Evaluation of confession evidence and expert testimony in adversarial and inquisitorial trials in the United States and South Korea
Item
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Title
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Evaluation of confession evidence and expert testimony in adversarial and inquisitorial trials in the United States and South Korea
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:a736d7f0ccd9:10360
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identifier
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10578
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Creator
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Kim, Minchi,
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Contributor
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Steven D. Penrod
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Date
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2010
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Social psychology | Adversarial | Confession Evidence | Expert Testimony | Inquisitorial | Korea | Legal Decision Making
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Abstract
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There have been many attempts to determine the "better" legal system between inquisitorial and adversarial, but some legal scholars argue that a direct comparison of different justice systems is impossible because every system is distinctive. Based on van Koppen and Penrod (2003)'s argument that the trial system with fewer wrongful convictions should be considered as the "better" justice system, this dissertation compared the inquisitorial and adversarial trials by evaluating the quality of legal decision-making between legal professionals and lay people on the assessment of trial evidence and their verdicts in South Korea and the United States. This study examines how coerced confession evidence and expert testimony influence the legal decisions when the evidence is introduced in an adversarial or in an inquisitorial trial and whether the two forms of trial yield the same types of biases and errors. The results indicate that inquisitorial trials yield higher guilt probabilities and produce more guilty verdicts than adversarial trials. The presence of confession evidence significantly increases guilt probability ratings and guilty verdicts. The introduction of expert testimony on confession evidence reduces the damaging effects of the confession evidence to a certain degree, but only lay persons are able to utilize expert testimony to critically evaluate the evidence. Koreans in general are more likely to perceive that the defendant's confession was coerced than Americans and give lower guilt probability ratings and guilty verdicts. When confession evidence and expert testimony are introduced in an adversarial trial, only lay persons are able to utilize the expert testimony information, give lower guilt probability ratings and were less likely to produce guilty verdicts. Americans' verdicts are more likely to be influenced by the trial type than Koreans. Americans in inquisitorial trials are more likely to vote guilty than Americans in adversarial trials. Furthermore, path analysis indicates that legal professionals and lay persons evaluate and weigh evidence differently, but legal professional-lay agreement rates indicated that the performance of lay persons is comparable to the performance of legal professionals. Korean legal professional-lay person agreement rates are also comparable to the American legal professional-lay person agreement rates. Implications for the Korean lay participation system are discussed.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
