Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

interventions to promote recovery from posttraumatic

stress. Data have accumulated that suggest that rou-

tine, one-shot psychological debriefing after trauma

may not augment the recovery process and, in some

cases, may actually impede it. Therefore, controversy

about what constitutes a best-practice prevention

effort for PTSD is ongoing.

Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling and

Martin Langhinrichsen-Rohling

See alsoCoping Strategies of Adult Sexual Assault Victims;

False Memories; Forensic Assessment; Malingering

Further Readings

McNally, R. J. (2003). Progress and controversy in the study

of posttraumatic stress disorder. Annual Review of

Psychology, 54,229–252.

Mizey, G., & Robbins, I. (2001). Usefulness and validity of

post-traumatic stress disorder as a psychiatric category.

British Medical Journal, 323,561–563.

Perrin, S., Smith, P., & Yule, W. (2000). Practitioner review:

The assessment and treatment of post-traumatic stress

disorder in children and adolescents. Journal of Child

Psychology and Psychiatry, 41(3), 277–289.

Rosen, G. M. (2004). Posttraumatic stress disorder: Issues

and controversies. Chichester, UK: Wiley.

Rosenbaum, L. (2004). Post-traumatic stress disorder: The

chameleon of psychiatry. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry,

58,343–348.

Tierney, J. A. (2000). Post-traumatic stress disorder in children:

Controversies and unresolved issues.Journal of Child and

Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, 13(4), 147–158.

PRESENCE OFCOUNSELSAFEGUARD

AND EYEWITNESSIDENTIFICATION

The presence-of-counsel safeguard, provided by the

Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution,

guarantees every defendant the right to an attorney

both at trial and during pretrial proceedings, including

live, postindictment lineups. The presence of an attor-

ney at live, postindictment lineups serves to protect

defendants from erroneous convictions resulting from

mistaken eyewitness identifications by allowing attor-

neys to attend pretrial identifications, advise their client

of their legal rights and obligations, oppose the use of

suggestive lineup procedures, and observe and record

any suggestive procedures used during the identifica-

tion test. Research has examined attorney behavior to

determine the effectiveness of this safeguard.

The effectiveness of the presence-of-counsel safe-

guard rests on several psychological assumptions about

attorney behavior. Specifically, for the presence-of-

counsel safeguard to be effective, attorneys must be

knowledgeable about factors that influence lineup

suggestiveness and be able to recognize these factors

when present in an identification test. Furthermore,

this safeguard is effective only if attorneys attend their

clients’ lineups and document any suggestive factors

to support a motion to suppress the identification evi-

dence or challenge the identification through cross-

examination at trial.

How effective is the presence-of-counsel safeguard?

Although a number of studies have examined attorney

knowledge and opinions of the factors influencing

eyewitness memory and identification accuracy, to

date, only one study has examined attorney sensitivity

to factors present in lineups and known to influence

eyewitness identification accuracy.

Veronica Stinson and colleagues assessed attorney

sensitivity to lineup suggestiveness by creating a

videotaped lineup wherein aspects of the lineup

known to produce higher rates of false identifications

were manipulated. These lineup features included the

individuals presented along with the suspect, called

foils (biased vs. unbiased); the instructions given to

the eyewitness (biased vs. unbiased); and the presen-

tation of the lineup members (simultaneous vs.

sequential). Prior to viewing one version of the video-

taped lineup, attorneys were instructed to assume that

the suspect in the videotaped lineup was their client,

and they were provided with a photograph of the per-

son suspected of the crime along with a written

description of the eyewitness’s memory of the event

and of the perpetrator. After viewing the lineup, attor-

neys evaluated the suggestiveness and fairness of the

overall lineup procedure and of the foils, instructions,

and presentation of the lineup. Attorneys were also

asked to indicate the likelihood that they would file a

motion to have the identification suppressed at trial.

The results indicated that attorneys are effective in

safeguarding their clients from foil-biased lineup pro-

cedures. Attorneys, however, may not fully safeguard

their clients from instruction-biased lineup procedures.

Although attorneys appeared to be sensitive to the

harmful effects of instruction bias and to recognize

biased instructions in a lineup procedure, they did not

believe that biased instructions reduced the fairness of

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