ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of psychological factors intertwined with legal decision-making, illustrated using Dutch cases. It highlights the importance of psychological expertise in criminal cases and focuses on important factors that could be at the base of wrongful convictions. In the Netherlands, there are multiple known wrongful conviction cases to date, almost all involving homicide offences. One of the reasons why it is hard to estimate the true number of miscarriages of justice lies in the fact that it is difficult to prove that a conviction was wrongful. Illustrating with a Dutch example, Wik H. committed multiple sexual offences while Cees Borsboom was innocently convicted in the Schiedammer park murder case. A well-known potentially unsafe conviction in the Netherlands is the Deventer murder case, in which Ernest Louwes was convicted for the murder of an elderly lady in 1999.
