Coaching and
Unethical Training
The term witness coaching is often used to denote
instructions or training that are unethical or illegal. For
example, it is unethical and illegal for attorneys to know-
ingly encourage witnesses to commit perjury. Although
it is clearly improper for an attorney or consultant to
instruct a witness to lie, the line between improving tes-
timony quality and changing testimony content is not
always clear. Social science research suggests that the
content of witnesses’ recollections and their confidence
in them can be influenced by suggestive questioning,
corroborative or contradictory information from others,
and continued retelling of their experiences. Thus, the
process of witness preparation may inadvertently influ-
ence what witnesses have to say when testifying. This
potential risk of witness preparation training must be
weighed against the potential risk of a truthful witness
being seen as dishonest because he or she was not pre-
pared to testify. Ultimately, it is up to ethical attorneys
and consultants to ensure that their training techniques
are used to allow witnesses to give truthful testimony and
not to subtly influence what their witnesses have to say.
Marcus T. Boccaccini
See alsoDetection of Deception: Nonverbal Cues; Detection
of Deception in Adults; Trial ConsultingFurther Readings
Boccaccini, M. T. (2002). What do we really know about
witness preparation? Behavioral Sciences and the Law,
20,161–189.
Boccaccini, M. T., Gordon, T., & Brodsky, S. L. (2003).
Effects of witness preparation on witness confidence and
nervousness. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice,
3,39–51.
Boccaccini, M. T., Gordon, T., & Brodsky, S. L. (2005).
Witness preparation with real and simulated criminal
defendants. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 23,659–687.
Posey, A. J., & Wrightsman, L. S. (2005). Trial consulting.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Salmi, L. R. (1999). Don’t walk the line: Ethical
consideration in preparing witnesses for deposition and
trial.Review of Litigation, 18,135–179.WRONGFULCONVICTION
The emergence of forensic DNA analysis in the late
1980s has enhanced the criminal justice system’s abilityto find the truth. In addition to facilitating the identifica-
tion and conviction of the guilty, the DNA testing has
also exposed a large and growing number of cases in
which innocent people were convicted of crimes they
did not commit. For the first time, the criminal justice
system now has a body of cases in which there is scien-
tific proof that the truth-finding mechanisms of the sys-
tem failed. Jump-started by the DNA cases, recognition
of wrongful convictions has expanded to include cases
without any DNA as well. The study of these wrongful
convictions has revealed numerous causes of errors
related to the way evidence is collected and cases are
tried. A commonality shared by almost all the wrongful
conviction cases is the presence of a variety of cognitive
distortions or biases that can lead investigators, litiga-
tors, judges, and juries astray.Scope of the Problem
The American criminal justice system has historically
prided itself on taking great precautions to guard
against wrongly convicting the innocent. The American
courts and commentators have long espoused a philos-
ophy of caution, expressed in the maxim that it is bet-
ter to let 10 (or 100) guilty people go free than to
convict one innocent person. Nonetheless, there has
never been real doubt that the system occasionally errs.
Even prior to the DNA revolution, scholars sought
to identify wrongful convictions. In 1932, Edwin
Borchard identified what he believed to be 65 wrong-
ful convictions in serious cases. More recently, in
1987 and 1992, Hugo Bedau, Michael Radelet, and
Constance Putnam identified more than 400 wrongful
convictions in cases potentially subject to capital pun-
ishment. These and other similar efforts, however,
were subject to challenge by skeptics, who doubted
innocence in some of the cases, and even when
accepted, the cases were largely dismissed as anom-
alies rather than symptoms of systemic flaws.
The DNA cases changed this. The DNA cases pre-
sented unassailable scientific proof of error. They also
demonstrated that errors have occurred not just in
those cases where proof of guilt appeared tenuous but
also in cases where the evidence of guilt had appeared
overwhelming. Moreover, they revealed that wrongful
convictions are more prevalent than previously thought
and that they reflect systemic flaws.
Determining a precise wrongful conviction rate is
very difficult, as it is impossible to identify the whole
body of erroneous convictions. To compound the prob-
lem, establishing an acceptable definition of “wrongfulWrongful Conviction——— 869W-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:44 PM Page 869