give Dr. Kieliszewski a welcoming hand. (Applause) >> Good afternoon-- can
everyone hear me okay? >> Yes.
>> Okay. I want to thank Dr.
Vargo
and Dr. Conners for giving me the opportunity
to talk with you today. I'm gonna play a little bit
off that whole track thing-- community college student. Hopefully, you don't
take this track.
Alpena Community College, I was on academic
probation for a couple-- for a year or two,
and when they, um-- then many, many years later
when I sort of figured it out, I was awarded their
Distinguished Alumni Award 2004 and my opening was,
"Isn't this great? "The institution that put
me on academic probation "is now awarding me as one of
their distinguished alumni." So, I hope you don't
follow that track. So if you're a little
confused in life, you know, it could straighten
out for ya. What we're gonna talk about
today is forensic psychology. Dr.
Conners gave a little
bit of my background, and I am actually just two
blocks down the street here. So, it's kinda nice that
you've got someone in town who can talk a little
bit about this. We're gonna focus on the real
world of forensic psychology and I hope it's not
too disappointing... Um, not riding around in the
back of squad cars with a gun trying to track down
serial killers.
I've seen many serial
killers over the years. We can talk a little
bit about that. What I think I'm gonna do
today in the presentation is I'm gonna talk a little bit
about forensic psychology in general, try to give you a taste
of how broad the field is and what's involved
in the field, And then, I'm gonna
highlight a few things that, as a working
forensic psychologist, I deal with on
a daily basis. Some of these things I'm sure
you've heard of in the media.
Insanity, competency
to stand trial, things like that. We'll get into a
couple of other issues-- um, or a couple of
other tasks that I do as a working
forensic psychologist that have to do
with family law. If two people are going
through a divorce and they're fighting
over custody, sometimes the judge
sends them to me to do a custody
evaluation. I'll talk a little
bit about that.
I'm planning on talking
for about an hour-- I've got a lot
of slides. I don't know if I'll
get through all of them. We'll kinda see
where it goes. And then, I think the
was this was designed was I'd sorta do presentation
for the first hour or so, and then just
field questions.
And then,
I can just-- I like that it was designed that
way because, in my opinion, when I do talks
like this, one of the things that I think
people get the most out of is when you put the
curriculum down and you start having discussions
and asking questions. So where we'll
start out today is... I'm gonna put up a very,
very simple definition of "forensic psychology." You'll find out it's not
such a simple area or field but the definition
is really simple-- "application of
psychological science "within the
legal system." A little bit on the history
of forensic psychology, or basically
psychologists in court. It's been an
interesting history.
There's a guy named
Hugo Mnsterberg. Isn't that a
great name? Hugo Mnsterberg. 1908, Wrote
"On The Witness Stand," and, uh, Hugo-- if I have anymore kids,
I should name them Hugo-- talks about all
kinds of fun stuff. You know, back in these days,
100 years ago, when you were a
psychology professor, you could just make up stuff
and write about it and people tried to go out and
prove it or prove it wrong.
Well, Hugo stepped onto
some interesting ideas-- "Untrue Confessions"
is one of his chapters. Why would people go
make a confession when they
didn't do it? Have you ever heard of this
topic in the media at all? It's called
"false confessions" now. Hugo go onto that. He also--
"Hypnotism in Crime." Anyone hear of
famous cases-- well, about
20 years ago now-- where children
would be hypnotized and would allegedly tell
therapists and police that they were sexually abused
in their day care? Have you heard
about these? I mean, they were quite
spectacular cases 20 years ago.
Well, Hugo talks
a bit about that. So, Hugo was kinda the
first forensic psychologist but, after he
got started, throughout the years and
throughout the centuries, psychologists have sort of
been in and out of court. Social workers had a much
more strong presence in court up until probably
the 1960s, and then you would get
psychologists in and out, but there was no real
forensic training programs. The '70s, things started
to get really interesting with psychologists because
insanity defenses came up.
You've all heard
of that, right? Some famous cases--
Harvey Milk. That Harvey Milk movie? I haven't seen that yet--
I heard it's good, though. I think they did an
insanity defense-- they called it the
"Twinkie defense." We'll talk a little
bit about that stuff. So psychologists-- one of my
colleagues who started our firm in 1972--
Don Van Ostenberg-- said when he
landed in town, psychologists weren't allowed
in the courts in Grand Rapids.
In the '80s, he started
breaking into that. And now, we're an integral part
of a lot of court decisions within specific
types of problems. So we'll get into
more of that. So, that is a real
basic definition.
Other examples of forensic--
forensic pathology. Anyone remember "Quincy"?
"Quincy"? Yeah, just the folks
that aren't super young. Quincy was a forensic
pathologist. He was an MD,
Medical Doctor, right? Autopsies,
cause of death.
We all know
about that stuff. Forensic science--
that's the stuff that all the
TV shows have, right? Blood splatter analysis
and things like that. Forensic dentistry--
do you ever hear that? Trying to identify a body
by bite marks, right? Or bite marks
in crimes. Forensic accounting-- that's
when you are arrested for fraud and the Feds hire a
forensic accountant to go in and look at the way
you're keeping your books.
So all of these-- so
this would be accounting intertwined with
the legal system, dentistry intertwined
with the legal system. Oh, by the way, I forgot to
give you my little warning. You know, I deal with
really kinda nasty people and nasty scenarios
all day long, so I always have to
kinda filter myself that I may give
some examples today, and I don't mean
to offend people or give you
disturbing stories. But, you know, I talk
about this stuff every day, so sometimes I might be a
little blunt and abrasive and I apologize
ahead of time.
Wow, look at that. The broad area of
forensic psychology. These are things that
a forensic psychologist may have to deal with
on a daily basis. Insanity evaluations,
criminal responsibility-- we're gonna
highlight those.
Look-- uh, juvenile competency
to stand trial. We'll talk more
about that. Guardianship--
do you need a guardian? A forensic psychologist
sometimes has to get involved. Police psychology,
expert testimony.
I testify a
lot in court. Risk for sexual offending,
disability, civil litigation. You know what
that means? If someone runs into
your car and you sue them and you say that you
have emotional distress and psychological
damage, you might need a forensic
psychologist to get involved. I do some
of this.
I tend to work more
for the defense. I'm not very good at
kinda crafting an opinion to make an
attorney happy. Yeah,
I actually-- someone's suing Toyota and
I got hired on that case. Interesting.
American with
Disabilities Act. If you have a disability and
you need special accommodations, or if you
get fired and you say it was because
of your disability. I've had cases
like that. Fitness to carry a firearm--
that's an interesting one.
If you've been hospitalized
for psychiatric reasons and then you want a
concealed weapons permit. Um, let's see. What other-- false confessions--
I already mentioned that. Trial consultation--
I'll talk about that.
That's really
interesting. Victim psychology. We'll talk about
correctional psychology. I was a prison psychologist
for seven years.
Oh, here's a good one--
the psychology of lawyers. That's my new area I'm
kinda getting into. There's a great
book on-- "Know Thyself, Lawyer"
or something like that, that I have
to order. And how do you train
lawyers to go into court and do a good job? That's really fun.
Okay. So just remember the
whole definition is, right, "application
of psychological science "within the
legal system." All right. The roles of a
forensic psychologist. Clinician.
Most forensic
psychologists spend most of their
time doing this. In other words,
they examine people. They look at people,
they evaluate people, they write reports
about people. I'll skip down
to treator.
Treator is a very
specific type of, um... Work. If someone's found not
competent to stand trial-- and you'll know what that
means when we leave today-- sometimes, you
have to treat them until they become
competent. And then,
a consultant.
