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3.3 Elective legal psychology
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English notes for elective 3.3 legal psychology. It includes a summary of relevant chapters and lectures.
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❋LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY❋● Legal psychology: the study of thought processes and behaviors of jurors,
the court system, legal processes
○ Examine how jurors are chosen, how juries make decisions, and the
credibility of eyewitness testimonies
○ Judges are not bound by scientific evidence
● Forensic psychology: focuses on criminal cases (suspects, defendants, and
convicted criminal) and the psychological issues involved in them
○ Evaluating clients (i.e. criminals, felons, and defendants) to determine if
they are legally sane or criminally insane
WEEK 1
LECTURE: introduction
DUTCH CASE: Schiedam park murder case
THE “FACTS”
● 22 June 2000, Kees B. (31 years) calls the police
● Nude boy Maikel W. (11 years) at the crime scene
● Dead girl Nienke Kleiss (10 years) in the bushes
WITNESSES
● Kees B.: nude boy coming out of the bushes, so calls police
● Taxi driver: waking down the park and suddenly saw a nude boy coming out
of the bushes with his shoes hanging from his neck
● Maikel: Nienke was my friend and were playing in the play yard, went to see
their bikes to go home
○ A man with a knife grabbed them by the neck and were brought to the
bushes
○ Forced them to undress and tries to strangulate him
○ He was stabbed with the knife so he played dead (totstell response)
○ Attacker leaves Maikel and starts attacking Nienke
○ Perpetrator comes back to Maikel and punches him
○ Tied his shoelaces together and tries to strangulate him
○ Description of perpetrator: 25 years, 1.80 m, blue jeans and leather
jacket, dark blond short hair, caucasian and pale, many pimples and
swollen face, no glasses moustache or beard, had an earring
- 4 weeks later -
KEES BECOMES A SUSPECT
● 30 May 1999 (one year before the crime) in the same park, boy Patrick was
playing and is approached by Kees
○ He makes him a proposal for sexual interaction in return of money
○ Patrick says no and he goes away
, ● 12 July 2000, Patrick is in the park and recognizes Kees
○ He was with his father who was a policeman
○ The father asks Kees’ name and the next day finds out that he phoned
the police one month before for a crime in the park
○ He also knows that he has pedosexual interests and approaches
children like his son
● Interrogations
○ Multiple times for long time periods
○ Initial denial that he has anything to do with the murder
■ He left work at 17:40 and called the police at 18:08
● Confession
○ September 9: I went into the bushes and saw two dead children
○ September 10: Kees testifies that he wen into the bushes, saw the
children play doctor, killed the girl and strangled the boy with his won
shoe laces
● Evidence (used by the court)
○ Several bystanders saw the perpetrator the next day returning to the
scene of the crime (maybe to clean crime scene)
○ Pedosexual
○ Confessed (but later retracted)
○ His bike was seen in proximity of the crime scene
○ His mom thought Kees acted weirdly on the pertinent day
● Anomalies (negative evidence)
○ Maikel does not seem to recognize Kees
○ No DNA of Kees is found
○ If Maikel’s timeline is correct, Kees cannot have been in time to commit
the crime
● Verdict
○ 29 May 2001, Court Rotterdam: 18 year imprisonment + TBS
(psychiatric treatment)
○ 8 March 2002, Court of Appeal Den Haag: confirmation
○ 15 April 2003, Supreme court: confirmation
CRITICAL COMMENTS by Peter van Koppen
● Comment 1: differences between what Kees and Maikel says
○ Maikel: they were attacked from behind and taken to the bushes,
perpetrator wore a baseball cap, strangulated twice, stabbed in the
neck (according to doctor 8 times)
○ Kees: went to the bushes alone and found the children there, they were
playing doctor, he does not have a baseball cap, he only strangulated
him with the shoelace, does not mention the knife at all
○ Kees was not the perpetrator but ended up confessing because he was
intensively interrogated and was tired (alteration of suspect judgement)
, ○ Imagination approach: imagine someone committed this crime, how
do you think they would do it?
○ No written reports of the interrogations made by the police but rather a
summary of what he said
● Comment 2: timeline
○ 17:15 Maikel and Nienke approach old man to ask time
○ 17:20 Maikel and Nienke are attacked from behind
○ 17:20 Kees B. leaves from work (10 min away)
○ 17:30 Two witnesses see a bike on the lawn, third witness sees both
children
○ 17:39 Witness hears a loud scream from Nienke
● Comment 3: identification evidence
○ Witnesses saw Kees or his bicycle the day of the crime or the day after
○ 23 June 2000, two witnesses saw a bike at the crime scene
○ 28 June 2000, 3 photos of Kees B. and 1 of his bike
■ One is not confident (the chain looks different)
■ One does not recognize the bike
■ The third (5 December) recognizes the bike by its color (but
black and white picture)
○ 5 September 2000, show up simulating petting a dog
○ Maikel does not recognize Kees, but can describe the perpetrator
○ Tunnel vision / attentional narrowing: does not recognize Kees as
the perpetrator because during the incidence he dissociated by
focusing on something else
● Comment 4: experts
○ Horizontal dissociation
○ Totstell reflex
○ Tunnelvision
○ Ruud Bullens: psychiatrist but had combination of irreconcilable roles
■ Safeguarding Maikels well-being during interviews but also
helping interrogators pressure Maikel (see if he could be a
suspect)
■ Assessing the credibility of Maikels’ testimony
■ Producing a personality profile of Maikel
○ Forensic psychology (PBC): assess criminal responsibility of the
suspect
■ Kees has passive-aggressive and antisocial disorder
■ He denied the crime (but psychologists assume he is guilty to
give proper advice to the judge)
■ Kees’ sexual preferences (he likes boys)
● Comment 5: DNA
○ No DNA from Kees B. in crime scene
○ Non-matching DNA under Nienke’s finger nails and on her boots, but
from an unknown third person
, ○ DNA found in Nienke’s body matches one found in CS-C
● Comment 6: flawed investigation
○ Incomplete file
○ One-sided, suspect-guided approach, tunnel vision, confirmation bias
○ The police, prosecution and judge did not establish Kees’ guilt beyond
reasonable doubt, but merely checked whether the evidence was not at
odds with him being the perpetrator
ALTERNATIVE SCENARIOS
● What if Kees is innocent?
○ The man at CS-C
○ Witness 1, the taxi driver
○ Maikel
● 2-3 years later: prosecution starts new investigation
○ Looking for another suspect
○ New information points in the direction of another man that was already
in jail and confessed rather than Kees (which was convicted for muder)
WEEK 2
LECTURE: eyewitness identification evidence
● How can the identity of the perpetrator be established from eyewitness
testimony? How are and should identification procedures be carried out? And
how reliable are eyewitness identifications?
● Chapter 4: identification evidence
STARTING POINTS
● What do the police want right now?
○ Find a suspect
○ Find evidence against the suspect
● What is the relation between the witness and the perpetrator?
● How much effort, time, and money are the police willing to invest?
PRIORITY: find suspect
● Purpose of identification: apprehend a suspect
● Employing a mugshot series is preferable (given that the witness does not
know the perpetrator) of people that have commited a similar crime in the past
● Mugshot series: pictures of people when they are arrested
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