the police believe committed the crime (i.e., the suspect) and some number of people who are known to be innocent of the crime (i.e., fillers). When the police have developed a suspect, the...

Lineups and photo arrays are often presented to witnesses by police officers who know which lineup member is the suspect (single-blind lineup administration) rather than by officers who do not know (double-blind administration). Administrators who are not blind to which lineup member is the suspect are more likely than blind administrators to emit...

Objective: The present research examined whether concurrent expert testimony, or hot tubbing, is able to reduce adversarial allegiance compared to traditional adversarial expert testimony. Hypotheses: We expected concurrent experts would display less adversarial allegiance over the course of a mock criminal responsibility evaluation, with case opin...

Objective: The Executive Committee of the American Psychology-Law Society (Division 41 of the American Psychological Association) appointed a subcommittee to update the influential 1998 scientific review paper on guidelines for eyewitness identification procedures. Method: This was a collaborative effort by six senior eyewitness researchers, who al...

Objective: We tested whether the reliability and validity of psychological testing underlying an expert's opinion influenced judgments made by judges, attorneys, and mock jurors. Hypotheses: We predicted that the participants would judge the expert's evidence more positively when it had high validity and high reliability. Method: In Experiment...

We tested whether the reliability and validity of psychological testing underlying an expert’s opinion influenced judgments made by judges, attorneys, and jurors. In Experiment 1, judges (N = 111) and attorneys (N = 95) read a summary of case facts and proffer of expert testimony on the intelligence of a litigant. The psychological testing varied i...

Forensic psychology is a term used to describe a broad range of research topics and applications that address human behavior in the legal system. Personality and social psychologists are among those who have contributed to our understanding of individual differences in performance (e.g., among liars and lie detectors, crime suspects, witnesses, and...

During capital voir dire, prospective jurors are questioned about their views on capital punishment to determine their ability and willingness to impose the penalty as required by law. Two experiments replicated and extended Haney’s (1984a) research on the effects of exposure to capital voir dire, which has been cited to support the proposition tha...

We investigated whether watching a videotaped photo array administration or expert testimony could sensitize jurors to the suggestiveness of single-blind eyewitness identification procedures. Mock jurors recruited from the community (N = 231) watched a videotaped simulation of a robbery trial in which the primary evidence against the defendant was...

Many have recommended that lineups be conducted by administrators who do not know which lineup member is the suspect (i.e., a double-blind administration). Single-blind lineup administration, in which the administrator knows which lineup member is the suspect, increases the rate at which witnesses identify suspects, increasing the likelihood that b...

Administrator/witness pairs (N = 313) were randomly assigned to target-absent lineups in a 2 (Suspect/Perpetrator Similarity: High Suspect Similarity vs. Low Suspect Similarity) × 2 (Retention Interval: 30 min vs. 1 week) × 2 (Lineup Presentation: Simultaneous vs. Sequential) × 2 (Administrator Knowledge: Single-Blind vs. Double-Blind) factorial de...

One of the behavioral assumptions made by the legal system that has attracted attention is the notion that jurors can make decisions which are free from bias. In an attempt to ensure that seated juries are comprised of jurors who are free from bias, venirepersons (i.e., potential jurors) are interviewed in a pretrial procedure called voir dire. Dur...

Courts in civil and common law systems rely upon experts to help triers of fact render appropriate legal judgments. Expert testimony strongly influences evaluations of trial evidence and verdicts. Because expert testimony is so influential, the laws governing the admissibility of expert evidence are evolving. Despite the courts' best efforts to adm...

This study examined whether a demonstrative (visual aid) could increase the ability of opposing expert testimony to sensitize jurors to variations in the validity of scientific evidence. Undergraduates (N = 246) viewed a videotaped reenactment of an armed robbery trial with an eyewitness identification as the key evidence. Both the validity of the...

