What judges know about eyewitness testimony: A comparison of Norwegian and US judges

We surveyed 157 Norwegian judges about their knowledge and beliefs about eyewitness testimony, and compared their answers to a prior survey of 160 US judges. Although the Norwegian judges were somewhat more knowledgeable than the US judges, both groups had limited knowledge of eyewitness testimony....

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology, crime & law crime & law, 2008-06, Vol.14 (3), p.177-188
Main Authors: Magnussen, Svein, Wise, Richard A., Raja, Abid Q., Safer, Martin A., Pawlenko, Nell, Stridbeck, Ulf
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied psychology
Beliefs
Biological and medical sciences
Comparative analysis
Crime
Cross-national analysis
eyewitness testimony
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Judges
Law
Miscellaneous
Norway
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
U.S.A
USA
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We surveyed 157 Norwegian judges about their knowledge and beliefs about eyewitness testimony, and compared their answers to a prior survey of 160 US judges. Although the Norwegian judges were somewhat more knowledgeable than the US judges, both groups had limited knowledge of eyewitness testimony. The Norwegian judges, like the US judges, frequently differed from eyewitness experts in their responses to such important issues as whether eyewitness confidence is related to identification accuracy at trial and what is the best method for conducting identification procedures. As was true for the US judges, more knowledgeable Norwegian judges had many of the beliefs that may be necessary for reducing and mitigating the effects of eyewitness error. The results suggest that increasing judges' knowledge of eyewitness testimony may be an important component of the solution to eyewitness error.
ISSN:1068-316X
1477-2744
DOI:10.1080/10683160701580099