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Case study
Case study
Psychological theory reaction to crime and deviance
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My client Albert Fish is accused of molesting and murdering 30 or more young children but, he wasn’t in his right mind when he committed the crimes. Now I'm not asking you to forget what Mr. Fish has done but I ask you the jury to consider what I'm about to say when making your final decision. Albert Fish has always had a troubled childhood. With everyone in his family having some form of mental illness. Up till the age of 5 he was constantly molested by his father. His father died when he was 5 and his mother didn’t want any of her kids so she sent them to an orphanage. This is where the real torment started he was beaten every day, molested, forced to masturbate in front of others. That’s level of abuse is something that many people never
go through. Albert because he was so used to the pain and torture thought that this was what you're supposed to do to children since he was abused from the he was born. At the age of 7 his mother came to get him. While in her possession Albert suffered a severe head, injury causing his mental illness to develop at a very fast rate. He began to hear voices in his head and when he would go to doctors he would say that god was speaking to him. These voices would later go on that everything that happened to him as a child was supposed to happen to other kids. By the age of 20 he began to kill because he was suffering from psychosis and couldn’t tell right from wrong. All of the actions that Fish has done was not because he wanted to but because he couldn’t think for himself.
The applicant Mr. Arthur Hutchinson was born in 1941. In October 1983, he broke into a house, murdered a man, his wife and their adult son. Then he repeatedly raped their 18-year old daughter, having first dragged her past her father’s body. After several weeks, he was arrested by the police and chargedwith the offences. During the trial he refused to accept the offence and pleaded for innocence. He denied accepting the killings and sex with the younger daughter.
Your honor, we the jury are here today to give our decision on the punishment in the case before the court titled the state of Texas v. James Broadnax. Your honor, as you and everyone in the court room here today recalls, the defendant was charged of murdering two people in their mid-to-late twenties. For the record purposes sir, let the record show the two victims go by the names of Mr. Stephen Swan and Mr. Matthew Butler. Let the record also further indicate the defendant goes by the name of Mr. James Broadmax.
After reading ‘The Murder of Helen Jewett” it gave me insight on how crime in New York City was in the 1830’s and another view on how life for men and women differed. The book starts off talking about Dorcas Doyen famously known as Helen Jewett and how she was highly thought of but then the news comes out of nowhere with several stories about her past some twisted to make her seem as bad as a prostitute who has bounced around a few times could be seen. But her actual story was that she was born in 1814 in Temple, Maine to a regular working family. She lost both of her parents at a young age her mother died when she was at the early ages of her life and he father who was an alcoholic died shortly after her mother. She was put in a home, orphaned
Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, thank you for your attention today. [Slide #2] I would like to assert that separation is not the end of a relationship. Divorce is not the end of a relationship. Even an arrest is not the end of a relationship. Only death is the end of a relationship. In the case of defendant Donna Osborn, her insistence that ‘“one way or another I’ll be free,”’ as told in the testimony of her friend Jack Mathews and repeated in many others’, indicates that despite the lack of planning, the defendant had the full intent to kill her husband, Clinton Osborn.
At the time of the murder of which David Milgaard was accused of committing he was just 16 years old. He was a hippie, constantly in trouble. Even before he was a teenager he was getting into trouble. His parents and teachers considered him impulsive; he resisted authority (Regina Leader Post, 1992, as cited in Anderson & Anderson 1998). He was removed from kindergarten because he was considered to be a negative influence on the other children. When he was thirteen he spent time in a psychiatric centre (Anderson & Anderson, 1998)
Throughout the trial, defense attorneys attempted to argue Salvi was suffering from psychological disorders that would make him incompetent for trial. Ultimately, however Salvi was found competent to stand trial. After reading Salvi’s full psychiatric interview, the official court transcript of the four-day competency hearing, and the day-to-day summary; I have come to agree that the defendant, John Salvi was competent to stand trial.
Kassin, Saul, and Lawrence Wrightsman (Eds.). The Psychology of Evidence and Trial Procedure. Chapter 3. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1985. Print.
