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No one knows you’re a dog on the internet (actually, they do!)
Contrary to the now famous New Yorker cartoon, people on the internet do know you’re a dog. Sort of. We’ve all heard of undercover police officers pretending to be children in online chat rooms as they attempt to identify pedophiles. The assumption behind this strategy is that an adult can successfully manipulate perceptions of their gender and age on the internet. That may be helpful for catching pedophiles, but as a general rule it appears likely untrue.
New research demonstrates that it is quite possible to discern the age and gender of someone posing as a child online. Researchers cite a 2007 case where an alleged pedophile identified in online sting operations said he knew all along he was talking to a middle-aged man rather than a teenage girl and so he was simply role-playing. A jury acquitted him.
For the study in today’s blog, researchers divided 46 undergraduate and graduate students ranging in age from 18 to 38 years of age into two groups with the intent to have them lie about their gender and age in internet chats with each other. One group was told to pretend to be a 13 year old girl in the internet chat of up to 30 minutes that followed. Following the chat, all participants estimated the age and gender of their unknown chat partner.
None of those pretending to be a 13 year old girl was successful in the ruse. No one even thought they were 16 years old or less. When questioned about how they determined their internet chat partner was not a young teenage girl–reasons were given that had to do with both style of communication (i.e., language used, emoticons used, syntax and colloquialisms) and content of communication (i.e., chatting about football teams, shopping or television shows).
So how, say the researchers, can covert operatives become better liars? Likely by learning the content information their gender and age would be likely to know (and reading magazines and watching TV shows those girls would watch). Even better, though researchers imagine the “middle aged men who are covert operatives” would complain, they could practice chatting with adolescent females to observe content and style first-hand. In other words, being an impostor is not a job for an amateur.
When it comes to litigation advocacy, there are likely two ways this study is potentially useful.
First, if you are actually prosecuting someone caught in an internet sting operation–this research would say it’s a good defense for them to say they knew the ‘teenage girl’ with whom they were chatting was in reality, a balding, 45 year old man. This research says we simply are pretty good at intuiting gender and age of our chat partners (or we are not very good at pretending to be what we have not been for years or even ever). Conversely, if you are attempting to prosecute pedophiles through the use of internet chat-room impostors, you might want to assess the credibility of their ‘skills’ by validating their effectiveness in a blind study, to avoid the defense that resulted in the acquittal in 2007.
Second, it reminds us of a way to teach jurors about increasing their likelihood of identifying deception. Tell them to use more than one source of information. Not only the apparent credibility of the speaker (which is often linked to likability), but what does s/he say, how does s/he say it, and does the language used seem to fit the person speaking?
Generally speaking, we are not that good at identifying deception. While we have given you some ways to identify a psychopathic killer, in general, it simply isn’t that easy. But seemingly irrelevant research, like improving covert operatives performance in internet chat rooms, can often give you ideas for helping jurors ‘see’ deception more effectively than they might on their own.
Lincoln, R., & Coyle, IR (2012). No-one knows you’re a dog on the internet: Implications for proactive police investigation of sexual offenders. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law.
Image taken by Rita Handrich
Black? On trial in Florida? You don’t want an all-white jury!
Infographics are fabulous inventions. We can spend a long time describing the results of a study or we can simply show you a picture. In this case, it’s an infographic designed by Duke University.
Yes, you saw that right. Some new research mirrors the findings of research conducted three decades ago!
If you were a black criminal defendant in Florida between 2000 and 2010, with an all white jury you were convicted 81% of the time. On the other hand, if you were a white criminal defendant with an all white jury, you were only convicted 66% of the time. If, however, there were African Americans (even just one) on your jury–the difference in conviction rates between black and white defendants almost disappeared.
Justice is not intended to be a random event and one of the researchers speaks to that in a story on the research.
“The findings imply that the application of criminal justice is “highly uneven,” Bayer said, because conviction rates vary substantially with random variation in the racial composition of the jury pool.
“Simply put, the luck of the draw on the racial composition of the jury pool has a lot to do with whether someone is convicted and that raises obvious concerns about the fairness of our criminal justice system,” Bayer said.”
There are clearly issues that need to be addressed and it likely is not only in Florida. While there are ways to reduce these sorts of verdict discrepancies by raising jurors’ awareness of the need to behave in a non-biased fashion, it is disturbing that the difference between conviction of white and black defendants is demolished by having a single juror of color.
If you are a defense attorney, this is likely a good article as evidence that, even in 2012, your African American client is less likely to get a fair trial with an all-white jury.
