Expert Psychological Testimony for the Courts

Mark Costanzo, Daniel A. Krauss, Kathy Pezdek

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007 - Law - 321 pages

During the past two decades, the frequency and range of expert testimony by psychologists have increased dramatically. Courts now routinely hear expert testimony from clinical, cognitive, developmental, and social psychologists. Expert Psychological Testimony for the Courts provides a comprehensive, research-based analysis of the content, ethics, and impact of expert testimony. This book features leading scholars who have contributed to the scientific foundation for expert testimony and who have also served as expert witnesses.
 
The opening chapter explores issues surrounding the admissibility of expert testimony, and the closing chapter explores the ethics and limits of psychological testimony. Each of the intervening chapters focuses on a different area of expert testimony: forensic identification, police interrogations and false confessions, eyewitness identification, sexual harassment, mitigation in capital cases, the insanity defense, battered women, future dangerousness, and child custody. These chapters describe the typical content of expert testimony in a particular area, evaluate the scientific foundation for testimony, examine how jurors respond to expert testimony, and suggest ways in which legal standards or procedures might be modified in light of psychological research.
 
This groundbreaking book should be on the shelf of every social scientist interested in the legal system and every trial attorney who is likely to retain a psychologist as an expert witness. It can also serve as a text for advanced courses in psychology, legal studies, criminal justice, law, and sociology.

About the author

Mark Costanzo is Professor of Psychology and Co-Director of the Center for Applied Psychological Research at Claremont McKenna College. His research focuses on police interrogations and false confessions, jury decision-making, and the death penalty. Dr. Costanzo is the author of Psychology Applied to Law and Just Revenge: Costs and Consequences of the Death Penalty. He frequently testifies as an expert witness in the area of interrogations and confessions. 
Daniel Krauss is Associate Professor of Psychology Claremont McKenna College. A licensed clinical psychologist in California, he is also a member of the U.S. Supreme Court and Arizona Bars and an editorial board member for Psychology, Public Policy and Law and Law and Human Behavior. Dr. Krauss' research focuses on expert testimony, evidentiary admissibility standards, and jury decision-making. 
Kathy Pezdek is Professor of Psychology and Associate Dean at Claremont Graduate University. Dr. Pezdek's research focuses on the study of eyewitness memory and her recent book, The Recovered Memory/ False Memory Debate, has played a critical role in defining the false memory issue among psychologists. She frequently testifies as an expert witness in the area of eyewitness identification.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Expert Psychological Testimony for the Courts; Applied Social Psychology; Claremont book series on applied social psychology
• Editors: Mark Costanzo, Daniel A. Krauss, Kathy Pezdek
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007
• ISBN: 0805856471, 9780805856477
• Length: 321 pages
• Subjects: Law / Civil Procedure; Law / Mental Health; Psychology / Forensic Psychology; Social Science / Criminology