The study of wrongful convictions has increased our understanding of the recurrent causes of error in the criminal justice system-some of which are examined in other chapters of this book-including eyewitness error, false confessions, jailhouse informant testimony, police and prosecutorial misconduct, forensic science error or fraud, and inadequate defense counsel (Scheck, Neufeld, & Dwyer, 2000). In recent years, growing attention has been focused on an additional and pervasive contributor of wrongful convictions, present in almost every wrongful conviction along with each of these specific causesthe problem of tunnel vision (Bibas, 2004;Findley & Scott, 2006;Martin, 2002;Rossmo, 2009).Tunnel vision is a natural human tendency that has particularly pernicious effects in the criminal justice system. Tunnel vision in this context is generally understood to mean that "compendium of common heuristics and logical fallacies," to which we are all susceptible, that lead actors in the criminal justice system to "focus on a suspect, select and filter the evidence that This chapter was adapted and developed from an article by the author and Michael Scott that first appeared in the Wisconsin Law Review in 2006.
22. Ethics rules permit lawyers to prepare witnesses and to talk with them extensively about their testimony before trial. Restatement (Third) of Law Governing Lawyers § 116 (2000); see Langbein, supra note 1, at 833-34 (describing how skillful coaching of witnesses undermines the witnesses' ability or desire to testify in a fully truthful manner). 23. Research shows that witness preparation has a significant effect on shaping the witness's testimony, often in ways that make the testimony less faithful to the truth.
Few medico-legal matters have generated as much controversy-both in the medical literature and in the courtroom-as Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), now known more broadly as Abusive Head Trauma (AHT). The controversies are of enormous significance in the law because child abuse pediatricians claim, on the basis of a few non-specific medical findings supported by a weak and methodologically flawed research base, to be able to "diagnose" child abuse, and thereby to provide all of the evidence necessary to satisfy all of the legal elements for criminal prosecution (or removal of children from their parents). It is a matter, therefore, in which medical opinion claims to fully occupy the legal field. As controversies flare up increasingly in the legal arena, child abuse pediatricians and prosecutors now respond by claiming both that there is actually no real controversy about SBS/AHT, and that it is a purely medical "diagnosis" and not a legal conclusion, so testimony in support of the SBS hypothesis should not be challenged in court. This article, coauthored by four law professors, two physicians, and a physicist, demonstrates that there is very much a live controversy about the SBS/AHT hypothesis and maintains that, under traditional principles of evidence law, physicians should not be permitted to "diagnose" abuse in court (as opposed to identifying specific symptoms or medical findings).
, and participants in the University of Wisconsin Law School faculty scholarship workshop for their invaluable feedback on a draft of this article.
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