In 2 experiments, we examined the ability of cross-examination to assist mock jurors with assessing the validity of expert evidence about the reliability of eyewitness identifications presented during an armed robbery trial. Participants watched a simulated robbery trial in which an expert described a study examining the effects of stress on eyewit...

We manipulated mortality salience, perpetrator presence in the lineup, and administrator steering in a mock crime paradigm to examine whether reminders of one’s mortality increase susceptibility to influence from a lineup administrator. When steered toward the suspect, witnesses were more likely to choose, yielding lower lineup rejection rates than...

Expert testimony is intended to assist jurors with their task of evaluating trial evidence by providing them with information that is not commonly known by laypeople but is relevant for making the decision confronting the jury. Experts may also offer an opinion about a crucial issue in the case based on their specialized knowledge or skills. When t...

Eyewitnesses have a profound impact on jury verdicts. Although the testimony that eyewitnesses provide can be powerful, their identifications can be inaccurate, and such mistakes contribute to wrongful convictions. Two categories of variable affect the accuracy of eyewitness identifications: estimator and system variables. Estimator variables inclu...

Attorneys may hold expectations about jurors based on stereotypes about the relationships between demographic characteristics and attitudes. Attorneys test their hypotheses about prospective jurors during voir dire, but it is unclear whether their questioning strategies are likely to produce accurate information from jurors. In 2 studies, attorneys...

This chapter reviews concepts of forensic mental health assessment that are relevant to jury selection. It first provides an overview of the legal context underlying evaluations for jury selection, with particular emphasis on concepts such as voir dire, juror rehabilitation as an alternative to excusing venirepersons for cause, peremptory challenge...

Jury selection is the process by which attorneys remove people from the jury pool whom they judge to be undesirable, presumably because they fear that the potential juror would be biased against their side. In this volume, the authors review the law governing attorneys' decisions to remove potential jurors from jury service, including laws prohibit...

Jury selection is intended to ensure that citizens who serve as jurors can fairly consider the evidence in a case and apply the law as the judge gives it to them. Jury selection occurs during a legal proceeding known as voir dire, in which the judge and/or the attorneys question prospective jurors to determine their suitability for jury service. Ju...

This study examined prospective jurors' expectancies for the verbal and nonverbal behavior of a child testifying in a sexual abuse case. Community members (N = 261) reporting for jury duty completed a survey in which they described their expectancies for how a child alleging sexual abuse would appear when testifying and their beliefs about discerni...

Forensic psychology is a term used to describe a broad range of research topics and applications that address human behavior in the legal system. Personality and social psychologists are among those who have contributed to our understanding of individual differences in performance (e.g., among liars and lie detectors, crime suspects, witnesses, and...

Jury selection takes place during voir dire, the pretrial proceeding during which the judge and attorneys question potential jurors with the aim of identifying venire members who are unfit for jury service. Jury “selection” is a bit of a misnomer as attorneys do not choose individuals to serve on the jury; instead jurors who are unable to remain im...

Psychologists serve as expert witnesses in criminal and civil cases and testify about a wide range of clinical, cognitive, developmental, industrial-organizational, biological, and social psychological topics. We review the topics about which psychologists offer testimony, the rules governing the admissibility of expert testimony, and contemporary...

An analysis of transcripts from cases in which a juvenile is adjudicated in adult criminal court showed that potential jurors may be questioned about their attitudes toward juvenile waiver during voir dire. If jurors express concerns about trying juveniles in adult criminal court, they are excused from the jury for cause (Danielsen et al., Paper pr...

1Role of Social and Behavioral Science in the Law2(UN)Reliability of Eyewitness Identifications3Interrogations and Confessions4Jury Selection5Pretrial Publicity6Expert Evidence7Summary

The American Psychology-Law Society (APLS), which is Division 41 of the American Psychological Association (APA), is a professional organization dedicated to the advancement of scholarship, education, public service, and practice in the field of psychology and law. The Society was founded in 1969 by several APA members, including Eric Dreikurs and...