That's stuff that's
all over the place. Interviewing witnesses,
strategizing, helping attorneys develop
a cross-examination of an expert witness
psychologist. Jury selection. We'll talk about
that, right? You've heard of
that before? That's really
got some press.
Okay. I'm gonna go through
this quick 'cause I wanna get
to the good stuff. Application of
forensic psychology-- this is, too, within
criminal proceedings. You can do a
pretrial application of forensic psychology,
competent to stand trial.
If you're not competent
to stand trial, they can't take
you to court. In trial, I'll get asked to
provide a conceptualization of why a person would do
this kind of behavior. Sentencing-- that mostly
is for Federal law where you can go underneath
the guidelines of sentencing or over the guidelines
of sentencing based on sort of knowing the
psychology of the person. And appeals.
I'm doing more
of that, where cases will
come up for appeal. Civil litigation,
I talked about, family court,
I talked about, probate court are things
like guardianship... Competency to make decisions
about your medical care, stuff like that. All right.
The one thing that you
have to understand about what a forensic
psychologist does is applies principles
of psychology to a particular
legal statute. So, what a well-trained
forensic psychologist does is they go through
a training program where they become sort
of amateur lawyers. When I went through my training,
I had to read lots of case law. You know anybody who's in
law school or is a lawyer? They talk
about case law.
You have to read all that,
and what you have to do is you have to learn how
to interpret statute to a certain degree. Not like a judge
interprets statute. But you have to, as a
forensic psychologist, understand what
you're looking at and what questions you're
trying to answer for the court. Criminal proceedings.
The pretrial criminal
responsibility-- let's jump
to that guy. Whoa, what is that? M.C.L. Section 761.21A(1)-- this is the statute in Michigan
for criminal responsibility. "If, as a result of mental
illness of mental retardation "as defined in M.C.L.,"
Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, "that person lacks
substantial capacity "either to appreciate the nature
and quality or the wrongfulness "of his or her conduct,
or to conform his conduct "to the requirements
of the law." What does that mean? Basically, what it means
is that if someone has done a crime, did they have
a mental problem that would make it so that
they would not understand the nature and quality or
wrongfulness of their conduct or be able to
control their conduct to the requirements
of the law? This is state law.
Federal law is
called "insanity." It used to be called
"insanity" in Michigan but they changed it to
"criminal responsibility." I guess that a more politically
correct term, I guess. If you read this,
it's similar. "The criminal defense
asserting that at the time "of the commission of the
acts constituting the offense, "the defendant, as a result
of severe mental disease "or defect--"
I love that, "severe." That's a good thing
to put in there. "--Was unable to appreciate
the nature and quality "or the wrongfulness
of his acts." Okay? Basically, it says
about the same thing.
So, as a forensic
psychologist, what will
happen is... You will get asked to answer
the question of insanity or criminal
responsibility. So I have to do an evaluation
and make an opinion whether or not this person
appreciated the nature and quality or wrongfulness
of their conduct, or could conform their
conduct to the requirements of the law. If you are found-- and
if this goes to court and becomes
a big trial, you could be found "not
guilty by reason of insanity" or "not guilty due to a lack
of criminal responsibility." You've heard about these
cases before, right? Insanity cases? How often
does it work? Does anybody know? Want to take a guess?
Go ahead.
>> About 1 out
of 100 times. >> Anybody else
have any ideas? >> (Indistinct).
>> What's that? >> Less than 1%.
>> You guys are great! Yeah, less than 1%. In 1998, they
did a big study and 37% of the public
thought-- er, um.... What was it,
'98, '99? And people-- the study said
that most people thought 37% of the time,
it worked.
So this is a hard
thing to pull off. What makes this
difficult to assess as a forensic
psychologist is, if someone
committed a crime on May 14th at 2:30
in the morning, 2009, and now I see them
on December 10th, I have to try and get
some understanding of their state of mind at the
time of the alleged crime. That's the tough part of
applying this statute. There are a lot of famous cases
that went nowhere with this.
Jack Ruby. You guys know who
he is, right? He shot Kennedy. They went for an
insanity defense. Sirhan Sirhan
shot Bobby Kennedy, they went for an
insanity defense.
John Wayne Gacy--
remember him? He was the guy in Chicago
who'd dress up as a clown and had 33 bodies
underneath his house. He tried--
didn't work. Jeffrey Dahmer went
for this-- didn't work. So you guys are
a smarter crowd than our general American
public, I can tell.
You understand that
this is something that does not
happen very often. It may be asserted
from time to time. So it's not really a
legal loophole, okay? Let me give you an
example of cases I've had where the person was insane
and the person wasn't. Um...
I'll give you ones
where they were insane. When I was in the
Federal Bureau prisons, we had a guy who
walked up to the-- he was mentally ill, got out of the
psychiatric hospital and, an hour later,
went to the bank and said, "You SOBs
give me all my money "or I'm blowing
this bank up. "Give me
my money." They hand him
a bag of money. He walks across the
street to McDonald's, gets a couple
of Egg McMuffins, goes out and sits on the
picnic table in front.
Puts the bag
of money-- by the way, he walks
into McDonald's and puts the bag of money
right on the counter. Pulls out a couple of
dollars out of there, goes and sits in the
picnic table in the front of the restaurant, puts his bag of money and
starts to eat his Egg McMuffins when the cops
show up, okay? This guy obviously didn't
have a good understanding of the nature and
quality and wrongfulness of going into a bank
and demanding money or it'll be
blown up. Obviously, he didn't because he
didn't even try to get away, okay? A local case, and I'm not
violating confidentiality because this is something that
was in the court proceedings. Have you heard about
the local case where there was a Federal Agent
who was stealing identities? It was a few
years ago.
I had to examine her and
went into court on that, and, um... She is a Federal Agent and would
walk up with a stolen ATM card that she took out
of someone's mail to an ATM with
the camera there, put it in
and get $20. So obviously, understanding
the nature and quality and wrongfulness of her
conduct wasn't operating on that particular
instance because look at the high
probability of being caught... But she just
didn't get it.
Now, what if you get drunk
and you black out? Right? "I don't remember." Voluntary intoxication basically
takes this off the table. If you get really wasted
and do something really bad and don't
remember it, you're not gonna be
able to apply this. That one stuck around
a long time in Canada but I think they got rid
of it about 10 years ago. If you have a physician
prescribing you medications and they're prescribing you
medications that are way beyond what you should be getting,
this will apply.
The Federal Agent
I spoke about-- and this is all in
the court record and actually it was
all in the media, too-- was on a ton of
pain medications. And really, um, really did
not know right from wrong. Any quick questions
on this one? Okay. I don't know how much
people know about this, but that's
kinda the gist.
So I will get these
questions from time to time. The Forensic Center
in Ann Arbor does most of these
for the state, but I'll get
as a second opinion, or some Federal stuff I
get directly from the Feds because they found out
I was in town. They called me up one day--
"Hey, didn't you use "to work for us?"
I said, "Yeah." And they said, "Can
we send people to you "instead of
North Carolina?" So I did some
of those. Competency to
stand trial-- yeah? >> A question on
that last one.
How does a plea for
temporary insanity work, if the drunkenness
doesn't work? Is it just, like,
with medication then? >> Temporary insanity, and
permanent insanity, really, it's sort of
a moot point. They use to talk about
temporary insanity... But now it's
just insanity. Because at the-- what we're
talking about is, at the time, your mental state.
So I suppose someone could be
insane for a long period of time but, um, they use to
have that delineation but they don't
really anymore. 'Cause you just focus on
the specific incident. Competency to
stand trial, I'll run through
this quick. "A defendant to a
criminal charge "shall be presumed
competent to stand trial.
