Psychological Analysis of Criminal Case Studies - Essay Example

Psychological analysis of criminal case studies Table of Contents PART A: 3 Responsibility: 5 Witness credibility: 5 Blame: 5 PART B: 7 Summary: 7 Psychological Autopsy: 7 Psychological Autopsy & Criminal Profiling: 8 Performing Psychological Autopsy: 9 References 11 PART A: Rape is basically a very brutal kind of sexual harassment which involving sexual intercourse or any other kind of sexual penetration which happened without the consent of at least one of the individual who are involving. It is a criminal offence. It has been also seen that very small percentage of this kind of incident are reported to police and very small proportion of reported case are prosecuted in the trial in court. The word ‘Consent’ is very important in this case so we need to know the characteristics of consent. It need not be expressed Can be implied from the context of the incident and the connection between the victim and the accuser. Absence of objection does not implied consent as it may result from forcible compulsion from the victim part or implies incapacity to express the objection such as victim was sleeping, intoxicated or mentally dependent. Consent can be withdrawn according to the will of the person after withdrawing consent any kind of further sexual activity will be considered as rape. Now according to the case it was a story about a woman who came to the police station to lodge a complaint about being raped. We have only seen the conversation between two parties the woman and the police. At first there were only two police officers one of them was a lady, initially they asked her to tell them about the incident. According to the victim she could not able to recognize the criminal. She said that they were in a same car and went into a compound of a house then the rapist grabbed her from behind when they were inside the compound. She gave a brief description about the rapist. The rapist is a blonde, has mustache and also have tattoos, stocky built. He has heavy chest and wearing a blue shirt. She resisted by saying ‘what are you doing?’ only! After hearing the incident those police officer went inside and talked with their senior about the incident. They exclaimed that they are not at all convinced by what the lady said and there are some other loopholes in lady’s version of the story. Again the senior police officers interrogate her about the incident and she did not able to give proper answer about the reason why she did not went to the nearby police station and why she did not protested properly. In interrogation it was revealed that she is not an one man woman last she has done sex with her boy friend and before that she has another two boyfriend and had sex with them also. She is married woman and staying with her husband. She agreed during the interrogation that she has come to the police station because her boy friend told her to do so. She was not able to give proper answer when she was asked about why did not she screamed when she get into the car. It was interpreted that she was willingly went into the car that why she did not scream. The full conversation was recorder audio visually. After that when she was asked about her consent to appeal in court she was not ready, at that time one of the police officer Bryan made her convinced to not to go the court as it will dig out more truth on which she will get humiliated. Now according to the case there are some inherent factors in this story which have relation to the victim’s characteristics as well as police characteristics also such as responsibility, witness credibility, blame, and revenge. Responsibility: It is the term which is applicable to the victim as well as on the police also. It can be seen from the case that the woman has lack of responsibility on what she was saying. First of all she was not telling the entire story as there were many loop holes and unclear part in her story. According to a research report it has been seen that in most of the molestation case 59% do not have any cause. From the police part they were pushing her not to go to court and tried to convince her. According to me it was not a right approach. There was not any doctor also present as the victim’s physical and mental condition also should be judged in this kind of case. Witness credibility: Credibility of the victim’s part of story is another major factor which has an effect on this judgment. As there were many grey areas which police officers did not understand they termed the victim’s story as fairy tell and questioned about the credibility of her story. Including the rapist she had sex with 4 men in her life. She has her husband still she loves to involve in sex with her boyfriends, this nature of her character also make police doubtful about her credibility. Blame: It is always easy to put blame on others but tough to prove it same thing is happening here as the victim could not able to support her statement about the rapist. As sexual intercourse only can be termed as rape when it is done without consent but here not much objection was shown from the part of the victim. So whether it was done with the victim’s consent or not it is not clear. Again she has confessed that she came to lodge complain because her boy friend say so, from this statement it is again clear that she is going to lodge complain against her consent which is not legal. It can be concluded from the above analysis that victim’s character is very confusing. It is also very clear that there is another side of story also or there are some loop holes in the victim’s side PART B: Summary: A young couple of 27 year old David Wahl and 23 year old Linda Stangel were on their usual routine but one day in December 1995 Wahl was reported missing by Linda. It was reported that they were at Ecola state park at Oregon Coast and Wahl gone walking by himself but never came back. Local police treated it as a suicide case though Wahl’s parents were not convinced. After a month Wahl’s headless body was found. In the mean time Linda has moved to Minnesota but return to Oregon to participate in Wahl’s memorial services. There two detectives of state police visited Linda and with her permission 3 of them went back to the park to reconstruct the event of that day. There she confessed that she pushed Wahl out of anger but did not mean to fall him from 400 feet. She had lied before because she was frightened about the outcome if she told truth. This confession was recorded in spot and again before district attorney Joshua Marquis. Linda was arrested and produced in trial. Richard Ofshe was the prosecutor of Linda. Now Linda has again turned 180 degree and claimed that she was forced to lie by