The contribution of facial recognition technology to wrongful arrests and trauma.

Objective: When a crime is captured on video, law enforcement agencies increasingly have used facial recognition technology (FRT) to generate suspects to investigate. However, there are increasing examples of people who have been wrongfully arrested based because of the inaccurate results returned from these artificial intelligence-assisted searches of facial databases, despite very low error rates in the accuracy of these systems.

Method: We discuss the reliability of the evidence provided by a match returned by FRT, propose a framework for identifying potential problems with the use of FRT in criminal investigations, and review the research on the general trauma that comes from justice system involvement, trauma that is compounded by wrongful arrest and conviction.

Diversity's Impact on the Quality of Deliberations.

The present research builds on previous models of jury diversity's benefits by exploring how diversity impacts the deliberation process. In Study 1, community members ( = 433) participated in a jury decision-making study manipulating the strength of evidence (ambiguous vs. weak) and the diversity of the jury.

Improving juror sensitivity to specific eyewitness factors: judicial instructions fail the test.

A recent New Jersey Supreme Court decision recognized the difficulty jurors have with evaluating eyewitness evidence. This decision resulted in the development of instructions that highlight factors affecting identification accuracy. Research has explored the efficacy of eyewitness instructions for improving jurors' decision-making.

Does filler database size influence identification accuracy?

Police departments increasingly use large photo databases to select lineup fillers using facial recognition software, but this technological shift's implications have been largely unexplored in eyewitness research. Database use, particularly if coupled with facial matching software, could enable lineup constructors to increase filler-suspect similarity and thus enhance eyewitness accuracy (Fitzgerald, Oriet, Price, & Charman, 2013). However, with a large pool of potential fillers, such technologies might theoretically produce lineup fillers too similar to the suspect (Fitzgerald, Oriet, & Price, 2015; Luus & Wells, 1991; Wells, Rydell, & Seelau, 1993).

Prejudice and terror management at trial: Effects of defendant race/ethnicity and mortality salience on mock-jurors' verdict judgments.

Following a mortality salience or control prime, Black, Hispanic, and White college students read a murder/carjacking or auto theft trial transcript in which the defendant belonged to their racial/ethnic group or one of the others. Black and Hispanic, but not White, mock-jurors discriminated, more frequently judging outgroup defendants guilty. Mortality salience affected judgments about outgroup, but not ingroup, defendants, heightening perceptions of guilt in the murder case and decreasing guilty verdict preferences in the theft case.