Monthly Archives: June 2013

Arts, Legal, Psychology, Research, Scotland

Remaining silent during a police interview looks like admission of guilt…

YOU have the right to remain silent in a police interview – but a jury is more likely to think you are guilty if you do, according to new research by psychologists.

Anyone who has ever watched a TV police show has probably seen suspects being read their rights, reminding them they do not have to say anything unless they want to.

But forensic psychologists suggests that keeping mum could come back to haunt them if the case goes to trial, because it raises the suspicions of a jury.

Researchers from Glasgow Caledonian University created a scenario involving written interviews with four suspects denying attempting to murder a man in a bar.

The content ranged from a suspect who simply said ‘no comment’ to each question, to one who gave short, sharp answers, while others were more forthcoming in their denial.

The researchers presented the written accounts to 34 volunteers who were asked to rate each for ‘believability’ and then say if they thought the suspect guilty or not.

The results which will be presented at the Forensic Psychology Annual Conference in Belfast showed the men who said nothing or very little were perceived to be guilty.

Those who fully answered the questions were seen to be believable – whether or not their stories were actually true – and more likely to be found not guilty.

A spokesperson for Glasgow Caledonian University, said:

… Given the instruction that defendants have the right to remain silent, it is important to understand jurors’ perceptions of a suspect’s believability based on whether they choose to comply with police during their interview.

… Compliant suspects were generally perceived to be more believable and found not guilty whereas the opposite was the case for those who refused to cooperate. This research has provided insight into how a suspect’s chosen behaviours in a police interview can influence how they are perceived in court.

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Arts, Sport, Wimbledon

Wimbledon 2013: Court slipups and falls galore… but why?

Russia's Maria Sharapova leads attack on 'dangerous' Wimbledon courts.

Russia’s Maria Sharapova leads attack on ‘dangerous’ Wimbledon courts.

THE WIMBLEDON TENNIS TOURNAMENT, a Grand Slam event in the tennis calendar, is well underway at SW19 and is about to enter its second week.

The first week of the tournament this year saw an extraordinary number of players retired hurt, many of them after taking a tumble. On the first Wednesday alone, seven withdrew – an all-time record for a single day.

Women’s number two seed Victoria Azarenka and former champion Maria Sharapova – both of whom had falls and were defeated – were among many who blamed the grass surface, suggesting it has been unusually slippery.

Are the players right in their assessment, or is it just a case of bad workmen blaming their tools? Here, some possible explanations are offered as to why there have been so many Wimbledon slip-ups in this year’s tournament:

TOO MUCH SUGAR IN THE GRASS

In the late Nineties, the All-England Club replaced its traditional ‘bowling green’ grass strains with harder-wearing ryegrass varieties.

But the new tough surface also helped the ball sit up higher, resulting in more of the gruelling baseline rallies most likely to cause injury.

This year, after a wet winter and late spring, horticulturalists say Britain’s lawns and meadows are at the stage they would usually reach in May when grass is full of sucrose, or sugar. But the club insists its grass is ‘almost identical’ to 2012.

A NEW GROUNDSMAN

Mr Neil Stubley recently became head groundsman and this is the first year he has been in sole charge. Several players have complained about his performance.

Caroline Wozniacki, for example, wondered if the grass was ‘a little longer’ than usual. But tests have shown Wimbledon’s grass to be exactly the same length – 8mm – as usual.

OLYMPIC LEGACY

The Olympic Games were contested on SW19’s hallowed grass in early August last year, dramatically reducing the time available for the club’s 16 full-time groundsmen to tear up one set of show courts and lay down the next.

Neil Stubley’s long-standing predecessor as head groudsman, Eddie Seaward, warned: ‘My successor will have a month’s less time to prepare the grass for the 2013 Championships, and to do the renovation programme.’

FASHIONABLE FOOTWEAR

Former women’s number one Kim Clijsters reportedly said last week that a ‘new rule’ relating to the number of indentures allowed on the soles of players’ shoes is causing mishaps. However, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) responded, rightly, that there has been no such rule-change.

Yet several of this year’s leading contenders have tinkered with their shoes at the behest of sponsors.

Roger Federer, for instance, attempted to use the tournament to launch a new Nike tennis trainer. He was forced to change plans when its orange soles fell foul of the Wimbledon dress code. Two days later, he was out of the tournament.

BEEFING UP WITH AGE

When Boris Becker won Wimbledon in 1985, he was a gangly 17-year-old. When Martina Hingis first lifted a trophy on Centre Court in the mid-Nineties, she was just 15.

Today’s players are a different age, and shape. The great Federer was a stocky 30 when he won Wimbledon last year. The powerful Serena Williams is 31. Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic are 26, and described bodily as buff. Rafael Nadal is 27, and has a muscular physique with bulging biceps.

Tennis has in recent years been tougher and more physical than at any time in its history. To win, you must be stronger, taller and leaner.

As a result, players are pushed more than ever to their physical limits, and this can trigger injuries – especially among older players.

