Case Studies in Legal Psychology

In some criminal cases, it is a difficult challenge to find out what happened. Fact finders will rely on different approaches ranging from intuitive heuristics to scientific insights. With 11 real cases, this book illustrates how professional judges evaluate criminal evidence. Moreover, the legal psychological approach to the same evidence is discussed, as the author served as a psychological expert witness in these cases. Targeted pieces of evidence and related topics include:

• Eyewitness identification

• Eyewitness testimony

• Confession evidence

• Deception

• Memory flaws

• Legal decision making

It is a must-read for practitioners and graduate students in criminal law, forensic psychology, and legal psychology.

Eric Rassin, PhD LLM (1969) is lawyer and psychologist. He currently works at Erasmus University Rotterdam as legal psychologist. He serves as a forensic expert witness regularly. Rassin wrote books on thought suppression (2005) and legal psychology (2020), and dozens or scientific articles. His main research interests are biases, legal decision making, likelihood ratios, negative evidence, and credibility assessment.