Conviction by Consent? Vulnerability, Autonomy, and Conviction by Guilty Plea

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE Publications via the DOI in this record.A criminal conviction resulting from a guilty plea rather than a full trial is typically justified on the basis that the defendant had the ability to go to trial, but instead chose to admit guilt in exchange for a small sentence reduction. In other words, the conviction, and associated waiver of rights, occurred by consent. In this article, I challenge that notion by drawing on psycho-legal research on vulnerability and consent and research on guilty pleas in the United States. I suggest that whilst plea procedure in England and Wales has largely escaped criticism due to modest sentence reductions compared to the United States ‘plea bargaining’ system, aspects of the system are highly problematic and are likely to be leading to non-consensual guilty pleas, in which innocent defendants are pleading guilty

Conviction by Consent? Vulnerability, Autonomy, and Conviction by Guilty Plea

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE Publications via the DOI in this record.A criminal conviction resulting from a guilty plea rather than a full trial is typically justified on the basis that the defendant had the ability to go to trial, but instead chose to admit guilt in exchange for a small sentence reduction. In other words, the conviction, and associated waiver of rights, occurred by consent. In this article, I challenge that notion by drawing on psycho-legal research on vulnerability and consent and research on guilty pleas in the United States. I suggest that whilst plea procedure in England and Wales has largely escaped criticism due to modest sentence reductions compared to the United States ‘plea bargaining’ system, aspects of the system are highly problematic and are likely to be leading to non-consensual guilty pleas, in which innocent defendants are pleading guilty

Constrained Waiver of Trial Rights? Incentives to Plead Guilty and the Right to a Fair Trial

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordThis article develops an interpretative framework to examine when incentives to plead guilty should be found to constrain defendant choice to waive fair trial rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. This framework is informed by existing jurisprudence, specifically the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in Natsvlishvili v. Georgia and Deweer v. Belgium, and socio-legal literature. According to the framework, an incentive to plead guilty should be found to violate fair trial rights where it makes it unreasonable to expect the defendant to exercise their right to a full trial, is independent of the projected outcome at trial, and causes the defendant to plead guilty. An empirical analysis of guilty plea practice in England and Wales informed by this new framework identifies problematic incentives and suggests such incentives may disproportionately influence vulnerable defendants

Trial by Numbers

This is the final version of the article. Freely available from the publisher via the link in this record.Legal cases often require jurors to use numerical information. They may need to evaluate the meaning of specific numbers, such as the probability of match between a suspect and a DNA sample, or they may need to arrive at a sound numerical judgment, such as a money damage award. Thus, it is important to know how jurors understand numerical information, and what steps can be taken to increase juror comprehension and appropriate application of numerical evidence. In this Article, we examine two types of juror decisions involving numbers––decisions in which jurors must convert numbers into meaning (such as by understanding numerical evidence in order to determine guilt or liability), and decisions in which jurors must convert meaning into numbers (such as by understanding qualitative evidence and converting this into a numerical damage award amount). In each of these areas we analyze legal cases and research to examine areas in which dealing with numbers leads to sound or sub-optimal decision making in jurors. We then examine psychological theory and research on numerical decision making to understand how informed, fair, and consistent juror decision making about numbers can be promoted. We conclude that what is often most important is juror understanding of the meaning of numbers in context rather than technically precise numerical ability, supporting the role of the lay jury. We also suggest how to improve juror understanding, so that jury decisions better reflect considered community judgment.Preparation of this Article was supported in part by the Martha E. Foulk Fellowship awarded to Rebecca K. Helm, by National Science Foundation award SES-1536238: “Quantitative Judgments in Law: Studies of Damage Award Decision Making” to Valerie P. Hans and Valerie F. Reyna, by a grant from Cornell University’s Institute for Social Sciences to Valerie P. Hans and Valerie F. Reyna, and by National Institute of Health (National Institute of Nursing Research) award RO1NR014368-01 to Valerie F. Reyna

