ABSTRACT

The criminal justice system is concerned primarily with human behavior and issues such as memory, eyewitness recall, and how people make decisions are often brought to bear. Unfortunately, sometimes myths, assumptions, and personal opinions are used to make judgments of human behavior, including memory, rather than facts which have been validated by research. Much of the memory research appropriately focuses on the participants and eyewitnesses in events with which the criminal justice system is likely to come in contact. However, other human beings like detectives, judges, and juries are also subject to the same influences on attention, perception, bias, memory, and decision making that can impact the participants and eyewitnesses. Sometimes the inevitable memory gaps, errors, and other phenomena associated with participants and witnesses involved in a shooting are explained as being caused by trauma.