Publications by authors named "Margot M Williams"
Article Synopsis
- - The study investigates how effectively capital jury questionnaires (CJQs) capture honest opinions about the death penalty in jury selections, highlighting their importance for ensuring fair trials under the Sixth Amendment.
- - Two studies analyzed responses from undergraduates and community members, revealing a significant tendency for participants to misrepresent their views on the death penalty, with nearly 30% of undergraduates admitting they would not be truthful.
- - The findings indicate that CJQs are prone to both denial of true opinions and outright deceit, prompting recommendations for improving these questionnaires to encourage honest responses about jurors' perspectives on capital cases.
Psychological assessments can be essentially invalidated by examinees' intentional response styles, such as (i.e., fabrication or marked overreporting of symptoms/impairment) and (i.
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- Accurate interpretation of psychological assessments depends on honest self-reporting, but examinees often distort their results by downplaying symptoms or overemphasizing positive traits.
- The study distinguished between two types of positive impression management: defensiveness (denying issues) and social desirability (exaggerating strengths), using simulations involving a rehabilitation program and a competitive job scenario.
- Results indicated that inpatients tended to suppress their personality traits in both PIM conditions, leading to the development of new validity scales to help identify these distortions and improve the clinical usefulness of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5).
Most juvenile arrestees in custodial settings waive their Miranda rights almost immediately, and many then provide incriminating statements, if not outright confessions. Forensic practitioners are then asked to provide retrospective determinations regarding whether these waivers were effectuated knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently. At present, the forensic assessment instrument for juvenile Miranda issues consists of the Miranda Rights Comprehension Instruments (MRCI)-which as its name implies-focuses mostly on Miranda comprehension with a de-emphasis of Miranda reasoning.
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- - The study highlights the common misconceptions among the American public regarding their knowledge of Miranda warnings and the actual rights granted, finding that many believe they have more protections than they do.
- - It compares these misunderstandings with the more comprehensive rights provided under the European Union's 2012 Directive and Letter of Rights, evaluating the need for enhanced protections.
- - Conducted with 619 jurors, the research reveals strong support (>90%) for the idea that arrestees should receive clear and truthful information about charges without police deception, impacting discussions on police practices and due process.
Forensic assessments must always consider whether examinees are putting forth genuine effort or seeking to feign legally relevant incapacities. Miranda abilities are no exception when a putatively invalid Miranda waiver might result in the full suppression of an outright confession. Using a within-subjects simulation design, jail detainees were administered a representative Miranda warning and two Standardized Assessment of Miranda Abilities (SAMA) measures: Miranda Vocabulary Scale and Miranda Quiz.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecognized for nearly four decades, most juvenile suspects waive their Miranda rights and almost immediately provide self-incriminating evidence. Miranda-specific measures were eventually developed to understand their capacities and limitations. With extensive revisions, the Miranda Rights Comprehension Instruments (MRCI) were normed and validated.
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