Chapter 3 provides an overview of the research methods that have been used in research on eyewitness identification, and summarizes the research on general impairment factors, suspect bias factors, postdictors, and issues related to the admissibility of eyewitness’s expert testimony.

Chapter 6 discusses the process of interpretation, the comparison of case facts against research literature and best practices, and whether expert testimony should be offered in a case.

Forensic mental health assessment (FMHA) has grown into a specialization informed by research and professional guidelines, and this online reference contains a thorough discussion of the relevant legal and psychological concepts, followed by a step-by-step description of the assessment process from preparing for the evaluation to writing the report...

Mistaken eyewitness identificationsRecommendations for collecting eyewitness evidenceDouble-blind vs. single-blind line-up administrationThe state of eyewitness identification science and practiceReferences

During voir dire, judges frequently attempt to "rehabilitate" venirepersons who express an inability to be impartial. Venirepersons who agree to ignore their biases and base their verdict on the evidence and the law are eligible for jury service. In Experiment 1, biased and unbiased mock jurors participated in either a standard or rehabilitative vo...

This study examined the effectiveness of the opposing expert safeguard against unreliable expert testimony and whether beliefs about experts as hired guns and general acceptance mediate the effect of opposing expert testimony on juror decisions. We found strong evidence that the presence, but not the content, of opposing expert testimony affected j...

Community members reporting for jury duty (N = 128) read a sexual harassment trial summary in which harassment severity and the organization's sexual harassment policy and response were manipulated. Jurors who read the severe harassment scenario were more likely to agree that the plaintiff had suffered and should be compensated for her suffering an...

Judges frequently interview children about their preferred living arrangements in custody cases (Jones, 1984; Lombard, 1984). Every state allows judges to consider children’s wishes when making custody determinations (Crosby-Currie, 1996), and there is some evidence that judges consider these preferences to be very important to the decisions they m...

We tested whether an opposing expert is an effective method of educating jurors about scientific validity by manipulating the methodological quality of defense expert testimony and the type of opposing prosecution expert testimony (none, standard, addresses the other expert's methodology) within the context of a written trial transcript. The presen...

Pairs (N=234) of witnesses and lineup administrators completed an identification task in which administrator knowledge, lineup presentation, instruction bias, and target presence were manipulated. Administrator knowledge had the greatest effect on identifications of the suspect for simultaneous photospreads paired with biased instructions, with sin...

This study examined the ability of jury-eligible community members (N = 248) to detect internal validity threats in psychological science presented during a trial. Participants read a case summary in which an expert testified about a study that varied in internal validity (valid, missing control group, confound, and experimenter bias) and ecologica...

Between 2000 and 2002, the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment, appointed by then-Governor George Ryan, reviewed the justice procedures that lead to capital punishment with the objective of identifying reforms that enhance the system’s fairness and accuracy. The Commission issued its report in 2002. In recognition of the potential role of mis...

This study examined whether need for cognition (NC) moderated jurors' sensitivity to methodological flaws in expert evidence. Jurors read a sexual harassment trial summary in which the plaintiff's expert presented a study that varied in ecological validity, general acceptance, and internal validity. High NC jurors found the defendant liable more of...

This study investigated potential differences between expert and lay knowledge of factors influencing witness suggestibility. Expert psychologists (N = 58), jurors (N = 157), and jury-eligible undergraduates (N = 220) estimated the effects of misleading information on witness accuracy for three age groups in various conditions. Respondents possesse...

In 1998, Matthew Shepard was a slightly built young man studying at the University of Wyoming who was active in politics and had a gift for learning foreign languages. He also was gay (Shepard, 2000). In an event that brought worldwide attention to the issue of hate crimes and legislation to punish them, two men picked up Shepard from a campus bar....

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), employers must provide employees with disabilities reasonable accommodations that will enable them to perform job duties, as long as the accommodations do not financially burden the organization. Two studies were conducted to investigate whether disability origin and/or prior work history impermissib...

