A qualitative analysis of mock jurors' deliberations of linkage analysis evidence

Charron, Angelina; Woodhams, Jessica

doi:10.1002/jip.119

Cited by 9 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 41 publications

(42 reference statements)

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“…Several perceived barriers to case linkage evidence admissibility focused upon the integrity of academic researchers, supporting prior findings of juror scepticism towards linkage analysis experts (Charron & Woodhams, ). Although the linkage analysis experts were praised for using case studies and having conducted a thorough examination of the offences, participants were sceptical of the value of academic research being applied to real‐life investigations.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 65%

“…The general conclusion that can therefore be inferred from these findings is that offence behaviours are not accurately identifiable by jurors (Charron & Woodhams, ; Woodhams, Bull, et al ., ), and thus, case linkage evidence meets the necessary criteria for admittance into court in England and Wales. This strengthens the argument for the legal admissibility of linkage analysis in trials around the world (Woodhams, Bull, et al ., ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…In conclusion, whilst the findings support those of Paclebar et al . () and Charron and Woodhams () (although more so the latter), they have also expanded understanding of the impact of evidential linkage analysis upon deliberations and provided new avenues for research. Moreover, the current research suggests that modern linkage analysis meets the criteria to be legally admissible in England and Wales on the grounds that it is not within the understanding of a layperson (Woodhams, Bull, et al ., ) as evidenced by the participants' frequent misconceptions.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…How rare are these characteristics? I am disappointed that there weren't statistics provided with these that told me how to weight them.’ (P3 [J1], p. 10, 30, Charron & Woodhams, , p. 177).…”

Section: Linkage Analysis As Evidence In Courtmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Linkage Analysis as Evidence in Court: A Thematic Analysis of Mock Juror Deliberations

Fawcett

Clark

2014

Journal Invest Psychology

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Linkage analysis has, albeit occasionally, been presented in courts across the world as evidence that a series of offences possess behavioural similarities and distinctiveness from other offences, meaning they have probably been committed by the same individual. It is therefore imperative to ascertain how linkage analysis is regarded by juries within the context of deliberations. Three groups of participants (N = 22) eligible for jury duty in England and Wales viewed a simulated rape and murder trial derived from an actual South African case. Linkage analysis formed the sole evidence against the defendant in the two later offences, although DNA matches and eyewitness identifications of the defendant were present in the two earlier offences. Participant deliberations were recorded and subjected to thematic analysis. Five themes were discovered: behavioural consistencies and inconsistencies, physical versus case linkage evidence, barriers to admissibility, potential uses of linkage analysis, and dependence of lay knowledge. Jurors' over-reliance on erroneous lay knowledge contributed to their conclusion that linkage analysis is, at present, unrepresentative evidence that cannot independently indicate a defendant's culpability. However, participants believed that linkage analysis could be a useful tool within investigations and, with further research evidence, in court in England and Wales.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 65%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Linkage Analysis As Evidence In Courtmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Linkage Analysis as Evidence in Court: A Thematic Analysis of Mock Juror Deliberations

Fawcett

Clark

2014

Journal Invest Psychology

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“…Linking crimes in a crime series on the basis of MO information is performed primarily in one of two ways—with either expert judgment or some statistical method. To use expert judgment, Woodhams et al () gave a detailed description of a logical procedure for linking crimes but stated that it can be a “considerable cognitive load on the analyst,” and in a court of law, jurors may be cautious to rely on expert linkage (Charron & Woodhams, ). Nevertheless, for some rare types of crimes in which ritualistic behaviors occur, such as sexual assault, it can make sense to use expert judgment (Hazelwood & Warren, ), and experience does improve the accuracy with which linking can be performed but has little effect on processing speed (Santtila et al ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A permutation test to identify important attributes for linking crimes of serial offenders

Hering

Kazor

2013

Stat

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The modus operandi (MO) of a crime describes the unique characteristics that an offender imparts to it. Although in some instances, a serial offender's behavior is circumstantial, some MO behaviors may be consistent from one crime to the next. By investigating these behaviors, similar crimes can be linked to the same individual, but some attributes describing a crime may be more important for linking than others. Two strategies have historically been used to link crimes. One relies on expert criminal judgment, which may require manually sifting through thousands of crime records. In the second, similar attributes are grouped, and logistic regression is applied to coarse frequency summaries of those groupings. In this work, we introduce an intuitive statistical permutation test for assessing the importance of individual attributes in linking crimes, and we show how the results can be used to weight each one's importance to link crimes. By using the serial offenses of four sets of residential burglaries and six sets of robberies identified in Tempe, Arizona, the test is illustrated, and differences among attribute importance of these two types of crimes are highlighted. We demonstrate greater success in linking crimes when the test results are incorporated into a linking analysis.

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A Comparison of Logistic Regression and Classification Tree Analysis for Behavioural Case Linkage

Tonkin

Woodhams

Bull

et al. 2012

Journal Invest Psychology

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Much previous research on behavioural case linkage has used binary logistic regression to build predictive models that can discriminate between linked and unlinked offences. However, classification tree analysis has recently been proposed as a potential alternative owing to its ability to build user‐friendly and transparent predictive models. Building on previous research, the current study compares the relative ability of logistic regression analysis and classification tree analysis to construct predictive models for the purposes of case linkage. Two samples are utilised in this study: a sample of 376 serial car thefts committed in the UK and a sample of 160 serial residential burglaries committed in Finland. In both datasets, logistic regression and classification tree models achieve comparable levels of discrimination accuracy, but the classification tree models demonstrate problems in terms of reliability or usability that the logistic regression models do not. These findings suggest that future research is needed before classification tree analysis can be considered a viable alternative to logistic regression in behavioural case linkage. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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A qualitative analysis of mock jurors' deliberations of linkage analysis evidence

Cited by 9 publications

References 41 publications

Linkage Analysis as Evidence in Court: A Thematic Analysis of Mock Juror Deliberations

Linkage Analysis as Evidence in Court: A Thematic Analysis of Mock Juror Deliberations

A permutation test to identify important attributes for linking crimes of serial offenders

A Comparison of Logistic Regression and Classification Tree Analysis for Behavioural Case Linkage

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