The Popular Policeman and Other Cases

In this compelling title, two distinguished scholars share their experiences as expert witnesses in cases ranging from eyewitness testimony, person identification and Willem Albert Wagenaar recovered memories, to false confessions, collaborative storytelling and causal attribution, in the context of various interrogation techniques and their ability to Hans Crombag deliver reliable results. Each chapter of The Popular Policeman and Other Cases describes in lucid, entertaining prose a representative case in the context of scholarly literature to date, showing how psychological expertise has been (and can be) used in a legal setting. The cases include petty and serious crime, from illegal gambling, infringed trademarks and risqué courtship behaviour, to honour killing and death on the climbing wall. The authors’ findings and recommendations apply to legal systems worldwide. The Popular Policeman There is no other English-language textbook covering a similarly wide range of offences, and this volume will fill a gap in the existing literature and demonstrate how psychological expertise can be used in a much larger area than is often realised. Willem Albert Wagenaar is honorary professor of psychology at Utrecht University and professor of psychology at Leiden University, who specialises in witness reliability, and was a court expert in the Jerusalem trial of John Demjanjuk. Hans Crombag is emeritus professor of psychology of law at the universities of Maastricht and Antwerp. and Other Cases This book is a most welcome addition to the literature on law and psychology. The work of two distinguished psychologists, it is authoritative, insightful, concrete, and eminently readable. William Twining, Professor of Jurisprudence, University College, London The Popular Policeman The Popular Policeman and Other Cases is a rare find: a book that is both good science and a good read. John Monahan, Professor of Law, University of Virginia and Other Cases Wagenaar and Crombag display eloquence as writers, and their flair for narrative combined with Wagenaar | Crombag faithfulness to science makes this book a remarkable work on psychology and law. Elizabeth Loftus, Past President, American Psychological Society ISBN 90 5356 770 4 Psychological Perspectives on Legal Evidence www.aup.nl A U P A U P The Popular Policeman / 4de 10-08-2005 22:27 Pagina 1 The Popular Policeman The Popular Policeman / 4de 10-08-2005 22:27 Pagina 2 The Popular Policeman / 4de 10-08-2005 22:27 Pagina 3 The Popular Policeman and Other Cases Psychological Perspectives on Legal Evidence Willem Albert Wagenaar Hans Crombag Amsterdam University Press The Popular Policeman / 4de 10-08-2005 22:27 Pagina 4 Some of the chapters in this book were written when the first author was a fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS) in Wassenaar. The hospitality and support offered by NIAS and its staff are gratefully acknowledged. Cover illustration:W.A.Wagenaar Cover design: Sabine Mannel,,Amsterdam Lay-out: Het Steen Typografie,Maarssen (paperback) (hardcover) ⁄ © Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmit- ted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. The Popular Policeman / 4de 10-08-2005 22:27 Pagina 5 Contents Foreword 7 1Illegal Gambling or the Victory Travel Club 9 2 On Causal Reasoning or Death in the Warmoesstraat 25 3Consumer Confusion or Potato Chips and Olive Oil 43 4 Fiction and Reality of ‘the Average Individual’ or the Case of Old Mr. Lane 57 5Case Histories and Scientific Proof or the Case of JR 71 6Not a Good Story or the Disappearance of Maddy and Vicky 93 7Conflicting Scenarios or the Case of the Man Who Needed a Companion 109 8Two Processes Obstructing the Accuracy of Long-Term Memory or the Case of the Stolen Mercedes 123 9Confessions after Repeated Interrogation or the Putten Murder Case 143 10 Collaborative Storytelling or the Artist’s Models and an Angry Neighbourhood 161 11 Allegation of Sexual Child Abuse in a Case of Disputed Visitation or Cindy’s Story 177 The Popular Policeman / 4de 10-08-2005 22:27 Pagina 6 12 Psychogenic Amnesia or the Case of the Amnesic Strangler 195 13 Obeying Reflexes or Death on the Climbing Wall 211 14 Visual Acuity or Shooting Mimi the Cat 227 15 Sexual Semiotics or the Case of the Popular Policeman 235 Postscript: Psychological Expertise and the Law 251 Bibliography 263 Name Index 279 Subject Index 284 The Popular Policeman / 4de 10-08-2005 22:27 Pagina 7 Foreword The domain of Psychology and Law belongs more to psychology than to law.Typical studies and publications in the field are psychological in nature,as they are applications of psychology within a legal context. Such studies may influence the practice of law and even legislation, but they are based on the research logic and methodology of