THE WAY THEY RUN

Andy Murray accused his peers of failing to adjust to the demands of grass courts, where the ball comes at them fast and low, placing pressure on knees and ankles. He said:

‘The way the guys throw their bodies around the court now, they seem to slip down more than they used to… You can’t move like that on a grass court; you need to be very particular with your foot placement.’

Sports scientists agree, saying that the speed and irregularity of the surface means players often hit from an imperfect position, irritating sore joints.

That problem is exasperated by the fact that they play much less on grass than in the past, and have little time to familiarise themselves with the surface. Just a fortnight separates the French Open, which is played on slower, stickier clay, and Wimbledon.

Sport scientists acknowledge, too, that the transition from clay to grass is a flashpoint for injuries. At Wimbledon the ball is coming through lower, and the players have less time to react.

BRITISH SUMMER

Wimbledon would never be Wimbledon without a moan about the weather. Although the 2013 Championships hasn’t suffered any completely rained-off days so far, the weather in SW19 has been peculiarly muggy, with mostly cloudy skies and temperatures in the 20s.

The extra humidity is moistening the surface – when early stage grass tends to be at its least worn and most slippery.

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Arts, Books, Legal, United States

Book Review: ‘The Innocent Man’…

INTRO…

The Innocent Man, John Grisham’s first piece of non-fiction work, is a well-researched book primarily on account of Ron Williamson, who was wrongly convicted of murder in 1998, and who spent twelve years on Oklahoma’s ‘H’ death row before advances had been made in DNA technology which eventually proved him innocent. Grisham tells a startling and disturbingly true story about America’s justice system gone terribly wrong, the deplorable and totally unacceptable living conditions on Oklahoma’s death rows, and the often sadistic guards employed to watch these inmates. Convicted, also, to the blindness of injustice was another innocent man, Dennis Fritz, although Fritz wasn’t sent to McAlester’s death row. Fritz was later released, too, once DNA was unable to support his original conviction. Throughout, Grisham offers great insight and sharp direction to the miscarriages of justice of these two men.

NON-FICTION…

THE STORY starts by telling of a promising small town high school athlete and baseball player, Ron Williamson, who signs a contract with the infamous Oakland A’s in 1971. Grisham chronicles well his festive send-off, elucidating his failure in meeting the discipline and skill level needed for the “big league”, and Williamson’s bouts with bipolar depression and schizophrenia after his release from first the A’s and later the Yankees sporting club who had, too, been interested in his sporting potential.

By 1982, Williamson, is unemployed, living back with his parents in Oklahoma, and spending most of his days sleeping on the couch. When not at home, often in the evenings and early hours, he’s wandering the neighbourhood acting “strangely” or drinking loudly in the local bars. When neighbour, Debbie Carter is brutally murdered, Ron becomes one of the “usual suspects” – but, at the exclusion of some fundamental and routine police work. Continually dogged by police harassment and provocation, Ron Williamson confesses to a crime he did not commit. Five years after the murder of Debbie Carter, Williamson is arrested for the murder.

John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction, an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry, is his most extraordinary legal thriller yet.

John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction, an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry, is his most extraordinary legal thriller.

The prosecution’s case against Williamson is riddled with errors. The state exercises coercion, the use of false and inappropriate witnesses, and overlooks and suppresses evidence, not to mention the defendant’s deteriorating mental state and wellbeing. Still, he is convicted on circumstantial evidence and sentenced to death.

The reader is taken on a journey of utter despair; the frightening and unhealthy living conditions of death row, and the appalling abyss by which Ron Williamson descends into deeper madness. Only after eight years in prison, and just five days away from the death chamber, does he receive notification of a retrial. Eighteen months later, after intense scrutiny and thousands of hours of labour by his pro-bono law team, he is released after DNA testing excludes him from the evidence found at the murder scene. His exoneration touched-off a frenzy of media attention.

In the small town of Ada, Oklahoma, from which Williamson had sprung, the townsfolk were always left pondering the guilt and original conviction passed upon him. It is evidently clear that after reading John Grisham’s testimonies, Ron Williamson had always been innocent. DNA aside, exculpatory evidence, which could have been used in proving innocence, was ignored because the police and state prosecutor “had their man”. So much of the evidence that should have been produced at the original trial had been excluded and, as such, Williamson had been denied a fair trial, an assumption that has always underpinned the US justice system. Williamson’s twelve years on death row was a travesty of justice, to put things mildly.

Unfortunately, Williamson was not to enjoy his freedom for long. He died of cirrhosis of the liver just five years after his release. Upon his release and newly found freedom Ron had turned heavily to drinking.

AFTERWARD…

IN his afterward, Grisham says he was unaware of the Williamson case until he read Ron’s obituary in the New York Times. Intrigued with the story, he then spent five years talking to Ron’s sisters, lawyers, fellow inmates, jailors, and neighbours, before delivering his first work of non-fiction.

The Innocent Man is a compelling and convincing account of American justice gone awry. Much similar to Sister Helen Prejean’s 1994 novel, Dead Man Walking, it makes the reader question the justice in America’s death penalty statutes. Although it tends to drag a little around mid-story, with no fictionalised suspense to hold the reader’s interest, the reversal and subsequent acquittal, and the drama surrounding it, more than make up for this lull.

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