Anwar, S., Bayer, P., & Hjalmarsson, R. (2012). The Impact of Jury Race in Criminal Trials The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 127 (2), 1017-1055 DOI: 10.1093/qje/qjs014
Revisiting the “epilepsy defense”: A teenager and a dead mom
Two months ago we wrote about the “epilepsy defense”. Now we read about a teenager killing his mother in the midst of a seizure. It’s a poignant and shocking example of why the ‘epilepsy defense’ appears to be valid under certain circumstances.
Karyn Kay was a 63-year-old single mom who worked as a teacher in midtown Manhattan. Her 19-year-old son (Henry Wachtel) has epilepsy. Their relationship was positive and there was no history of either abuse or violence between them. After Henry cut his arm on a cup during a seizure, Karyn had always held him in her arms when he had seizures in her presence.
As Henry’s seizure commenced, Karyn placed a call to 9-1-1. She reported her son was having a seizure and requested assistance. Fifty-eight seconds into the call, the 9-1-1 operator heard what sounded like an assault with grunting and screams. When the police arrived at the apartment, Henry let them in saying “It was a mistake” and the police found Karyn Kay “sprawled in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.” She was dead.
The police, believing no one could be “accidentally beaten to death” arrested Henry and charged him with murder. Medical experts reviewed the 9-1-1 tape and and report they think Henry was having a ‘grand mal’ seizure and concluded Henry would not have had “conscious intent” to kill or harm his mother.
Contrary to the typically hostile comment sections for internet news articles, comments relating to this story were consistently sensitive and sympathetic to Henry Wachtel’s plight. Instead of cruel skepticism, they raised questions that conscientious jurors might also have in deliberations. One commenter wrote that Henry’s childhood was much more complex than described. An article in the NY Times raises questions about whether there is more to the story. The original article does indicate Henry was on Keppra (a medication that has been linked to increases in rage outbursts) and Prednisone (which also has been associated with rage reactions). He also acted in a film called “Our Time” about disillusioned teens with disturbed parents, which now cannot be separated from what we know of what ultimately happened.
It’s a complex picture but not with the pretty foreword painted by the Daily Beast article. Despite the 9-1-1 call, which shows the violence likely took place during or shortly after the seizure itself, when intent cannot be formed–the reality is that Karyn Kay was killed by her own son. It is a horribly sad story. And if Henry Wachtel is ultimately freed from legal responsibility–is there a risk to society? It’s a question we always ponder in the “my brain made me do it” defenses. And of course, for the huge numbers of people with epilepsy who will never display the slightest hint of epilepsy-related rage or aggression, the cloud of public ignorance surrounding their condition is even more burdensome.
We’ve written on this blog about sex crimes committed while the perpetrator was allegedly asleep or otherwise consciously not aware. Some of those defendants were acquitted and a few were found guilty. Is there a difference in culpability if the ‘offense’ is a sex crime rather than physical battery or murder?
If we think of the comments section as a (non-randomly selected) focus group–it is clear there is sympathy for Henry Wachtel. What about sympathy for Karyn Kay? Will she be seen as having a disturbed relationship with her son, as hinted at by some commenters? Is this just “one of those things”? It certainly is an area where there are no easy answers. We are grateful to the practicing physicians who wrote the original article on how to assess the validity of the “epilepsy defense” and grateful to Karyn Kay for placing the 9-1-1 call [which allows us to hear what was transpiring], as one of the final loving and responsible acts of her life.
Wortzel HS, Strom LA, Anderson AC, Maa EH, & Spitz M (2012). Disrobing associated with epileptic seizures and forensic implications. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 57 (2), 550-2 PMID: 22150773
An update on disrupting suspicion of atheists
We’ve written a number of times about atheists in the courtroom and the general lack of trust in atheists in this country. One recent study pointed out we trust atheists about as much as we trust rapists! Identifying biases that are deep-seated and seem to be permanent is one of the things we do as trial consultants. Sometimes they are unexpected. They are almost always disheartening.
So we are grateful to social science researchers who sometimes identify strategies to disrupt permanent and deep-seated biases. And here’s one for disrupting biases against atheists. It’s simple, straightforward and free: remind jurors about the government.
Researchers point to research noting distrust of atheists who do not believe a “watchful and judging god monitors their behavior”. Most people think we behave better when reminded there is a god watching over us. That atheists have no such moral force judging their behavior makes the rest of us suspicious of their moral trustworthiness. The observation by a supernatural being gives believers a sense of psychological control over the behaviors of all believers. On a none-too-subtle level, it also suggests that mostly, we don’t trust that people to do the right thing if they don’t fear punishment.
There is also recent research showing that secular authority can also give a sense of psychological control in the world. When reminded of secular authority (and thus the awareness of monitoring by powerful figures, albeit not a deity) which also enforces prosocial behaviors–believers should also exhibit less distrust toward atheists. The idea is that there would exist some sort of behavioral control over the atheist–we don’t have to be so afraid of what they might do.