detectives. But jury did not approve Linda’s claim and sentenced he 6 years of jail. Still now Wahl’s family is not convinced about suicide or accident story. Psychological Autopsy: It is basically a procedure which assists in categorization of equivocal deaths as the reason of these deaths is uncertain not at all clear (Weisman and Kastenbaum, 1968). It involves systematic and through study and analysis of the incidents with a particular focus on factors related to motive of suicide, homicide and accident. It should be assisted by the medical practitioners. It sometimes includes variety of situations like insurance claims, wills and estate issues, Worker’s compensation cases etc (Psychtesting.org.uk, n.d.). Psychological autopsy is mainly based on three ethical principles which are the following, Doing Good Avoiding harm Respecting autonomy (Beskow, Runeson and Asgaard, 1991) According to the researchers those who doing this should be properly trained and it is necessary to gather data previously to avoid harm, respect the autonomy and most important help the investigation through interviewee to getting into the truth (Psychtesting.org.uk, n.d.). Though it has some limitations also as it is not well defined and there is not any standardized systematic procedure also present. The procedure most of the time vary from one case to another. Perception of the employee has much wider effect in psychological autopsy and with changing perception and action situation become more conflicting (Knoll IV, 2008). Cognitive psychological autopsy though sometimes need proper and tangible evidence to prove its credibility in the court (Selkin, Gaudia and Schouten, 1987). Psychological Autopsy & Criminal Profiling: Criminal profiling is a type of act which facilitates developing of psychological profile of a lawbreaker which based on the state of related crime. Psychological autopsy is done to understand and differentiate suicide, accident, or homicide which can be used as a tool for criminal profiling also. It is used in this purpose as a systematic reconstructing of the crime scene, proper development of strategies which can facilitate the capture of the offender and after that aiding the investigation (wiseGEEK, n.d.). Performing Psychological Autopsy: To perform the psychological autopsy of this given case first I need is the medical autopsy reports to reveal what % of alcohol he had consumed, whether he was in a state of taking decision by himself or not. Next what kind of wounds he had as it is required to understand whether they were the outcome of falling from a cliff or not, whether he had fall from the cliff front facing, back facing or side facing. It was though raising a doubt in me that why Wahl’s body was headless when it washed ashore, there were no specific causes in the medical report (Freedommag.org, n.d.). A detailed observation is required of the place itself though from the given case we know that coast was 400 ft high and at the viewpoint there were o railing so if somebody is pushed to fall then it would be difficult to survive. When Linda was demonstrating the way Wahl first push her and out of fright she also pushed her, this scene should have been captured through photograph. The investigation should also include viewers who were in the park at that time or in the road or coast. Death history and mental illness of the both of the family should be checked. Prior criminal reports should be checked from both sides that is Linda and Wahl. Now I would form the detailed report which will include information about the victim and the accused person such as their basic information, details of death of the Wahl like where he was found and in what condition with detailed medical report, about the whole incident whatever communicated by the accuser as well as the eye watchers if any, victim’s life history and his stress reaction pattern, role of alcohol and drug in victim as well as accuser’s life with detailed report of their habits and daily routines, occupational history with detailed analysis of relationship history. Next step I will follow is to analyze of intention and motive of Linda as well as Wahl in the light of suicide, accident, and homicide separately. Next step I will follow that analyze the description on the basis of suicide to determine the triggers and whether there were any influences on him to commit suicide. I will analyze in the event of homicide also which help with crime reconstruction and block attempts of Linda’s to argue it as a suicide. Personality disposition plays a major role in criminal profiling which is very relevant to this case also. Personality of Linda and her psychological dimension plays a major role in this case though she was aided by her prosecutor but it is noticeable that Linda has confessed two times about accidentally giving push to David. So it can be concluded that at that time she was consistent and was not under pressure to make happy the police. However it is believed that criminal profiling and psychological autopsy is a bit troubling as it mainly based on perception and not based on scientific measures. References FBI, n.d. False Allegations of Adult Crimes. [online] Available at: http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/september-2012/false-allegations-of-adult-crimes [Accessed 9 Jul. 2014]. Beskow, J., Runeson, B. and Asgaard, U., 1991. Ethical aspects of psychological autopsy. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 84(5), pp.482--487. Davis, B., 2007.criminal profiling 1st ed. Milwaukee, WI: World Almanac Library. Freedommag.org, n.d. The Real Cult – Freedom magazine published by Church of Scientology. [online] Available at: http://www.freedommag.org/english/vol29I4/page12.htm [Accessed 8 Jul. 2014]. Knoll IV, J., 2008. The psychological autopsy, part I: applications and methods. Journal of Psychiatric Practice\textregistered, 14(6), pp.393--397. La, P. and Cordell, D., 1985. The Appearance of Justice: Judgesverbal and Nonverbal Behaviour in Criminal Jury Trials. Stanford Law Review. Pawar, G., 2005. Psychological autopsy: A review. Journal of forensic medicine and Toxicology, 22(2), pp.4--7. Psychtesting.org.uk, n.d. PTC Homepage. [online] Available at: http://www.psychtesting.org.uk/ [Accessed 8 Jul. 2014]. Selkin, J., Gaudia, L. and Schouten, P., 1987. The psychological autopsy in the courtroom. 1st ed. Denver, Colo. (2005 Franklin St., Denver 80205): J. Selkin. Weisman, A. and Kastenbaum, R., 1968. The psychological autopsy. 1st ed. [New York]: [Communit mental journal]. wiseGEEK, n.d. What is Criminal Profiling? (with picture). [online] Available at: http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-criminal-profiling.htm [Accessed 8 Jul. 2014]. Read More