From Meaning to Money: Translating Injury Into Dollars

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the American Psychological Association via the DOI in this record.Legal systems often require the translation of qualitative assessments into quantitative judgments, yet the qualitative-to-quantitative conversion is a challenging, understudied process. We conducted an experimental test of predictions from a new theory of juror damage award decision making, examining how 154 lay people engaged in the translation process in recommending money damages for pain and suffering in a personal injury tort case. The experiment varied the presence, size, and meaningfulness of an anchor number to determine how these factors influenced monetary award judgments, perceived difficulty, and subjective meaningfulness of awards. As predicted, variability in awards was high, with awards participants considered to be “medium” (rather than “low” or “high”) having the most dispersion. The gist of awards as low, medium, or high fully mediated the relationship between perceived pain/suffering and award amount. Moreover, controlling for participants’ perceptions of plaintiffs and defendants, as well as their desire to punish and to take economic losses into account, meaningful anchors predicted unique variance in award judgments: A meaningful large anchor number drove awards up and a meaningful small anchor drove them down, whereas meaningless large and small anchors did not differ significantly. Numeracy did not predict award magnitudes or variability, but surprisingly, more numerate participants reported that it was more difficult to pick an exact figure to compensate the plaintiff for pain and suffering. The results support predictions of the theory about qualitative gist and meaningful anchors, and suggest that we can assist jurors to arrive at damage awards by providing meaningful numbers.Preparation of this article was funded by National Science Foundation grant SES1536238: “Quantitative Judgments in Law: Studies of Damage Award Decision Making” to Valerie P. Hans and Valerie F. Reyna

Expert Decision Making: A Fuzzy-Trace Theory Perspective

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Routledge via the ISBN in this recor

Wrongful Conviction in England and Wales: An Assessment of Successful Appeals and Key Contributors

This is the final version. Available on open access from the University of Alberta via the DOI in this recordThis paper presents an analysis of 88 criminal convictions that have since been quashed on the basis of error of fact (wrongful convictions) that have occurred in England and Wales since 2007, in the context of a wider set of 389 wrongful convictions that have occurred in England and Wales since 1970. Based on this analysis, three key contributors of concern are identified as having been influential in leading to wrongful convictions recently - digital evidence, guilty pleas, and misleading testimony. Cases involving each of these factors are discussed, including cases from the Post Office Scandal, which make up many of the identified wrongful convictions during this period. In considering each factor, failings in the criminal justice system that leave defendants vulnerable to wrongful conviction are discussed. The paper concludes with brief initial suggestions for reform to provide greater protection against highlighted vulnerabilities.UK Research and Innovatio

Adaptive lie detection and perceived prevalence of false reports in evaluation of sexual offence allegations

This is the author accepted manuscriptAll materials underlying studies and the final datasets are available at https://osf.io/6c8pw/?view_only=a03a52056e9647af88d1cb5d1d836574.Research suggests that perceptions of the prevalence of truth and lies are important in informing evaluations of the honesty of others and, relatedly, the accuracy of the statements made by others. This research investigates these perceptions of prevalence and their influence specifically in the context of sexual offence reports. Results provide insight into perceptions of the prevalence of true and false statements in this context, and the influence of these perceptions on legal decision-making. Importantly, results support predictions informed by the Adaptive Lie Detector Framework and Fuzzy-Trace Theory by showing that providing evidence-based information on prevalence changes evaluations of witness testimony, but that this change is influenced by the framing of information provided as well as precise information itself. These findings provide new insight into how juries function as lie detectors, and into why juries may convict relatively few defendants in cases primarily reliant on defendant and complainant testimony.UK Research and Innovatio

Pleading guilty online: enhanced vulnerability and access to justice

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is freely available from Wiley via the link in this recordOnline courts have the potential to create or exacerbate pressures to plead guilty, particularly for vulnerable defendants. I explore these pressures in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic in which increasing use of online justice has coincided with a significant increase in guilty pleas.Medical Research Council (MRC

Predicting and projecting memory: Error and bias in metacognitive judgments underlying testimony evaluation

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordPreregistration, data, and materials underlying the proposed work are available on OSF at: https://osf.io/ms3f4/?view_only=f6ddb94b127045b1b3b7a487bbe8d874Purpose: Metacognitive judgments of what another person would remember had they experienced a stimulus – i.e., social metamemory judgments, are likely to be important in evaluations of testimony in criminal and civil justice systems. This paper develops and tests predictions about two sources of error in social metamemory judgments that have the potential to be important in legal contexts – errors resulting from beliefs informed by own memory being inappropriately applied to the memory of others, and errors resulting from differential experience of an underlying stimulus. Method: We examined social metamemory judgments in two experimental studies. In Experiment 1 (N = 323) participants were required to make either social metamemory judgments relating to faces or predictions relating to their own memory for faces. In Experiment 2 (N = 275), we manipulated participant experience of faces, holding the described experience of the person whose memory was being assessed constant and asked participants to make social metamemory judgments. Results: As predicted, judgments relating to the memory of others were prone to inaccuracy. While participants making predictions relating to their own memory performed above chance, participants making social metamemory judgments performed no better than chance. Social metamemory judgments were also influenced by the way stimuli were experienced by an assessor, even where this experience did not correspond to the experience of the person whose memory they were assessing. Conclusions: Having our own experiences of memory does not necessarily make us well-placed to assess the memory of others and, in fact, our own experiences of memory can even be misleading in making judgments about the memory of others.UK Research and Innovatio