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10 Law & Hum. Behav. 1 (1986)

handle is hein.journals/lwhmbv10 and id is 1 raw text is: Law and Human Behavior, Vol. 10, Nos. 112, 1986 The Experimental Psychologist in Court The Ethics of Expert Testimony* Michael McCloskey, Howard Egeth, and Judith McKennat This special issue comprises articles by psychologists, legal scholars, and ethicists on the ethics of expert testimony by experimental psychologists. In it the major ethical questions facing the prospec- tive expert witness are clarified, and alternative positions on these issues are defined and debated. Fundamentals of moral reasoning are discussed, and the realities of interaction with a judicial system that subjects the psychologist to a variety of pressures and limitations are made apparent. The aim is not to offer final answers to complex ethical questions, but rather to provide a framework within which the questions can be considered by the individual psychologist. INTRODUCTION In recent years it has become increasingly common for psychologists to testify as expert witnesses in criminal and civil cases. Traditional forms of expert psycho- logical testimony about the sanity, competency, or dangerousness of particular individuals have now been joined by testimony on cognitive or social psycholog- ical processes in people in general. In a criminal case involving an eyewitness identification of the defendant, a cognitive or social psychologist may be called by the defense to testify about psychological research on perception and memory ± Department of Psychology, Johns Hopkins University. * The conference on ethics of expert testimony by experimental psychologists was supported by National Science Foundation grant No. ISP-8209940. We thank Rachelle Hollander of the Ethics and Values in Science and Technology Program, Joe Young of the Memory and Cognitive Processes Program, and Eric Juengst of the National Endowment for the Humanities for their help in bringing about the conference. 0147-7307/86/0600-0001$05.00/0 © 1986 Plenum Publishing Corporation