Researchers wanted to explore these ideas to see if bias against and fear of atheists would diminish if research participants were reminded of secular authority. They conducted 3 separate experiments:
In Study 1, researchers emphasized “police effectiveness” by having participants watch a video of the Vancouver police chief’s year-end report “which detailed many successes of the Vancouver Police Department during 2010”.
They found that being reminded of secular authority decreased the level of distrust toward atheists.
In Study 2, researchers examined distrust of atheists and the prevalence of disgust for homosexuals. Again the “police effectiveness” video was shown.
Again, researchers found that being reminded of secular authority (i.e., “police effectiveness”) reduced distrust for atheists but did not affect antigay prejudice.
In Study 3, researchers wanted to see if reminders of secular authority would reduce distrust in atheists and (at the same time) reduce distrust toward gays.
And again, the researchers found that being reminded of secular authority reduced distrust in atheists but did not affect distrust of gays.
What this research progression shows is that reminders of secular authority/effectiveness decrease distrust in atheists but do not decrease prejudice in general. This is a powerful finding although it will of course be moderated by how effective and trustworthy people find their government. Overall, though, it makes sense, if the secular authority is a replacement for religious authority. Bias and prejudice is not unidimensional, it is a complex response. No unidimensional explanation will capture all of the potential vagaries of bias and prejudice.
From a litigation advocacy perspective, if you have a client who is atheist (and ‘out’), you would do well to find ways to remind jurors of secular authority–either through law enforcement, regulatory agencies, or other reliable secular institutions relevant to the facts of your case. Society is safe, even if this person doesn’t perfectly mirror the religiously observant jurors. Jurors need to have a sense that “this atheist” is contained and law-abiding so they can trust the atheist’s future behavior.
It’s a simple yet powerfully, and pointedly targeted strategy.
Gervais WM, & Norenzayan A (2012). Reminders of Secular Authority Reduce Believers’ Distrust of Atheists. Psychological Science PMID: 22477103
Hmmm….maybe you should ask for a bench trial
Experienced (and even inexperienced) trial lawyers know that entrusting your case to a group of a dozen strangers in a jury is a gamble. The venire can shift dramatically from day to day, for no discernible reason. You never know what you are going to get. This is why jury selection is really a process of deselection–your best effort to weed out those who won’t listen to your story in spite your best efforts to engage them.
Anyone who has done mock trial research is accustomed to projects in which one ‘jury’ of mock jurors focus on different parts of the evidence than do the other juries, and come to a correspondingly different verdict. It’s what happens. And we learn as much as we can from that anomalous group about how they came to their decisions so we can fill those holes in the case narrative. It’s enough to make a trial lawyer (or their client) fearful about taking the case to court. Yet, it is not the norm to request a bench trial where a single judge decides your case based on the merits. New research suggests that perhaps bench trials should be considered more often.
Many of us think collaborative decisions are ‘better’ than individually made decisions due to the need to exchange perspectives and be more flexible than any individual decision maker. These researchers do not agree. They looked at the difference in individual decisions and those decisions made by collaborators. In this instance, they compared the decision-making process of individuals versus dyads.
What they found was that when decisions were made via collaboration (i.e., in dyads) and the decision-makers were then given additional information with which to potentially modify their decisions–they were less willing to modify than were the individual deciders. In other words, the collaborators were more rigid in maintaining their joint decisions than the individual deciders when given new and useful information. And this hurt them. They had a supporter who agreed with them, and they were less inclined to incorporate the new information.
Because of their determination to stick to their original decisions, collaborators ended up being less accurate than the individual decision-makers. So the researchers conclude that “two heads are not always better than one”.
It would be interesting to see what happens to this sort of research when you are looking at larger groups. Groups, for example, the size of deliberating juries. What we see in our pretrial research is that there are always some individuals who refuse to budge when given additional information. In one of our recent cases, two jurors refused to believe the moderator when she gave them additional information. “That isn’t true!” said the female juror. The moderator assured her it was true and they were being given additional information to see if it made a difference to their decision-making processes. Both the male and female juror dug in and refused to consider the new information. They ‘already knew’ what had happened and their minds were made up.
In a larger group, it’s possible other jurors can persuade recalcitrant hold-outs, but they can only do it if they have information available that plugs the holes in the narrative. As irritating as mock jurors who simply do not listen can be, they are often key to completing a tight case narrative that brings everyone along as you tell the story of your client. Like the sand particle in the oyster–some irritations can become pearls.
Minson JA, & Mueller JS (2012). The cost of collaboration: why joint decision making exacerbates rejection of outside information. Psychological Science, 23 (3), 219-24 PMID: 22344447
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