Link and Reflection

After reading about and discussing Kenneth Clark's work in Brown v. Board of Education, it led me to question how psychology's role in the courts has rapidly grown. Before the Social Science Brief by Clark, the courts never appealed to psychologists for their opinion or testimony. However, the use of psychologists as expert witnesses to testify in court has become a common practice. I think that psychologists can be used in some instances, but sometimes I think it's wrong. For example, the use of psychological studies in Brown v. Board of Education was valid and not a far-fetched argument. The use of psychologists in Dan White's "Twinkie Defense" after the murder of Harvey Milk was ridiculous, and it worked! I feel like juries are unfairly persuaded by psychologists discussing testimony that they have no previous knowledge of.
So where Kenneth Clark's work was valuable and sound, it has led to a practice in our field that I am uncomfortable with. I think that the overuse of psychological expert testimony in court is giving the field of psychology a bad name, and psychologists need to restrict what they testify about. But, this is easier said than done when attorneys hand over huge sums of money for expert testimony. This is another problem in a scientific field that is still young and quickly growing. The link below is an article about why nonforensic psychologists should not participate in forensice investigations. The author points out numerous problems and difficulties such as stretching the truth and unfair persuasion. This is just something to think about this week.

http://www.reidpsychiatry.com/columns/14%20Reid%2003-03%20pp163-166.pdf

Seth