This article gives an introduction and overview to the special issue of the journal "Law and Human Behavior," published in February 2004. The article says that we spend significant portions of our lives in our respective workplaces and, as it is in other situations, our behavior at work is governed by a variety of laws. Some laws are specific to th...

Compared to American trial procedures, British procedures provide a less distracting environment in which jurors can process trial evidence. Relying on theories of persuasion, it was predicted that jurors viewing British procedures would be less affected by extra-evidentiary cues and would be more sensitive to evidence strength variations than juro...

During the pretrial proceeding of voir dire, attorneys use a wide range of techniques to select potential jurors who will be favorably disposed to their case. Traditionally, attorneys have drawn on intuition, courtroom experience, and implicit theories of juror behavior to select favorable jurors. In contrast, scientific jury selection refers to th...

This important book broadens our conceptualization of the topic of children and law, addressing a wide-ranging set of issues in need of attention. The authors confront many difficult questions such as: Are the rights that our nation's laws ascribe to children commensurate with their capabilities and needs? How should laws governing the punishment o...

This important book broadens our conceptualization of the topic of children and law, addressing a wide-ranging set of issues in need of attention. The authors confront many difficult questions such as: Are the rights that our nation's laws ascribe to children commensurate with their capabilities and needs? How should laws governing the punishment o...

This important book broadens our conceptualization of the topic of children and law, addressing a wide-ranging set of issues in need of attention. The authors confront many difficult questions such as: Are the rights that our nation's laws ascribe to children commensurate with their capabilities and needs? How should laws governing the punishment o...

In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1993), the Supreme Court justices relied on commonsense psychological assumptions about the decision-making capabilities of judges and jurors and the effectiveness of safeguards designed to protect the jury from depending on unreliable evidence. This article reviews the empirical evidence on legal d...

Two studies examined three moderators (gender, attitudes, and media slant) and four mediators (accessibility, evidence importance, evidence plausibility, and standards of guilt) of general pretrial publicity's influence on juror decisions. In Study 1, participants who watched a prodefense rape story were more likely to report that they would need m...

Controversy surrounds the role that expert psychological testimony may play in sexual harassment litigation. In some circumstances, the defense may compel sexual harassment plaintiffs to submit to a mental health examination by a defense expert. This examination may be used to discover whether the plaintiff has a previous history of sexual victimiz...

Scientifically trained and untrained judges read descriptions of an expert's research in which the peer review status and internal validity were manipulated. Seventeen percent of the judges said they would admit the expert evidence, irrespective of its internal validity. Publication in a peer-reviewed journal also had no effect on judges' decisions...

Reports an error in "Double-blind photoarray administration as a safeguard against investigator bias" by Mark R. Phillips, Bradley D. McAuliff, Margaret Bull Kovera and Brian L. Cutler (Journal of Applied Psychology, 1999[Dec], Vol 84[6], 940-951). On page 947, the graphs within Figure 1 were incorrectly labeled. The corrected figure appears in thi...

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 85(2) of Journal of Applied Psychology (see record 2007-17253-001). On page 947, the graphs within Figure 1 were incorrectly labeled. The corrected figure appears in this erratum.] This experiment examined whether a photoarray administrator's knowledge of a suspect's identity inc...

This study examined whether participants were sensitive to variations in the quality of an experiment discussed by an expert witness and whether they used heuristic cues when evaluating the expert evidence. In the context of a hostile work environment case, different versions of the expert testimony varied the presence of heuristic cues (i.e., whet...

This study examined whether participants were sensitive to variations in the quality of an experiment discussed by an expert witness and whether they used heuristic cues when evaluating the expert evidence. In the context of a hostile work environment case, different versions of the expert testimony varied the presence of heuristic cues (i.e., whet...

The authors describe a research programme investigating whether psychological evidence about child sexual abuse and child witnesses meets several criteria for admissibility in US courts: (a) general acceptance within the scientific community, (b) helpfulness to the jury, and (c) whether its probative value outweighs its prejudicial value. Responses...