Humans often look at things with a black-and-white lens: if an action denotes something bad, it must be punished, and if another action denotes something good, it is rewarded. We rarely ever think about what goes on in the background, what the person was thinking, or whether something set them off. Or was it just a spontaneous action where they couldn’t see reason? What if someone asked them too? With some heavy leverage? You see, all this thinking about the intent behind an action can guide us to a better understanding of the said person, his future actions and, sometimes, a similar behaviour in another person. And if we look closely enough, squinted eyes and all, we see that it’s emotions really, where the intent builds and breaks.

You might think it a common sense to look at the intent behind one’s crime, to look for emotions but, for a long time, before the legal system had much structure at all, a harm to others was looked at with the same flat and cold indifference as any, with no consideration for whether the accused was falsely framed, whether the eye witnesses actually witnessed what they say they did, whether the confessions brought were really true or just false and wrongly formed in them or, worse yet, the crime happened at all? The birth of forensic psychology changed everything by applying scientific research to the courtroom, from solidifying the reliable to dissolving the invalid.

Beyond the Laboratory

1. The Beginning of Psychology in Legal Research

In the late 1800s, when psychology was still green and young, it mostly focused on laboratory experiments. It did not take long for researchers to realise that their findings had major implications for the legal world. The primary shift was the study of human memory; James Cattell conducted some of the earliest experiments on the psychology of testimony (Cattle, 1895).

He asked his students simple questions like what the weather was like on a specific day and, to his surprise, not only were the students’ recollections highly inaccurate, their confidence in their “testimony” was also incredibly high. This was a groundbreaking revelation for a system that treated eyewitness testimony as the highest truth and on high ground, the criminal justice system.

2. William Stern and Eyewitness Memory

Later, a German psychologist, William Stern, collaborated with criminologist F. V. Liszt and conducted an experiment where they staged fake arguments and mock crimes in a law class and asked his students what happened (Stern, 1939). They discovered that tension, fear, and emotional fear created massive gaps and errors in memory. Stern concluded that an eyewitness is often an unreliable source about an incident, and that “subjective sincerity” does not guarantee “objective truth” (Bartol & Bartol, 2021).

3. Hugo Münsterberg and the Courtroom Debate

Despite much work, psychologists’ assistance was still not considered important enough to grant their help inside the courtroom; that is, until Hugo Münsterberg, along with his bold (and sometimes unscientific) claims, popularised the application of psychology in everyday life, including legal settings. He argued that psychology could help detect lies and false confessions and explain why eyewitnesses alone fail (Münsterberg, 1908). In 1909, John Wigmore, a scholar, attacked Münsterberg for making psychology look unscientific and arrogant. However, this whole academic drama became a catalyst of sorts to force psychologists to become more rigorous in proving their theories with data rather than just common-sense opinions (Bartol & Bartol, 2021).

Towards the Witness Stand

For the sake of historical landmarks, it becomes important to note the first ever documented case where a psychologist was recognised as an expert witness on juvenile delinquency, the State vs. Driver (1921). Decades later, with the most memorable breakthrough, the field achieved near legitimacy. In the 1940s, Clark and Clark conducted the famous ‘doll studies’ to gauge the effects of segregation and inequality among races. The findings of the study were later cited in another landmark case – Brown vs. Board of Education; the conclusion came about that educational facilities should not be unequal according to one’s race and colour (Bartol & Bartol, 2021).

However, among many other such cases, the validity of the psychologist’s input was always considered with scrutiny and almost always rejected. The court held that psychologists could testify as witnesses only if they qualified as experts and ruled that only medical professionals or individuals with medical training could serve as experts on the issue of mental illness (Bartol & Bartol, 2021).

Inside the Courtroom

In the late 1960s, courts began allowing psychologists to participate in ongoing cases, present their findings, provide expert testimony, and influence the decisions of judges and juries. The Jenkins v. United States case was probably the first to recognise a psychologist as a qualified expert whose testimony the court accepted.

The accused or defendant was, after conducting diagnostic tests, said to be suffering from schizophrenia and the alleged crime was a result of the same. Although the outcome was of little importance, the judge held that psychologists’ claims should not influence the decision. Later in the case, the court recognised that a psychologist with appropriate knowledge and experience could serve as an expert witness on the presence or absence of a mental disorder (Jenkins v. United States, 1962).

Later on, as access to tools and devices grew, psychologists worked, and are still working, toward assessing, diagnosing and stabilising maladaptive and harmful behaviours. Today, forensic psychologists work with other professionals and try to understand the ‘criminal mind’ and give rehabilitation assignments to criminals to stop recidivism, i.e., the tendency to relapse into criminal behaviour (Bartol & Bartol, 2021).

Conclusion

As awareness and understanding grow within the human population about the impact of mental issues and illnesses on behaviour. It becomes just as important to isolate the intent behind the behaviour. Of course, courts must consider the offender’s intent and mental state when making judicial decisions. They should therefore proceed carefully. However, in many recent cases, individuals have given false confessions or adopted a victim mindset by blaming their actions on a psychiatric condition instead of taking responsibility for their behaviour. It has, therefore, become important to pass a judgment that equalises the appropriate punishment for the crime, all while taking into consideration the intent, all while not dismissing the turmoil within the victim and their survivors.

References +

Bartol, C. R., & Bartol, A. M. (2021). Introduction to forensic psychology: Research and application (6th ed.). SAGE Publications.
Cattell J. M. (1895). MEASUREMENTS OF THE ACCURACY OF RECOLLECTION. Science (New York, N.Y.), 2(49), 761–766. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.2.49.761
Jenkins v. United States, 307 F.2d 637, 113 U.S.App.D.C. 300 (D.C. Cir. 1962) https://case law.vlex.com/vid/jenkins-v-united-states-893302246
Münsterberg, H. (1908). On the witness stand: Essays on psychology and crime. The McClure Company.
Stern, W. (1939). The psychology of testimony. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 34(1), 3–20. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054144

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The History of Forensic Psychology: How Crime and Psychology Became Connected

Beyond the Laboratory