The research summary assignment is to review one empirical research article from a psychology, criminal justice, or sociology journalon a wrongful conviction topic from the following list. An empirical article is one that presents original data and normally has sections like Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion. If you are unsure about whether an article that you find meets the requirements of the assignment, send a link to the article to Professor Cutler (through WebCT).

Research Summary Assignment Topics

• Likelihood of mistaken identification
• Witnessing factors affecting mistaken identification
• Photoarray and lineup procedures (and system reforms)
• Eyewitness confidence and other aspects of eyewitness testimony as predictors of mistaken identification
• Attorneys and judges’ understanding of eyewitness identification
• Juries’ evaluations of eyewitness identification
• Expert psychological testimony about eyewitness identification
• Child suggestibility
• Interviewing children in child sexual abuse cases
• Detection of deception during suspect interrogation
• Factors affecting the likelihood of false confession
• Jurors’ evaluations of confession evidence
• Heuristics and biases in the investigation process
• Reliability of accomplice witness testimony and jailhouse informants
• Impact of accomplice witness testimony on jurors
• Reliability of forensic testing
• Impact of forensic testing on judicial proceeding (e.g., “CSI effect”)
• Incidence and types of prosecutorial misconduct
• Impact of prosecutorial misconduct in judicial proceedings
• Ways in which defense counsel may be ineffective
• Factors affecting defense counsel effectiveness
• Racial bias in police work
• Racial bias in judicial proceedings
• Consequences of wrongful conviction
• Reforming police work to reduce risk of wrongful conviction
• Reforming judicial proceedings to reduce risk of wrongful conviction

Each research paper must address the following questions. The questions should appear as headings in the research summaries.

• Why is this research important?
• What did the previous research show?
• What was the main hypothesis or hypotheses?
• What were the methods (participants, procedures, materials)?
• What were the main results?
• What are the implications of the findings for criminal justice, law or society?
You must also include a full reference (title, authors, journal, volume, issue, pages) to the article and include the URL for accessing the article from the university library (or other online resource).

Each research summary must be between four to five pages in length (not including any cover page or reference page), double-spaced, one-inch margins all around, and 12-point font. The paper must be written in essay form and with headings corresponding to the bullet points above.The paper must be written in your own words. This means no quoting and no paraphrasing others’ writing. Any amount of quoting or paraphrasing will result in a re-write opportunity and a point penalty for that assignment.