"He shall be determined
incompetent to stand trial "only if he is incapable because
of his or her mental condition "or understanding the nature
and object," blah-blah-blah, "of the PROCEEDINGS
against him "or of assisting in his
defense in a rational manner." So what competency
really talks to-- this is pretrial. You go in and if they
allege you're not competent to stand trial, that means you would not
be able to understand the nature and object
of the proceedings, and you wouldn't be able to
help assist your defense. And it has to be because of
a mental disease or defect. You need to have a
serious mental illness or mental retardation
fits this, too.
I do a lot more of
this type of work. If you're found not
competent to stand trial, they can't charge you
with a criminal-- um, they can't charge
you, criminally. So if you find
someone not competent, what you also have to do, as
the forensic psychologist, is try to determine
and provide an opinion about the chances of them
being restored to competency within 15 months. So if someone is
really mentally ill and you get them on
the right medications, would they be able
to meet this standard? And then, it's called a
"competency restoration." If a person has
an IQ of 68, which means they're
mentally retarded, can you teach them enough
about what happens in court through an
educational program? Competency restoration.
There are two states
in the country that have extensive, great
competency restoration programs. I mean,
well-funded. You go live there
for nine months, you go to class
everyday. Do you wanna guess what
two states have that? (Indistinct).
I'll tell you
one-- Texas. You know what
the other one is? Florida, right. You know why? You gotta have
someone competent before you can put
them to death. So if you have
a death penalty, you better have a good
competency restoration program.
That's interesting,
isn't it? One thing that I'll
do in this area that... Gets to be very, very,
very complicated is juvenile competency. You're 14, you
have an IQ of 72, and you sexually molested
a five-year-old. Are you competent
to stand trial? Well, we don't have--
no states that I'm aware of-- well, I shouldn't
say that.
Most states do not
have a specific statute for juvenile competency. So the courts rely
on the adult's statute. So if you're 14 and
charged with a crime, you have to meet
this threshold. I do a lot
of those.
When I first landed here in
private practice eight years ago and with my background, I had someone call
me up and say, "Geez, I've got this 13-year-old
that they're trying to basically "put away for
10 years. "I don't know if they
understand what's going on." So I did some homework
and tailored some things and wrote some articles
about juvenile competency, and now I get a lot of this
kind of work all over the state. And then,
I testify. This is sort of
a local case, a different county--
not Kent County.
Seven-year-old
charged with Arson I-- arson in the
first degree. You know what the-- uh,
the penalty for Arson I. Can be, um--
actually I think-- no. No, that one
doesn't go life but you can get up to
40 years in prison.
He was playing with a lighter
in the babysitter's trailer and started a
closet on fire. So Arson I--
so I got the referral and I looked at
the date of birth, and I called
the lawyer up. I said, "Is this
date of birth right?" He said, "Yeah." So I said, "What are they
gonna do with a seven-year-old "if they convict him? "Where are they gonna
send him for prison?" Anyway, I said he
wasn't competent. That was sort
of a slam dunk.
Because then I did his IQ
and that was kinda low, and he had the mental age
of a four-year-old. Can four-year-olds go
into court and understand the nature and object
of the proceedings, go on the stand and testify
to defend themselves? You know, I'm testifying in a
case Friday with a 10-year-old. The problem with these cases
is a lot of them are sex cases. So you have a 10-year-old
that molests a four-year-old.
And now, there's a new
prosecutor in this one county who doesn't believe in
"not competent to stand trial." So. I'll be driving
a lot up there. Okay. So I guess you're
getting the gist that a lot of it has to do with
having a technical understanding of the law and applying
psychological principles to it.
I'll do a
couple more. Guardianship is a person--
an incapacitated person. You've got
criteria. So I look at
this question, I do the examination and
I try to answer A, B, or C.
And guardianship is
always interesting because you have to look
at all the medications, their dosage, and try to
decide if any of these effects of the medication has
on the person's behavior and are they
incapacitated. I'm doing a lot
more of these now-- these are
Probate Court. Sometimes-- here's my
pessimistic jaded piece-- sometimes legislatures,
state legislatures, make weird laws that
either you can't apply-- my greatest story was-- I was
talking about this at lunch-- when I worked in the
Iowa prison system and I went to school
in Iowa City. I did my dissertation on
sex offenders of children, and a legislator
called me up and said, "Hey, I understand
you work at the prison "and that you're doing a
research study on pedophiles." I said, "Yeah." He said, "Come talk to us
'cause we're gonna do "a civil commitment law
for sexual predators." This was in
the mid-'90s where, back then, the idea
was all these states were gonna take
and make a law where if you were
a sex offender, they would keep you
forever in prison.
So I went and talked to
a bunch of legislators, and they totally disregarded
everything I had to say, and made a law about
civil commitment for sex offenders. And then, they built a
$3 million treatment facility. A few years later, I talked to
someone I use to work with who was on the grounds
where the facility was and, in five years, the
way the wrote the law, only two people could
sit in that facility. So they made this law,
spent a bunch of money.
So here's the newest Michigan
one that's interesting. "Sexually Delinquent Person." This came out 2004,
I believe. "The term 'sexually delinquent
person' when used in this act "shall mean any person
whose sexual behavior "is characterized by
repetitive or compulsive acts "which indicate a
disregard of consequences "or the recognized
rights of others, "or by use of force upon
another person in attempting "sex relations of either
heterosexual or homosexual--" I don't know why
that's in there. Must've been a
Republican thing.
(All laughing) "Or by the commission
of sex--" I shouldn't say that--
Republican country. (Laughing)
Does it really matter, if you attempt sexual
relations by force, if it's heterosexual
or homosexual? Anyway. My first group of
people I fit in. "Or by the commission
of sexual aggression "against children
under the age of 16." What happens is,
is they can find you under the Sexually
Delinquent Person Act.
They can go outside the normal
parameters of sentencing and they can sentence
you to life in prison. So I got a bunch of
these evaluations. They said, "Jeff, they're
going for sexual delinquent "on this guy. "He's been arrested four times
for exposing himself.
"They're threatening to
put him in prison forever." Well, the way that
this is written, anyone who gets convicted
of more than one sex crime falls within this. Where talked about
"compulsive acts." "Repetitive or
compulsive acts." So if you have a
person that has-- you've heard of
flashers, right? They've been
around forever. I don't do that. See, I'm not very good
at that raincoat thing.
But if you have a guy
who flashes someone who has three counts
of flashing, should they go to
prison forever? I mean, you know, it's
sort of a moral question or an ethical
question. Under this statute,
they could. By the way, those guys are
easy to treat, by the way. You don't need to
spend $50,000 a year to put them away.
And what they do
is not good, and it can, I suppose,
cause trauma in people, but they're
easy to treat. So, you know. Anyway, so I got
a bunch of these. I must've got 10 of them
within a couple of months.
Well, every one of them met
the criteria for this law... Every one of them if they had
more than one sex offense. And a lot of them were
indecent exposure people. Or if you've had any acts
of sexual aggression-- more than one-- against a
child under the age of 16.
So some people
may argue, "Hey, if you've molested and
been convicted of molesting "more than one kid, you
should go away forever." Okay, but this
is the one where it really scooped
up a lot of people. So I don't get
those anymore. They don't
try anymore. All right.
You getting bored of all
the legal mumbo-jumbo? All right--
buh-bum! Profiling. Everybody wants to know
about that, right? Here's the part where
I disappoint everybody because what happens in the
real world versus on TV. A lot of times is not
the same, all right? Profiling has been
around since the '50s... And it's used by people
that call themselves "behavioral scientists." That can be just
about anybody.
