Witness Evidence
What is a Rogue Gallery and who has a great deal of discretion in connection to the use of a rogue gallery?
What is the filing system of mugshots which witnesses can look through when making an identification. The file administrator has great power in choosing which photos to include in the rogue gallery shown to a witness and ultimately determines (without knowing so) whether he/she is presenting a target present or target absent group.
If you only had to pick 1 thing, what is the main goal of an interrogation?
What is obtaining a confession from the suspect.
True or False: Profiling is more art than science.
What is True
Explain the difference between manner and cause of death
What is manner of death is 1 of 4 classifications (natural causes, accidents, suicides, or homicides) whereas cause of death is the nature of the injuries sustained by the decedent (ex. blunt force trauma, asphyxia, cutting wounds, etc.)
Explain the 2x2 box options that could occur in any eyewitness identification procedure (you can draw it out if that helps). Which of these are correct vs. incorrect?
What is you could make a choice or not, and it could be a target present or target absent lineup. Those together as columns and rows create 4 options: choosing in a target present lineup and not choosing in a target absent lineup are CORRECT. Choosing in a target absent lineup and not choosing in a target present lineup are INCORRECT.
Explain the difference between an admission and a confession.
What is an admission is agree to parts, but not all of the story whereas a confession is indicating that yes, you were responsible for this crime.
What are the 3 types of deductive profiling discussed in class?
What is 'distinguishing the evil person', 'determining common characteristics', and 'psychological testing commonalities'
What are the 3 basic questions that homicide investigators focus on?
What is 1) who is the decedent, 2) what was the cause of death, 3) who committed the murder?
Explain what the double blind testing procedure means in an eyewitness identification situation.
What is the lineup administrator does not know which member of the lineup the suspect is therefore cannot influence the witness's decision through conscious or unconscious bias/feedback. This is called a DOUBLE blind procedure because both the administrator and the witness do not know - if the witness did not but the administrator DID know, that would be a single blind procedure.
Describe why the interrogation setting is so important.
What is the room itself helps to accomplish the goals of the interrogation to reinforce the authority structure and increase ease of communication from the suspect to the interrogators (likely increasing the likelihood of obtaining a confession).
What are the general results of the research looking at accuracy of profiles developed? Be detailed in where you might find accurate or inaccurate results
What is generally mixed or weak support for accuracy. The studies done by the FBI themselves tend to be the only studies showing highly accurate profiles.
What are the 2 major parts of an autopsy?
What is the external examination (photographing the body, belongings, clothing, etc.) and the internal examination (opening chest, abdomen, pelvic cavity, skull to inspect internal organs and injuries related to cause of death)
What are the 3 phases that, when combined, make up your memory?
What is Encoding, Storage, Retrieval
Explain the difference between the 3 types of false confessions.
What is Voluntary are those offered freely without any coercion. Coerced Compliant (or Compliant) are those offered in order to get out of the stressful situation or to get the better of 2 options at that time. Coerced Internalized (or Persuaded) are those where the suspect begins to truly believe they are the one who committed the crime, likely due to the interrogation tactics that were used.
Define the homology assumption.
What is the principle that offenders with similar criminal behaviors will exhibit similar characteristics.
What 2 types of death investigations are particularly challenging for investigators?
What is Serial homicide and Cold cases
Explain the difference between relative judgment and absolute judgment in lineup selection decisions.
What is relative judgments occur when witnesses select the person who looks MOST like the perpetrator RELATIVE to the other members of the lineup (common in simultaneous lineups) whereas absolute judgments occur when witnesses select a person only if the features line up with their MEMORY of the perpetrator (more likely in sequential lineups)
Name the 5 concepts identified by Horowitz that lead guilty people to confess to their crimes.
What is 1) accusation, 2) available evidence, 3) friendly and hostile forces, 4) guilt feelings, 5) confession as a way out.
Explain the 6 steps of the traditional FBI profiling procedure discussed in class.
What is 1) profiling inputs: all of the details from the crime scene, 2) decision process model: ask meaningful questions about what inferences can be made based on the inputs from step 1 and how those might exhibit in offender characteristics, 3) Crime assessment: reconstruction of the events to make logical sense of inputs, 4) Criminal profile: formulate the detailed description of the likely offender, 5) Investigation: give profile to investigators, train how to ID, and maybe reassess profile if needed, 6) Apprehension: get the correct offender and hopefully cross-check the profile for accuracy.
Explain algor mortis, livor mortis, and rigor mortis
What is Algor mortis is the cooling process a body goes through, livor mortis is the blood settling in the body that discolors the skin, rigor mortis is the rigidity of the muscles in the body