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Month: October 2017

Criminal Law – Silence as an Admission of Guilt

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Criminal Law-Silence as an Admission of Guilt

The defendant was indicted for robbery, being accused of taking four dollars and ten cents from the person of Oscar Glenn by force and against his will. At the county jail, the night after the robbery, the eight or ten prisoners, among whom was the defendant, were lined up for Glenn's inspection. Glenn pointed out the defendant as the one who had robbed him. The defendant remained silent, and made no denial of the accusation that he was the identical person who committed the robbery. Testimony of this fact was admitted at the trial, over the defendant's objection. He was convicted, and appealed, claiming among other things, the admission of the above testimony as error. Held, that silence in the face of pertinent and direct accusation of crime partakes of the nature of a confession, and is admissible as a circumstance to be...

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Police Induced Confessions: Risk Factors and Recommendations

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Abstract

Recent DNA exonerations have shed light on the problem that people sometimes confess to crimes they did not commit. Drawing on police practices, laws concerning the admissibility of confession evidence, core principles of psychology, and forensic studies involving multiple methodologies, this White Paper summarizes what is known about police-induced confessions. In this review, we identify suspect characteristics (e.g., adolescence; intellectual disability; mental illness; and certain personality traits), interrogation tactics (e.g., excessive interrogation time; presentations of false evidence; and minimization), and the phenomenology of innocence (e.g., the tendency to waive Miranda rights) that influence confessions as well as their effects on judges and juries. This article concludes with a strong recommendation for the mandatory electronic recording of interrogations and considers other possibilities for the reform of interrogation practices and the protection of vulnerable suspect populations. In recent years, a disturbing number of high-profile cases, such as the Central Park ...

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Exotic Dancing and Health.

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Abstract

The health and safety of women who work as exotic dancers are firmly embedded within the social organization of the strip club and the broader social, economic and political context of the work of exotic dancing. Exotic dancers in this study expressed health concerns associated with: the effects of costuming and appearance requirements; dirty work environments; problems due to stigmatization, sexual harassment and assault; and police disinterest or victim blaming. The balance between benefits and hazards related to exotic dancing is influenced not only by the personal choices made by dancers, but also by the organization of the strip club and the broader context within which exotic dancing takes place...

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Dancing for Dollars and Paying for Love: The Relationships Between Dancers and their Regular Customers

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Preface

Stripping, Social Class and the Strange Carnalities of Research

My social class expressed itself like genetic code, presciently providing knowledge of the strictures of capitalism, long before I ever read Marx or learned the word “proletariat.” Walking the tight rope between working class and working poor, families in my neighborhood hoped for the best, but expected the worst (not an unreasonable assumption during the Reagan-nomic trickle down years). In the midst of these tensions I knew, before anyone told me, that women from my community might end up performing erotic labor. Somewhere inside I realized that we were more likely to be sex workers, than surgeons. Just as surely I knew the boys I played with would probably end up with grease under their fingernails or iron bars surrounding their bodies instead of in Brookes Brothers. As a six-year-old girl arriving home from St. Genevieve Elementary School in my blue-checked and yellow...

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Inadvertent Hypnosis During Interrogation: False Confession Due To Dissociative State; Mis-identified Multiple Personality And The Satanic Cult Hypothesis.

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Abstract

Induction of a dissociative state followed by suggestion during interrogation caused a suspect to develop pseudo-memories of raping his daughters and of participation in a baby-murdering Satanic cult. The pseudo-memories coupled with influence from authority figures convinced him of his guilt for 6 months. During this time, the suspect, the witnesses, and all the evidence in the case were studied. No evidence supported an inference of guilt and substantial evidence supported the conclusion that no crime had been committed. An experiment demonstrated the suspect's extreme suggestibility. The conclusion reached was that the cult did not exist and the suspect's confessions were coerced-internalized false confessions. During the investigation, 2 psychologists diagnosed the suspect as suffering from a dissociative disorder similar to multiple personality. Both psychologists were predisposed to find Satanic cult activity. Each concluded that the disorder was due to "programming" by the non-existent Satanic cult... ..

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Homicide Scene Investigation | A Manual for Public Prosecutors

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CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION AND ANALYSIS

The analysis and “rebuilding” of crime scenes is a very specialized field. The expertise involves knowledge of crime scenes and crime scene investigation, bloodstain pattern interpretation, evidence analysis, and familiarity in reading and interpreting conclusions, particularly from an autopsy protocol. Often, in order to accurately evaluate a crime scene, the prosecutor or chief investigator is compelled to work with the medical examiner, the firearms expert, a serologist, and a trace evidence analyst, among others. No one person can formulate all the opinions necessary for an accurate reconstruction. Some crime scenes involve too much movement or too many events to lend themselves to a complete reconstruction. This is particularly true with cases of multiple injuries and multiple victims. Crime scenes that involve movement of both the victim(s) and the suspect(s) and a multitude of injuries may make it impossible to...