There are FBI Agents who
have Bachelor's degrees in literature from Syracuse who
become behavioral scientists. It's often based on
actuarial data sets. What that means is-- insurance companies use
actuarial data sets. Insurance companies, years ago,
came up with this idea, if you drive
a red car, you're more likely to
get in an accident than if you drive
a green car.
So if you drive a red car,
they upped your rates. I don't think they
can do that anymore. Based on huge
amounts of-- well, it's based on
statistics of groups and that's how the FBI
got into this business. So they did an actuarial
data set on serial killers.
Guess what? There aren't a lot
of serial killers Well, that are
caught, right? And if you've taken
statistics yet, you'll understand that
in order to get data that's really relevant, you
need to have huge samples. The insurance company
with the red car thing had, you know, a
1 million customer data set. You know, uh,
serial killers? 400. Played up in
fiction, sorry.
This is in a lot of the movies
where they do profiling. The media-- I should put that
the media plays up this, too-- the media really
plays this up, okay? I've seen one job for a
psychologist in 20 years that talked
about profiling. So, we talked about the
FBI Behavioral Science Unit-- not that this
is a bad idea but the way it's used
can be the problem. It's used to try
to catch bad guys.
Can not use in
criminal proceedings. This is a big,
big no-no and judges go crazy when you get less than
adequately trained psychologists who call themselves
"forensic psychologists," to go in and
try to say, "I know this guy is guilty
because of his profile." There may be a statute now
about criminal profiling and you can't
use it in courts. But I'll do
things like, "Provide a conceptualization
of this person." And they say, "You can't
do that-- it's profiling." So not an empirically
validated technique. That means it's not
scientifically proven or sound-- that using profiling
is accurate.
Does it hurt when you're
trying to catch guys? That's arguable,
right? We have criminal
justice majors here? Okay. Some criticism is that it
doesn't work any better than regular good
old detective work. Concern about
false positives. You know this term
"false positive"? You're considered, um, the type
of person and it's not true.
Richard Jewell-- do you
remember Richard Jewell? He was the security guard at
the Atlanta Olympic Games. Remember the backpack
that blew up? I think-- did it
kill some people? I know it injured
a lot of people. If you all
remember that-- I can't remember what
year that Olympics was. It was the Olympics
in Atlanta.
Richard Jewell
spotted a backpack, he was a security guard,
and it blew up. I think it killed
a couple of people and injured a bunch
of people. The FBI did a profile
and they said, "It's a white male between
the ages of 35 and 40 "who lives with his mother,
is likely overweight, "has a strong desire to
be a law enforcement." So they started looking
at Richard Jewell. I don't know how it
got out to the press.
So then, the press was following
Richard Jewell around. Do you remember this? He wasn't the guy. The guy who did it-- and I might have
the details wrong-- was, um-- I think it was a regular white
guy, whatever that means, who I think-- did he die up in
the mountains of North Carolina or something? He was part of a-- and I know
I'm just piecing this together and I'm wrong
probably-- I think he was part of a kinda
real strong fundamentalist Christian group. I mean strong
like, you know, trying to blow people
up for God's purpose.
You know, fanatical--
how does that sound? Fanatical group and didn't
quite fit the profile that they
came up with. So this is always
a concern. You notice they always
say it's white males between 35 and 40? Who was the killer
in Atlanta? The serial killer
in Atlanta who was killing
children 20 years ago? He ended up being an
African-American guy who lived in
the neighborhood but they profiled him as a
white guy between 30 and 35 who lives with his mother,
has never had an adult-- you know. So that's a
big concern.
Okay. Questions
about profiling? Hope I didn't crush
dreams of wanting to be a criminal profiler... But it's something that's
played up a lot in the media and in fiction, but as
far as day to day work of a forensic
psychologist, profiling, in fact,
is really discouraged. 'Cause imagine if you were the
person that fit that profile all the time like
Richard Jewell and then they're
following you around? Risk assessment-- here's
an interesting area.
And I'll get through this
stuff really quick here 'cause I wanna move on to some
more consultant-type stuff. This is an interesting area--
risk to sexually offend. Risk for violence--
institutional, domestic, workplace, school. Risk to re-offend.
I had a bunch
of referrals. By the way, none of these
are based in statute. So what do you do as the
forensic psychologist? You look at the literature
on people who sexually offend and you try to provide some
opinion of the person's risk. I had a bunch of
cases years ago of public school
teachers, males, who ended up getting
caught up in a sex sting in Riverside Park.
They would, um-- apparently that
was a place where they could have
anonymous sexual encounters with other men, and a lot of
these guys were married, been working in the school
systems for years and years, "teacher of the year"
types, and, all of a sudden,
they come onto a cop in the public
bathroom. Well, then what happens is,
is a lot of parents get up in arms 'cause
it hits the media, and say, "This guy's
gonna molest our kids." And the schools say,
"Well, we're gonna fire you." But they can't. So I got a bunch of cases where
I had to provide an opinion about this person's
risk to sexually offend against children. And, um, most of them were
not a risk to children because they were having
sex with other men in public bathrooms.
In fact, here's
a real statistic. If you are a
homosexual male, statistically you're less
likely to molest a child than a heterosexual male. Isn't that
interesting? So it kinda blows the stereotype
away that people may hold. So I had a bunch
of those cases.
Risk for violence,
institutional. "When I get back here--"
don't call the cops. "I'm coming back to GRCC
tomorrow with a gun "and I'm gonna do a
Virginia Tech thing." Actual case I had
from this campus. The police,
the institution, says this person is not
allowed back on campus.
Are they a risk for
violence against others? Bomb threats. I had a bomb threat guy
outta GRCC. That I had to evaluate
for the courts. Workplace, right? "Going postal"-- is that
the term you hear now? Right? Is that still a term that
people use anymore, right? 'Cause of the postal workers
who would go in and shoot up the place
and kill people.
So I'll get that,
you know? Someone'll
make a threat and the employer takes
it very serious, okay? Risk to re-offend. These are a lot times folks
that they're trying to release from prison or jail and you have to
assess their risk. I'm gonna talk very,
very briefly. Is this all right
for you guys? Are you learning
some things? Are you bored? If you're bored,
tell me.
Okay. I'm gonna talk just really
briefly about family law. I hope no one in this
room, I've evaluated. Unless I said good
things about you.
I'll get referrals for divorce
and custody evaluations. Two people are getting divorced,
or they've been divorced, and now they're fighting
over custody of the kids. Those aren't pretty. Custody evaluation, usually
interview Mom, Dad, all the kids.
And yes, you do
apply a statute. Michigan Child
Custody Act-- these are the
12 factors that the court considers in
deciding how to do custody with kids. So a psychologist comes in
and weighs in an opinion on all of these. Where is the
one I like? "The moral fitness of
the parents involved." That's a cool one.
Here's the one where
the psychologist really puts a lot of work into--
the mental and physical health of the parties
involved. More often, I'll do
what's called "ability
to parent" evaluations... Or "capacity to parent." Does this person have
any mental illness, any problems, or any active
substance abuse problems? Does this person
have an adequate and appropriate understanding
of child development of parenting? And if there are any deficits
or problems outlined above, how does it affect his
or her ability to parent? Nasty divorces, maybe some
of you have been into it. They get nasty, and Mom
says Dad's crazy, Dad says
Mom's crazy.
Judge'll say,
"Get this figured out." We do these. Turns out they're
both okay, they're just in a bad situation
and they're just acting nasty to each other. Well, then, when side A
brings it up again, the Judge says,
"That's it-- we covered this." So a lot of the
judges like these. I like doing
these, too.
I don't like these. I don't like psychologists
trying to weigh in on these types of-- these are expensive
to do, too. So I'll do
a lot of these. These will also get used in
child neglected abuse cases-- someone's been accused
of abusing their child.
