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W7 – Berry
Miranda Berry
“Why” an expert may not be allowed to testify about a
W7 – Berry
Miranda Berry
“Why” an expert may not be allowed to testify about a profiling report. Do you believe that profiling reports should be allowed into court? If yes, under what circumstances?
Between the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, offender profiling was used for forensic evidence in some cases, as prosecutors and defendants have called in criminologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and even Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agents. The Courts have applied three types of profiling evidence in their opinions: motivational analysis, modus operandi (profile evidence), and linkage analysis.
Motivational Analysis: In Simmons v. State, the defendant was accused of allegedly killing an elderly woman with extreme violence and in an “eccentric manner,” to such a degree that an FBI profiler was involved in the investigation. As there was no physical evidence that Simmons was guilty, he appealed the case based that the “first degree Court” should not have allowed a special agent to testify. In 2002, the Supreme Court of Tennessee found that the “trial court did not abuse its discretion” regarding using a profiler in the case (Bosco et al., 2010).
However, some are concerned that profiling, especially in the FBI, relies heavily on the interviews of 36 prisoners by Douglas and Ressler, most of which were serial killers. In their interviews, there are no random samples of different types of offenders, nor did it “explore how they may be divided appropriately into subgroups.” The FBI’s subtypes of organized and disorganized has been criticized; one empirical test randomly selected 100 scenes of 100 serial killers in the United States, using information from the Crime Classification Manual to differ organized and disorganized crime scene. They found that “all serial killers are likely to exhibit some aspects that are organized and some that are disorganized.”
Current psychological research does not support any theory that characteristics are the same over time and situations, nor does it assume that said characteristics “relate to different personality types.” The structure of profiling has no scientific support; thus, scholars have criticized its methodology as there is no empirical evidence to support the theory George (2008).
George (2008) notes that profiling testimonies are more often offered by prosecutors than defendants, and that admission is permitted more by the appellate court for the prosecution. A prosecutor’s expert explains to the jury what crime scene classifications are, including behavioral characteristics, and how they may relate to the offender’s motivation or general behavior. There have been trial and appellate courts that have rejected expert profiler testimonies that were introduced by the defendant, such as State v. Fain and State v. Stevens. In State v. Fain, the Idaho Supreme Court ruled that profiling is not a “physical scientific test.” In State v. Stevens, the Supreme Court of Tennessee found that a person’s “guilt or innocence cannot be determined by opinion evidence” that was found by an expert (Geroge, 2008).
I believe that, with all of this information in mind, that offender profiling should be utilized in court as evidence but should not be considered the “absolute proof” of someone’s guilt.
References:
Bosco, D., Zappala, A., & Santtila, P. (2010). The admissibility of offender profiling in courtroom: A review of legal issues and court opinions. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 33(3) (2010): 184-191. https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy1.apus.edu/science/article/pii/S0160252710000233
George, J. A. (2008, January). Offender Profiling and Expert Testimony: Scientifically Valid or Glorified Results? Vanderbilt Law Review, 61(1) (2008): 221-260. https://www.proquest.com/docview/198984566?parentSessionId=h2u0pqzvvTRvXbpFV4TMrlogiykjz62Yhqx1hwv0kTo%3D&accountid=8289&sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals
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