psychologists.In general,this is the methodology for empirical research into basic psychological faculties such as perception and memory, automatic and con- trolled behaviour,logical thinking and problem solving,the formation of complex judgements and decision making. Such empirical studies always involve human subjects and are therefore limited by ethical constraints.Although such constraints by themselves do not seriously hamper the research process,they often constitute a problem when we try to apply the results in a context in which deceit, fraud, theft, robbery, drug trafficking, sexual abuse, rape, torture, and murder are the common themes. For ethical reasons, that context cannot be replicated in the psychological laboratory. It is difficult to create a research design in which human subjects are made to witness or to become victims of a serious crime in an ethically acceptable way. For this reason, the link between psychological research and its application in legal practice is never simple and straightforward. The parties involved in civil or criminal cases know only too well that their cases are primarily decided on their legal merits. Psychological insights may play a role, but only if there is legal precedent, and in so far as they have clearly demonstrable relevance for the cases at hand. This may explain why the field of psychology and law has developed mainly in the context of actual legal trials; it is based on psychological questions raised in court, the expert testimony presented, and the accept- ance or rejection of such testimony by judges and juries. It is virtually impossible for researchers in this field to make significant progress without experience as expert witnesses in actual trials. One might expect that the progress in the field of psychology and law is achieved by collecting in-depth descriptions of applications in actual trials.But this is not so. Often the scientific literature does not refer to any case in particular; at best it refers The Popular Policeman / 4de 10-08-2005 22:27 Pagina 8 only obliquely to cases that the reader is supposed to recognise.Representative case collections that may be used for the training of our students,both in the faculties of law and of psychology,are rare.The few existing collections of case descriptions are almost without exception of American origin, which may be less useful for students in other countries with different legal systems. Another and more trouble- some limitation is that most of the research in the field,and consequently of its application in the courtroom, is limited to a relatively small number of traditional topics, such as person identification through face recognition, the reliability of the memories of eyewitnesses, and false confessions. There are very few case descriptions involving the psychological aspects of automatic behaviour, consumer confusion, illegal gambling, causal reasoning, judicial decision making, and risky courtship behaviour. The reason for this paucity is apparently that psychologists are not thought to possess relevant information about these topics. Consequently, in these domains the expert opinion of psychologists is only rarely sought, even when such issues are raised in courtrooms. This book is an attempt to fill some of these gaps. It discusses a number of often neglected issues in the field of psychology and law. The form chosen for these dis- cussions is that of an extensive exposition of a case in which the issue arose and in which often one of the authors acted as an expert, appointed by the court or at the initiative of one of the parties involved in the case. The state of affairs with respect to scientific knowledge about the issue is then described in a succinct manner,with references to the relevant research literature. In the various chapters we describe how the psychological insights were introduced into the framework of predomi- nantly legal reasoning,and what the courts did,or did not,do with our psychological knowledge. In this way, the book will not only be useful to those who wish to learn about the less frequently presented research on particular topics,but also,and particularly,about its application in legal practice. It would have been impossible to describe and discuss such a variety of cases in sufficient detail without us having been involved in them as expert witnesses. Somewhat unfortunately,however,this means that almost all cases occurred in our own country and were thus decided within the framework of Dutch law and legal practice,with its sometimes surprising peculiarities.In our descriptions of the cases, we have attempted to leave out of consideration details that have no wider im- plication outside the Dutch context,and to concentrate on aspects of universal sig- nificance.

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