They'll want to know about
their ability to parent and if this
comes back bad, a lot of times they'll try to
terminate a parent's rights-- the court will. All right,
consultant. I talked a little bit
about consultant role. Jury selection.
That's an
interesting area. The occupation of
jury consultant versus
trial consultant. A jury consultant helps
you pick the jury. This came around
in the 1970s and a lot of social
psychologists.
By the way, if you end
up going to grad school in psychology, go find the social
psychology students. They're always the coolest
students-- you ever notice that? They like to party--
they're a lot of fun, social psychologists.
(Audience laughing) They really are. This gained a lot
of media attention-- William Kennedy Smith. Remember,
they hired one.
And O.J., Right? Oop, here
we go again. There are few if any
convincing demonstrations that scientific
jury selection is more effective than
routine jury selection. Can you buy
a jury? Mmm, maybe. Probably not.
A lot of folks make
money doing this. It got a lot of
media attention. You talk to any attorney
who's selected juries, they said you can
just never predict-- you can think of
all these things. I've been hired to
interview witnesses and look at the jury
questionnaires, I mean, and interview potential jurors
to be involved in that.
You just
never know. There's really
no method. Although, I think the O.J.
Trial was very interesting because it's more
my little theory-- Johnny Cochran was able
to help, in my opinion, the juries have an emotional
response to the issue-- racism-- and there's been an argument
that they voted on that rather than
the evidence. I don't know if O.J.
Did it or not, but interesting idea.
Couple of other things you'll
do as a forensic psychologist-- specialized
expert witness. I'll testify in a lot of the
things I already presented, but I'll testify on things
like bonding and attachment to children. Do we want this child,
who's two, to do a 50/50 custody split
with Mom in Arizona and Dad in Michigan? How's that gonna effect
bonding and attachment? Some other... False allegations
of sexual abuse-- that's an
interesting one.
I testified in
an appeals case where these allegations
of sexual abuse-- you look at the
literature, by the way. You know, the
research literature, what's involved in false
allegations of sexual abuse? Did this particular
scenario show a lot of those
similar characteristics? And then, the judge
or jury can decide. Forensic
record review-- this is the one I
really like doing. You get to scrutinize
people's work.
So a therapist
comes along and tried to do
forensic psychology stuff with no training, they go into court and
they muddy the waters or they come up with conclusions
that are just not based in science. There's a lot of
that out there. And I will review
the records and testify or help
the attorneys get their witness thrown out
or how to cross-examine. And then,
trial prep.
Helping the
attorney strategize, preparation for
cross-examination of expert witnesses. There are a lot of
other things involved in forensic
psychology, right? Let's go back around
the horn here. I taught a whole course on
this one time, by the way. You know, let me tell
you quickly how I got
involved in this.
I was working as a--
I was a grad student at University
of Iowa, and my adviser
John said, "Jeff, I think you should
go work at the prison "for a semester." I said, "Why would I
want to do that, John?" "There's just something
about you that I think "you'd do well in
that environment." (Audience laughing) I don't know
what that means, but I went there and I--
is this a weird term? I sorta love with
how fascinating it is about why people
mistreat each other. And I stayed there
three years, interned there, went as a prison psychologist
for seven years, and now came into
private practice and I'm still
making a living off of people
mistreating each other. To be honest with you,
it never gets boring, that's for sure--
it's never boring. If you look at how
broad the field is, there's all kinds
of different stuff.
I've done most of these
but, every once in a while, a new one
will come up. The civil litigation one
is pretty interesting, when you're trying
to sue other people and talk about emotional
distress and damage. I had a big Geoffrey Fieger
case-- you guys know him? A psychologist with the Michigan
Department of Corrections is being sued by
Geoffrey Fieger because of an
inmate death. So I had to
evaluate his work and provide an affidavit
which is a written opinion that they can use
as evidence in court about what the
psychologist did.
So, it's a rapidly
expanding field. My little
criticism is, there's a lot of people
that try to do this work and they haven't had
adequate training and they end up
causing a lot of problems, particularly when we get
into the family law issues. Or fitness to carry a firearm--
I won't do these anymore. The law is
just too weird and the people
who end up coming-- this is awful to say-- the
people that the court feels need to have a psychological
evaluation to carry a firearm, probably shouldn't
be carrying a firearm 'cause you usually need
to have reasons for that.
You know, the court has
to have reasons for that. So I don't even
do those anymore. They're just
not worth it. I don't know of anybody in
town that's doing them, now.
All right. I went an hour
and five minutes. Or no, I went--
what did I go? Almost 45 minutes. I ran through everything
'cause I wanna just open it up for questions.
Questions about anything,
questions about all of this, questions about, "How
much do you drink, Jeff, "after dealing with
these people everyday?" (Audience laughing) >> (indistinct). >> Yeah.
>> What would it look like? >> Hang on
just a second. Because we're
recording this, uh, for our consumption later, we need to make sure our
questions are asked into the microphone so that
the audio can be picked up on the tape. So it'll take a
little bit longer, but we'll be shuttling
the microphone around.
You'll all get an opportunity
to ask your questions. >> Well, Mike, you should be
running up and down the thing like Phil Donahue
used to do. Yeah.
>> (Indistinct). >> The career path for
forensic psychologists.
First of all, you're gonna
need to go to graduate school. Some areas in
forensic psychology you can do quite well
with a Master's degree. Correctional psychology--
you can go work in prisons. Typically, if you're going to
be providing expert testimony which has to do
with a lot of these, most of the time, you'd
wanna look at getting a PhD.
Or a Psy.D, a
Doctorate in psychology. You can do
with a Master's but you'll get a lot
more flak from attorneys. There are some folks in
town with Master's degrees that testify in court and
do a good job in this. They've had really
good training.
So, you've got the
academic training. You need to have
a license, right? You probably need to
be a psychologist rather than a
social worker 'cause psychologists understand
psychological testing. A lot of other fields like
licensed professional counselor and social workers... Really don't get
training in testing 'cause, for a lot of these,
you have to do psychological testing.
And then, what you need to do
is if you can get an internship. That's the key 'cause you'll get in a
structured training program. Some people retool. They go and they
become therapists at a community college
counseling center and say, "I want to be a
forensic psychology." So they end up
taking a lot of-- they read
a lot of books, take sanctioned
course work through American
Psychological Association or some of the
forensic outfits, and then they are able to
get competent in these.
But if you're
gonna go that route, you probably need to have
some peer supervision by someone who
does this work and who's had specific
training in it. So it's quite
a process-- you know, a PhD
is gonna take you all together
10 years... But it
can be done. There's a lot of need for
people to do this work in a good
competent way.
Good question. >> What we're gonna
do is, uh, you can ask your question
and then Frank-- Dr. Conner-- is gonna repeat it so we
don't have to keep running the microphone
back and forth. >> We've got one here.
What's your
question? >> When you were talking about
juvenile competence and-- I'm just curious, do you determine if they're
competent to stand trial or if they're competent
to know the law? And then, like,
when they get older, is there something
where they say, "Okay, now they're
older, we can..." >> So the question is
around juvenile competence. When you're evaluating it,
what are you looking at? >> Great question. Juvenile competence
is a funny one. Like I said, there's no
statute in Michigan, in most states, about
juvenile competence.
So the adult statutes say
"mental disease or defect." In the case, though,
that's usually defined as a serious
mental illness, schizophrenia,
bipolar disorder, stuff like that...
Or mental retardation. So what if you
get a 10-year-old who's not
mentally retarded and they don't have
mental illness? But they're 10. Or they're seven. One thing that the
case law allows you to do is to talk about
emotional maturity.
