You are a forensic psychologist working with Forensic Consultants, Inc. An attorney is using your services as a consultant in a case. During a meeting with the attorney, the attorney tells you that the client, while undergoing police interrogation,
You are
a forensic psychologist working with Forensic Consultants, Inc. An
attorney is using your services as a consultant in a case. During a
meeting with the attorney, the attorney tells you that the client, while
undergoing police interrogation, confessed to murdering. When the
attorney asked the client, the client reported to being not guilty.
As
you conduct a preliminary investigation, draw up a plan on how you will
assist your the attorney with this case. The plan should answer the
following questions posed by the attorney:
What do specific factors
about police interrogative tactics you think will be important to the
defense strategy? Discuss interrogation tactics that lead to false
confession, specifying at least two examples and explain the reason they
are considered coercive. Include information about how this would look
in an actual interrogation and how the client experienced this behavior.
Will
you look for any specific personality characteristics in the client?
What are they and why will they help or hurt your case? Are issues of
competency going to come up? Discuss information about what types of
people are more at risk with coercive interrogation tactics. Include at
least one research study that has demonstrated this risk.
What type
of personality assessment instrument will you want to use to either
identify or rule out the characteristics listed in question 2? Be
specific and support your answer: Identify at least one psychological
test that can be used and includes information on why it would be useful
in determining whether a person was vulnerable.
Based on the
client’s response to police interrogation, how should you conduct your
interview? Specifically, what should you avoid when attempting to gather
accurate information from the client?
Create a presentation to give
to the attorney. You will need to explain each of your arguments. You
should expect to have 30 minutes to present your arguments. You should
include detailed speaker notes to assist in your presentation. Please
make sure to have at least 12 slides for review besides a title slide
and a References slide. Each slide should be thoroughly referenced and
cited based in psychological research, using APA formatting.