Crozier William E, Strange Deryn, Loftus Elizabeth F
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, NY, USA.
The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA.
Behav Sci Law. 2017 Jan;35(1):6-17. doi: 10.1002/bsl.2273. Epub 2017 Feb 6.
Alibis play a critical role in the criminal justice system. Yet research on the process of alibi generation and evaluation is still nascent. Indeed, similar to other widely investigated psychological phenomena in the legal system - such as false confessions, historical claims of abuse, and eyewitness memory - the basic assumptions underlying alibi generation and evaluation require closer empirical scrutiny. To date, the majority of alibi research investigates the social psychological aspects of the process. We argue that applying our understanding of basic human memory is critical to a complete understanding of the alibi process. Specifically, we challenge the use of alibi inconsistency as an indication of guilt by outlining the "cascading effects" that can put innocents at risk for conviction. We discuss how normal encoding and storage processes can pose problems at retrieval, particularly for innocent suspects that can result in alibi inconsistencies over time. Those inconsistencies are typically misunderstood as intentional deception, first by law enforcement, affecting the investigation, then by prosecutors affecting prosecution decisions, and finally by juries, ultimately affecting guilt judgments. Put differently, despite the universal nature of memory inconsistencies, a single error can produce a cascading effect, rendering an innocent individual's alibi, ironically, proof of guilt. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
不在场证明在刑事司法系统中起着关键作用。然而，关于不在场证明的生成和评估过程的研究仍处于起步阶段。事实上，类似于法律系统中其他广泛研究的心理现象——如虚假供述、虐待的历史指控和目击证人记忆——不在场证明的生成和评估所基于的基本假设需要更仔细的实证审查。到目前为止，大多数不在场证明研究都调查了该过程的社会心理方面。我们认为，运用我们对人类基本记忆的理解对于全面理解不在场证明过程至关重要。具体而言，我们通过概述可能使无辜者面临定罪风险的“连锁效应”，对将不在场证明不一致作为有罪迹象的做法提出质疑。我们讨论了正常的编码和存储过程如何在检索时引发问题，特别是对于无辜嫌疑人，这可能导致随着时间推移不在场证明出现不一致。这些不一致通常首先被执法人员误解为故意欺骗，从而影响调查，接着被检察官误解，影响起诉决定，最后被陪审团误解，最终影响有罪判决。换句话说，尽管记忆不一致具有普遍性，但一个单一的错误可能产生连锁效应，具有讽刺意味的是，使无辜者的不在场证明成为有罪的证据。版权所有© 2017约翰·威利父子有限公司。