Frustration tolerance is
part of the developmental age of the child. Eight-year-olds can be pushed
around by adults on the stand. The case I think
I'm gonna testify in-- no, I got another case
I'm gonna testify in with this prosecutor
who doesn't like my work. Is, um, "Can a nine-year-old
have the emotional maturity "to sit in court
and be on the stand "for cross-examination?" Not many of
them, okay.
So with juvenile competency,
I get a little more leeway. That can be
dangerous, so you sorta need to
know what you're doing. So juvenile competency, those are the things
I look at. Competent
to stand trial or competent to
understand the law? Competent to stand trial
is the big part.
Understanding the law
is a piece of it. Understanding
the law, being able to behave
appropriately in the courtroom. If you have a kid who's
nine and has ADHD. And is not on
any medications, is he paying
attention, right? So those are other
things you look at.
So the juvenile, you get
a little bit more leeway and the judges tend
to let that in, and the case law
supports it, too. But great question. >> (Indistinct). >> Right.
>> (Indistinct). >> Great question. >> So the question is,
with John Wayne Gacy, how is killing
33 people not insane? >> Okay. Did John Wayne-- now, see, you're getting into an
area which is really fascinating for what a forensic
psychologist has to do.
You go, "Jeff, how can you
talk to people about this stuff "all day and it doesn't
drive you batty?" Because my job's
very specific. What he did was
reprehensible. I mean, I've talked to people
who've killed their own children in all kinds of bad ways
I won't share with you. But all I have
to answer, "Did John Wayne Gacy appreciate
the nature and quality "or the wrongfulness
of his acts," okay? And "Was there a
mental disease or...
"Or was he able to
conform his conduct "to the requirements
of the law?" I don't know a lot of
specifics about the Gacy case, but here's what I do
know that I can tell you. He planned
these, okay? He tried to
cover them up. He hid the bodies when
they asked him about it. He said,
"I didn't do that." Okay? So you argue that he understood
the nature and quality or the wrongfulness
of his acts, regardless of how
reprehensible they were.
He's a sociopath--
I could talk about sociopaths. Now, some people would
say did he have this urge or this compulsion to
rape and kill children that he couldn't
control? That's a high hurdle
to get over. You have to attach it
to a mental illness. So what mental illness
results in a symptom where you have to rape
and kill children? There is none.
So you have to attach
everything to a symptom of a mental disease
or a defect. Case law says a "mental
illness or mental retardation." Sociopath. I'll tell you, that's what
a lot of serial killers are. Sociopaths do not have
a connection to people like most
of us do.
I heard a
great example. For a sociopath to
punch you in the face, it'd be like
punching a board. And here,
I'll get gross. How can sociopaths
cut people up? Cut people up? Have you ever cut a
chicken breast in half? Did you cut your
sandwich in half today? That's the same thing
for a sociopath.
They don't have
that connection. Cutting a person's
head off-- sorry-- is like cutting a piece
of chicken in half. There's no
connection. "Sociopath" is
not a diagnosis.
If it became
a diagnosis, what would that do to insanity
defenses for serial killers? So anyway, you have to
attach it to a symptom of a mental illness. So regardless of how awful
the thing is they did-- I know you're going,
"This person must be crazy "to do something
like that." Well, is it a diagnosable
mental illness? And I'll tell you, anytime
that someone plans it and tries to
cover it up, they've kinda taken this off
the table most of the time, unless their planning
it and covering it up is based on a
delusion, you know? Did I answer
your question? Okay. >> For temporary
insanity, what about when
a guy comes home or a woman comes home and
finds their significant other having an affair and
attacks that person? >> Great.
>> Temporary-- like an act of passion
where you come home, you find your spouse in
bed with somebody else and you kill
them both. >> I don't have that statute
in front of me-- guess what? Act of passion-- there is an actual law
about an act of passion.
Now, in the
old days-- I'll talk very briefly
'cause you know I'm a PhD-- I talk more. I like to hear
myself talk. (Audience laughing) >> Why are you laughing? (All laughing) >> Insanity and lack of
criminal responsibility became much more well-defined
in the early 1980s. For example, before
the early '80s, in a lot of states, the
burden of proof for insanity was on the, um,
prosecution.
What that means is
the prosecution had to prove
you're sane. They lost a
lot of cases... The Harvey Milk
"Twinkie defense." They couldn't prove
the guy was sane. The burden of proof
shifted in most states, and it's-- in all states, now
it's shifted onto the defense.
So the defense has to prove
the person was insane. And act of passion
which is you walk in on your spouse and they're
in bed with someone else and you flip out. "I blacked out--
I snapped." Isn't there one of these
shows called "Snapped"? That use to work in
the older insanity laws. They got rid of that, but
it's still around in Michigan.
You can only use it
in sentencing now. So I walk in
on my wife and kill the guy that
she's sleeping with-- act of passion. All right, am I
criminally responsible? Well, did I know that nature
and consequences of my actions? Yeah, I tried to bury
him in the backyard. Could I conform my conduct to
the requirements of the law? Well, was there a mental
illness that was involved in my, you know,
snapping? Probably not a symptom
of a mental illness.
There's not, you know, like,
"finding your spouse in bed "with somebody else"
rage syndrome. That doesn't
exist, right? But what will happen is,
is I cut a deal, and I say,
"Okay, I'm guilty. "Sentence me,
judge." And the attorney sends you
to a forensic psychologist... And I pull up the idea
of "act of passion" and evaluate the person
to see if it was based on an act
of passion.
So I say
it was. You know, the person had
been cheated on by six people in the past. You know, they had a
little bit of depression, they had a low self-esteem,
and all of this happened, and they just-- it was an
impulse that they freaked out and they did something
"out of character." That's a thing
they like. Then, it goes to the judge
and then the judge decides.
And a judge says,
"You know what? "That happened to me, too. (Audience laughing)
"Time served!" Or, "You know what?
I'm not buying it. "You're getting
30 to life." I mean, so it really falls
into the judge's lap. It's not used
very often anymore but it used to be part of
the old insanity stuff.
So great question,
though-- good stuff. >> I have a question about
when you were talking about parent
evaluation. (Indistinct). >> So the question is
around parental evaluation, foster care, taking a child
out of their biological home.
>> Um, yeah--
boy. And I do quite a bit
of work in that field. What'll happen is-- I
can give you a scenario-- is a child gets put
into foster care and they're in
foster care, and the parent has, say,
a substance abuse problem and a little bit
of depression. So the child--
within a year, the court has to make a decision
whether to allow the child to go back or terminate the
rights of a parent.
So the parent typically
has a year to shape up. They work a treatment plan
with the social service agency. There will be requirements
like you can't use drugs or alcohol if that's
one of your problems. You need to get in therapy and
get medication for depression.
So then,
after a year, if they haven't gotten
their act together, often times the prosecutor moves
towards terminating the rights, and what that allows
is now that child-- if they are successful--
they hold a trial and are successful in
terminating the rights, they'll bring me
in to testify. If they're successful
in terminating rights, then that child's
eligible for adoption. Now, yeah, funding in
the foster care system has really
affected things. I think we're seeing
less work coming from social service agencies
in the court with us, now.
We use to see
a lot of people but there's just
not the money. So we're getting more of the
just really severe cases. Or the judges like
our work a lot. There's about four or five of
us in our firm who do this.
The judges really
depend on it because when you go in and you
testify, you know, as an expert, "Yeah, the person's got
a cocaine abuse problem. "This is what they need
to do to straighten up. "This is what they need
to do for treatment. "Yeah, they got some
depression-- they
need to do this." Or, "They got a
personality disorder.