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Murder By Structure: Dominance Relations And The Social Structure Of Gang Homicide.

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Abstract

Most sociological theories consider murder an outcome of the differential distribution of individual, neighborhood, or social characteristics. And while such studies explain variation in aggregate homicide rates, they do not explain the social order of murder, that is, who kills whom, when, where, and for what reason. This article argues that gang murder is best understood not by searching for its individual determinants but by examining the social networks of action and reaction that create it. In short, the social structure of gang murder is defined by the manner in which social networks are constructed and by people's placement in them. The author uses a network approach and incident-level homicide records to recreate and analyze the structure of gang murders in Chicago. Findings demonstrate that individual murders between gangs create an institutionalized network of group conflict, net of any individual's participation or motive. Within this network, murders spread...

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Psychological and Behavioral Effects of Bias and Non-Bias Motivated Assault, Final Report

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ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to determine if measurable differences exist in the psychological and behavioral sequelae of individuals who have experienced an aggravated assault differentiated by the offender motive (i.e., bias or non-bias). Obtaining more reliable information in this area would support the development of more informed law and policy relative to the extra-detrimental effects a specific type of criminal offense may have on citizens. The research was based on police department criminal incident reports, probation records and victim surveys. Records were collected and analyzed for victims of aggravated assaults in Boston during the 1992- 1997 period. The sample of 560 bias-motivated assault victims and 544 non-bias assault victims yielded 136 valid surveys. Sixteen psychological and 12 behavioral indicators were examined while controlling for the effects of 7 independent aspects between the two victim groups (i.e., bias vs. non bias motivated, s/e factors, medical treatment, family support, quality of police

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The Dynamics of Murder Kill or Be Killed

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In recent years, there has been a surge in school shootings, workplace homicides, hate violence, and deadly terrorist attacks in the United States. This has resulted in a greater focus on homicidal behavior, its antecedents, ways to recognize warning signs of at-risk victims and offenders, and preventive measures. It has also led to increased efforts by lawmakers to create and pass tough crime legislation as well as improved federal, state, and local law enforcement response to murder and other violent crimes. The Dynamics of Murder: Kill or Be Killed is a multifaceted probe of murder offenses, offenders, victims, and characteristics of homicide in American society.

This book breaks new ground in homicide studies by examining issues generally ignored or neglected among researchers. Topics include murders occurring in the workplace and in schools, those perpetrated by gangs and terrorists, those incited by bias, and intimate and intrafamilial murders. The book discusses sexual killers, serial and mass murderers, and suicide. It also examines psychological and sociological theories on murder and violence, as well as the increasing role the Internet plays in these crimes.

Case studies of actual murderers are included, including serial killers Gerald and Charlene Gallego, mass murderer Byran Koji Uyesugi, the murder/suicide case of Sahel Kazemi, and the intrafamilial murders committed by Charles

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When Words Alone Don’t Suffice: Employing a Systematic Approach in Measuring Offender Bias Motivation

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Abstract

The challenge of determining bias motivation in hate crime offenders was examined with the Bias Motivation Profile-Revised (BMP-R), a rating guide that measures behavioral, historical, and ideological indicators of suspect motivation to commit a hate crime. In review of 551 hate crime cases, the BMP-R rating criteria revealed adequate external validity in classifying hate crimes from non-hate motivated crimes and non-criminal “hate incidents”, as independently determined by crime investigators. The BMP-R criteria were related to offender pre-meditation, and revealed a significant predictive relationship to hate crimes involving violence to the person. Offender differences on the BMP-R were noted for gender and age, with modest race/ethnic differences being observed. These findings illustrate the importance of examining bias motivation in terms of an array of criteria, independent of the element of hate speech, in the assessment of hate crime offenders....

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An Investigation Into The Correlation Of Knife Damage In Clothing And The Lengths Of Skin Wounds

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Abstract

In determining the possibility that a specific weapon was responsible for a specific injury it is often valuable to examine the damage marks left on any clothing worn by a victim. Correlating this damage both to the skin and clothing with the dimensions of the suspect weapon (if available) may help in determining these possibilities. In this work four different types of knives were used to produce damage marks on various different fabrics both stretched and loose over skin. Statistically significant differences were found between the length of wound on the skin and the corresponding damage to the fabrics when the fabric was stretched over the skin while no statistically significant differences were observed when the fabric was loose over the skin. This was true for all of the knives examined.

1. Introduction

Most deaths, which are attributed to stabbing, are caused by objects whose primary...

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