Guilty or not guilty? This the key question during the murder trial of a young man accused of fatally stabbing his father. The play 12 Angry Men, by Reginald Rose, introduces to the audience twelve members of a jury made up of contrasting men from various backgrounds. One of the most critical elements of the play is how the personalities and experiences of these men influence their initial majority vote of guilty. Three of the most influential members include juror #3, juror #10, and juror #11. Their past experiences and personal bias determine their thoughts and opinions on the case. Therefore, how a person feels inside is reflected in his/her thoughts, opinions, and behavior.
Serial murder is defined by the National Institute of Justice as a "series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually but not always, by one offender acting alone. The crimes may occur over a period of time ranging from hours to years. Quite often the motive is psychological, and the offender's behavior and the physical evidence observed at the crime scenes will reflect sadistic, sexual overtones." This definition perfectly describes serial killer Albert Fish.
Jurors opinions can be influenced by an emotional testimony. Deborah W. Denno’s article Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology, and the Criminal Justice System is the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law’s publication of a panel at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools. The panel had three goals: “examine the interrelationship between neuroscience and substantive criminal law; to incorporate criminal procedure more directly into the examination in a way that past investigations have not done; and to scrutinize cognitive bias in decision-making,” (Denno
"Know the Cases." Innocence Project. Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, n.d. Web. 1 Mar 2011. .
In the criminal justice system psychologist play several roles, but in the jury selection process they serve as a consultant. This essay will provide three instances of psychological concepts and illustrate how they are applied to the determination of juries. The essay will also address a common ethical obligation confronting psychologist in the areas of corrections, law enforcement, court systems, and academia.
Kalief Browder was a sixteen year old boy who was wrongfully accused of stealing a backpack. He spent three years in solitary confinement on Rikers Island before committing suicide in 2015. Kalief’s story truly upset me, and I wanted to learn why this had happened, and what I could possibly do to ensure this never happens again in the future. My first interests within wrongful conviction were racial bias, reform, and reparation. Questions formed in my mind such as: Why is there not better training towards prosecutors? How common are wrongful convictions? What is being done to combat this grievance? How are exonerees given the resources, if any, to restart their lives? And more specifically, what type of apology, if any, is made? I found it sickening that our law system is not doing anything substantial to shut down this issue. Therefore, I decided to pick wrongful conviction as my topic, and began my research. I read many articles, magazines, and a book about wrongful conviction. Also, I interviewed Colin Bowen, a criminal defense attorney in Oakland, California, and Rhonda Donato, a former attorney for the Innocence Project in Northern California. Despite a few nuances, such as Donato having to postpone our interview, both characters had much to say and much information about wrongful conviction. Through this project, I hope to share with the class the heartbreaking truth behind wrongful convictions, and inspire them to help make a difference. Wrongful convictions are brought about by many many different flaws in our criminal justice system, primarily erroneous eyewitness testimony, and racial stereotyping and systemic bias in the law enforcement
Craig Price, America’s youngest serial killer was only 13 years old when he brutally murdered Rebecca Spencer, stabbing her 58 times. Flying under the radar, the juvenile remained on a hiatus as the case went unsolved. Two years later Price struck again, stabbing Joan Heaton and her two daughters to death. When confessing to the murders Price showed no remorse for what he had done. When asked if he had done anything wrong, Price replied that he hadn’t, since “morality is a private choice.” So were Prices’ moral belief proper grounds for dismissal of his charges? Was his statement a substantial argument? In the following text I will attempt to explain a simple subjectivist point of view on Prices’ statement, as well as express my personal stand in this subject matter.
A young man accused of murdering an old man has been found mentally competent to stand trial in Brookvale on murder charges. Albert Winston was arrested yesterday after he told the police officers that he killed an 87-year-old man named Drew Reid, by suffocating him with a heavy mattress. The neighbours called the police as they heard a shriek coming from Drew's house. 4:00 a.m., the police inspected the house and consequently, Albert admitted to allegedly killing the old man as well as buried his body under the lonely floor boards. Moreover, Albert stalked Drew for seven nights straight. For the reason being that Drew's glass eye is like a vulture's, Albert killed