"It's not looking
so good." You know about
personality disorders. Well, then, if the judge
moves to terminate rights and it comes back
in an appeal, they can say, "Look,
our psychologist-- "this psychologist
said this." So the judges, they scramble
a lot of times to find-- uh, social service
agencies, I think, scramble to find money
to pay us to do these. We do them at a
discounted rate because a lot of people in
my practice are old hippies. They think
that's important.
See, I'm an '80s kid, so I
just care about me, right? And then-- so they struggle
to find the funding, but the judges
really rely on these 'cause you don't want to
sorta do it incomplete and then it comes
back in appeal and then kid's already been
adopted by another family and you got to pull out--
it's a real mess. So, good
question though. >> When you're determining an
individual's risk to re-offend, what factors do
you account for? >> So the question is around
how do you determine the risk to re-offend? >> Depends on what
you're trying to answer. Sexually re-offend? What you do, is there's
a lot of great research, particularly
the Canadians.
The Canadians are
miles ahead of us on all of
this stuff. The Canadians did a big
study of 10,000 sex offenders and they made a bunch
of variables drop out-- actuarial variables. Your age,
how does that-- there's rating
systems you can do. You can actually come
up with an equation that can fit into
high or low risk.
So you've got a
bunch of factors, and there's a couple
of different rating
scales that I like, and you check, and if they have this
number of factors, they're associated in
the normative sample, we're getting
into psych testing-- the normative sample with
folks who have re-offended. Violence risk,
you know, you look at-- there are things called
"static variables," unchanging variables. You never finished
high school-- the one I like
with violence is a history of behavioral
problems in elementary school. That's been associated
in the research with potential
for violence.
So those
are static. There's a lot more work that's
being done now on dynamic or changing
variables. That's a tough one,
you know? Your level
of depression... How does
that impact? A lot of times for the
forensic psychologist, it's a bit of a
judgement call.
You'll get a
bunch of factors. The one scale that I use for
the sexual offending risk-- they got a section
at the end, "Any other pertinent
variables." Well, I know from
my own research my own experience, you know, there are
certain things that
put you at higher risk to sexually offend. So I might
plug those in. So that stuff
gets slippery 'cause there's not a
statute to base it on so you gotta go
to the research.
Good question,
though. By the way, really quick--
the Canadians... They do everything
on this. If you go to prison
in Canada, the psychologist
that does your intake has your elementary school
records in front of them.
Can you
imagine that? In Canada, if you're going
to be sentenced on a violent or sex crime, you go see a forensic
psychologist and they determine what
would be-- what do they say-- "in the best interest of
the Canadian citizens." So basically, if you're
low risk to re-offend, they put you on
community probation. If you're high risk
to re-offend, they put you away
for a long time. They'll base their
sentencing decisions on that. We don't do
that here in-- at least in
Michigan, we don't.
So you'll get some
really weird sentences. I'll tell you
this quick story. It involves sex, so
everybody'll listen. And weird stuff.
And this is all
in the court record. I saw a guy
one time that, um... A 16-year-old boy
was at his house and he took a picture of
the 16-year-old boy's butt with a camera phone. By the way, camera phones
made me a lot of money because of everybody
taking pictures of-- and, um, he also had
sex with the kid, too.
But it wasn't ille--
he was 50-- in his 50s. Hope he's not here. It wasn't illegal
for him to have sex with the
16-year-old boy because 16 is a
legal age of consent, but it was illegal to take
a picture of his naked butt. So then the judge sentenced the
guy to every weekend in prison for three years.
Er, every weekend
in jail for three years. It's really weird.
(Chuckling) So the Canadians-- they have a
lot of structure set on this. (Audience laughing) Yeah, that was one of
the weirdest sentences I have ever seen. Apparently, you
only take pictures of 16-year-old boy's butts
on weekends or something-- I don't know.
Hope no one's related to that
judge that did that sentence. But like I said,
it doesn't get boring. Any other questions? Yeah. >> (Indistinct).
>> That's a great
big question. >> So the constitutional
question around how does the forensic psychology relating
to fitness to carry a firearm relate to constitutional
right to carry or not carry a firearm?
>> Okay, great question. Michigan has a very specific
statute and criteria about what you need to be
in order to carry a firearm. The forensic psychologist
pulls that statute out and looks at it.
And I don't remember the
criteria off the top of my head, but they're
sorta weird. And you have to look through
and apply the statute to the psychology
of the person. How that goes to
Bill of Rights? I think the issue would be--
um, some people would argue, "Well, based on
the Bill of Rights, "you can't design
these requirements." That would probably be a Bill
of Rights advocate's idea, that it's a fundamental right
and you can't put restrictions on that right. So you're kinda getting
into a legal argument.
But the forensic psychology
just gets to statute and uses that
as a template. Did I answer
your question? Okay. >> I've been doing a lot
of research lately and I've run across the defense
called "homosexual panic." Have you ever
run into that? >> I've never heard about it
but tell me about it. >> It's where somebody who's
committed a violent act against a homosexual
can assert it because they weren't in
the right state of mind.
So it's basically like
temporary insanity. >> You know what, I have
heard a little bit about-- where is that
happening? >> Um, it was used in the
case of Matthew Shepard-- >> Oh, that's right! Yeah, I don't know a lot
about that case but, um, I don't think that's-- boy,
that's an interesting one. So they're trying to use it as
sort of a temporary insanity? Well,
homosexual panic is not a diagnosable
mental illness, right? It's not a-- is it a
mental disease or defect? Well, not based on
what the case law says. So I don't know how
that could go anywhere.
Did it work? >> From the article
that I read, it said that, uh, it didn't
completely get them off but it lowered
their sentence, at least in the case
of Matthew Shepard, and it listed a couple
other cases, as well. >> It lowered
their sentence. So the judge
considered that. Wow.
Wow, you know, you wonder
if those cases come back on appeals of-- for example,
there are certain groups who could fund attorneys to say
that that was an unjust sentence and the person
should get more. But yeah, I don't think they
could use it for insanity or criminal
responsibility because it's not a
diagnosable mental illness. Good question. Thanks for
educating me.
Yeah, over here. >> I have a question about,
um, something I saw in a news article
or something. Apparently, there was a lot
of like adolescents-- 13-- teenagers that are sending
nude pictures of each other over phones, and I was
wondering how the courts are treating
that as of-- like technically child porn
but, at the same time, in their state of mind,
it's normal stuff. >> That's a
great question.
>> So the question
is around sexting, the idea about 13-year-olds
taking graphic sexual images of each other and sending
it via cell phones. >> Yeah, or the
high school party, breaking in the door
and taking a picture of somebody having sex
and send it to everybody and it's on
everybody's Facebook? Or videos
and stuff? How are the courts
handling it? You know, in
my experience, they're handling it in all
kinds of different ways. I had a couple
of cases... And the Michigan laws
about sex abuse are weird.
For example--
and I was in Iowa, it was very strongly
written in the law that if two
people have sex and they're both under the
legal age of consent, 16, there needs to be
a five-year age span before you can prosecute
on a sex crime. We don't have that standard
set in stone in Michigan. So what I'm finding
in these cases with the cell phone
images, um-- I've had a case where they
tried to charge a CSC. But it didn't
really go anywhere.
There's a lot of-- I do know
that there's a lot of arguing and appeals cases
about that. So it's sort of
"the jury's still out" in the way the courts
are handling that. In my experience
dealing with it-- I've probably had about
four or five of those cases. What ends up happening
is I'll do an evaluation of the kid
who sent it.
And it really
doesn't say much. And then they
end up settling it... Most of the time,
in a nonsexual offense like a disorderly
conduct. I've only had about four
or five experiences with that, but I know that that's one
that's being challenged a lot in courts.
I had a bunch of those
a couple of years ago. I haven't had
any lately. So the jury's
still out. Yeah, with technology
coming online-- whoa.
I mean, it's really
thrown a lot of things upside down,
you know? Did this kid do
this because of-- well, criminal intent. I'll take about that
for about one minute. Criminal intent-- your
ability to form intent to do a criminal act. We use to have a thing
in Michigan law called "diminished
capacity" which says because of a
symptom of mental illness, your ability
to form intent-- in other words, you
want to do a bad thing-- was diminished.
They got rid
of this in 1998. (Clicks tongue)
Out the window. What I do in my
juvenile cases is I talk about a thing
called "culpability" which fits in
with this. If a child
is culpable, that means it was more of
a character-driven behavior and it wasn't based on
or influenced by a symptom of mental illness.
I'll give you
an example. Kid standing in line
at Meijer with his mom, 13-year-old,
ADHD. It's the summer weekend so
he's not taking his medication. He reaches out and grabs
a girl's butt in line.
I shouldn't say "girl"--
she was an adult woman. The adult woman files
sexual assault charges against the 13-year-old
and says, "I want that kid
prosecuted." Well, so "Was the kid
criminally responsible?" Was the question
I had. Well, he knew it was
the wrong thing to do but one of the hallmark symptoms
of ADHD is impulsivity and he was very impulsive
and not on his medications. So I basically wrote
about his culpability.
Was this really a bad kid
doing who was doing something-- forming
criminal intent? "I want to do
something bad." Or was this a kid who just
had a urge, had ADHD, off his medication
and grabbed her? So we kinda did a backdoor
diminished capacity 'cause do you want your
13-year-old with ADHD. Who grabbed someone's butt
in the line at Meijer to be on the sexual
offender registry? And probably not be able to,
you know, get a job someday? So. Hope I answered
your question. Yeah? >> (Indistinct).
>> So the question
is around, um, prosecuting an adult for
grabbing his son's arm and taking him out
of the store. >> Well, I think one thing
you're talking about, too, is there's a registry of people
who've been substantiated with doing child abuse--
there's a registry. There's a sex offender registry,
we all know about that. There's also a registry with the
police about who've been...
So the idea is-- I've had
cases like that, actually, where the person
gets on the registry. They have to be
substantiated through Child Protective
Services, typically. Child Protective Services
does an assessment and said, "Yes,
you did abuse." Boom, you're on
the registry. Child Protective Services
is an interesting area.
The way the laws apply with
Child Protective Services are a bit different than they
do with a lot of other things. So a Child Protective
Services worker can go through
the process, put you on the
registry as someone who's been
substantiated of abuse and that could affect you
maybe in some ways. I see it in
divorces a lot. So, um, yeah.
Believe me, Child Protective
Services send me a lot of work. They do great work, but the way the law applies
to them is a little different than a lot of other mechanisms
here in society, so. I hope I answered your
question or addressed it. Yeah? >> If you're evaluating a
person that committed a crime, you know like, say, 3 months
ago or something like that, what do you do to figure
out where they were at when they committed
the crime? >> So the question is how
do you go back and recreate the state the
person was in months after the
crime was committed? >> Great question.
That's one of the
most difficult things in doing criminal
responsibility evaluations. So what you have to do
is you have to find out, "Okay, what day was it?"
"May 15th." "All right, do you
remember that day?" "Yeah." "I've got the police
report in front of me," that's a big key. I need to have
the police report. And then,
I'll say things, "All right, well,
tell me what happened.
"What did they
say happened? "What really
happened? "Back me up, what were
you doing before that?" "Well, I was
riding my bike." "Okay, well, what
about that morning? "Did anything happen
that morning?" "Yeah, my sister called
and said that she was gonna "bring the kids over." Okay, so what you have to do
is you have to create or get an assessment of
the person's mental state prior to the alleged crime,
during the alleged crime, and after the
alleged crime. In a lot of cases, the police
report can help you a lot if the police have been on scene
immediately after the crime 'cause the police
will make statements about the person's
presentation. So you really have to
walk the person back starting with the
police report and try to get an idea of
what happened that day. Hear about the truck driver
who was, um-- this was a
few years ago-- was picking up male prostitutes
on Division and drugging them, gluing their eyes
shut with super glue? Do you remember
that case? It didn't get as much media
attention as you would think.
Anyway, I was
that guy and, um... We created when his runs--
where his runs were, what he did
that day, when he went cruising,
and all that kinda stuff. So you start with
the police report and you kinda work
both ways out. That's a tough thing
to do-- it really is.
Particularly if the
person was, um-- forgive me for this phrase--
so out of their mind they didn't even
know what day it way. But typically, you'll
have records of that. Sometimes, you don't, so it's
a bit of a judgement call. If you can't make
this determination, then you have to say they were
likely criminally responsible.
You have to basically
prove that they weren't... As the forensic psychologist,
not as the prosecutor. >> We're gonna limit it to
a couple more questions. >> Come on over here.
>> (Indistinct). >> So the question
is how do you go and have the person
relive the day without introducing
false memories? >> Great question. Do I have false
memories up here? False confessions--
that's not quite-- great question. Okay, what that really
boils down to-- there's a bunch
of this.
The daycare cases where they
find out that these therapists and these police that
were interviewing kids were implanting ideas and the kids were accepting
them as their own. So one thing
I have to do, and I had a lot of
training on this when I went through
my training, is when I do a
forensic interview, I have to be very conscious that
I don't provide the person details that I
just speculate. What I will do is I will
have the police report and I'll say, "Well,
the police report says "that you were at
your brother's house "and you ordered
a pizza, okay?" I've got that. Right? "Well, what happened
before that? "What did you get
on the pizza?" Okay, but I can't
speculate verbally about what
could've happened or what would
not have happened.
So a lot of times, the story
about what happened that day, I won't have
the whole story. But you make
a great point. You're talking about a thing
called "leading questions," and if you do get trained
in forensic interview, you learn how
to not do that, because, yeah, you can
implant ideas into people, particularly if they're in
a compromised mental state at that time. So sometimes, my
reports will read, "The person really didn't know
what they did beforehand." I don't say what
I thought they did.
But, um, great
question, though. That's an
excellent question. >> One last question. Or not.
>> I see you have
various education-- how do you set yourself
apart from other graduates so that you're available for
some of the specialized cases and things
you've done? >> So how do you set yourself
apart as a psychologist, as a forensic
psychologist? >> Well, um, part of it
is doing talks like this. By the way, if you ever
have questions for me, that's all my stuff if you
want to email me up there. How to set
yourself apart. Well, uh, part of it is
I was very fortunate to have probably some of the
best training in the world.
So when you throw out that
Forensic Bureau Prison thing, people pay attention
to that. The other thing is
doing talks like this. You know, I go and I talk to
Michigan Bar Association. Here, I'll talk
to various places.
Word of mouth
helps a lot. Internet. Not internet--
just our website, but I'll get cited in
court of appeals cases. I've had referrals
where people'll say-- you know, an
attorney will say, "We ran a lit search
and your name came up "in a court of appeals
case," blah-blah-blah.
"Do you do this
kind of work?" So word of mouth-- you know,
I've been at it now eight years and, um, my name gets passed
around to different people. I don't really
publish much. You know, I've written a few
articles here and there. You know, like the Bar
Association journals and stuff
like that, but mostly it just becomes
word of mouth, and reputation, and doing talks
like this.
"I saw you
do a talk--" you know, like when
one of you guys send me a referral
in three years. "I saw you at Grand Rapids
Community College and..." So, that's kinda how
you set yourself apart. >> Well, thank you.
>> Thanks. (Applause)
>> Dr.
Kieliszewski. (Applause).
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