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Dr. William Crozier is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Duke University Law School. He earned a B.S. in psychology from Penn State, and his PhD in psychology from The Graduate Center and John Jay College, CUNY, working with Dr. Deryn Strange. His research focuses on identifying problems created by memory fallibility and distortion throughout the legal process, and applying cognitive and social psychology to find solutions. Current project topics include interrogations, confessions, alibis, jury decisions, and how people remember and evaluate evidence. Outside of the lab, he enjoys the geekier things in life, such as Doctor Who, board games, and science fiction in all forms. He's a proud Ravenclaw, and married to a wonderful, amazing, and inspiring Hufflepuff. Cooking, reading about the Supreme Court, stressing over whether his cats love him, cheering for Penn State football, and wearing bowties are among his other passions. He hopes to one day again own an El Camino. Will's CV can be found here and Open Science Framework Profile can be found here. On Twitter: @WlliamCrozierIV

Dr. Timothy J. Luke (RabbitSnore) is an American expat, currently employed as a Senior Lecturer of Legal Psychology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Like Will, Timothy received his PhD from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center, CUNY. His research – often funded by US federal grants – has primarily concerned interviewing and interrogation, deception and its detection, and confessions. He generally uses experimental methods and conducts laboratory-based research. When he isn’t interrogating people in a psychology laboratory, Timothy can often be found in a classroom. He has taught undergraduate- and graduate-level courses on research methods, statistics, perception, the history of psychology, and the psychology of investigation. According to one review on ratemyprofessors.com, he is "good at explaining hard and boring topics" -- which is just about the nicest thing anyone has ever said about him. Between research and teaching, he somehow finds the time to collect rare books, drink single-malt scotch, and memorize passages from Moby-Dick. Timothy's Open Science Framework Profile can be found here. On Twitter: @RabbitSnore

Timothy and Will shared an office at John Jay for several years and have ongoing research collaborations applying memory and cognitive theory to issues in investigations and interrogations. They also share a passion for craft beer and a deep, abiding love of Star Trek.

Popular posts from this blog

Let's talk about the role of psychology in law

Will and Timothy are joined by guest Dr. Jason Chin, for a chat about the relationship between psychology and law. In this chat format, we gather regular authors and guests in Slack and have a moderated conversation, guided by prompts and questions selected in advance. Participants get to respond to each other's points, make comments, and ask each other questions in real-time. The transcript has been lightly edited. Will Crozier &#x1F419 Welcome to another Exercise in Exceptions chat! We’ve talked a lot about how psychology research can influence the law – but that research needs to make it into the courts to actually make the intended difference. However, it’s never as easy as explaining a study or two to a jury. In this chat, we’re going to discuss this collision a bit – how psychology science is used in the legal system. Timothy and I are joined by Dr. Jason Chin , a lecturer at the TC Beirne School of Law at University of Queensland, Australia. Wel

When investigations go wrong – in science and policework

A story of both a wrongful conviction and scientific fraud We’ve talked about many of the ways police investigations can go wrong, including mistaken eyewitness identifications , memory errors , and false confessions . Often, when people imagine police investigations running afoul, they imagine egregious cases in which police plant evidence or physically torture suspects to get them to produce confessions they know are false. Although situations like that do occur, mistakes in investigations require no intentional wrongdoing. A detective doesn’t need to be trying to get a false confession, for instance, in order to get one ( as our guest writer Fabi Alceste has written about) . Errors happen often without the investigators realizing anything has gone wrong. Similarly, when people imagine bad scientific research happening, they often imagine scientists fabricating data or committing outright fraud. Scientific fraud is a problem, but it’s quite rare. However, there are many questio

We find the defendant....

"We find the defendant...innocent!  [whisper]  I mean, not guilty!" If you’ve ever heard the jury foreman give a jury’s decision, you’ll notice that they never say the defendant is “innocent.” Instead, they’ll conclude that the defendant is “not guilty.” Although the terms may sound interchangeable, “not guilty” and “innocent” actually mean two different things. “Not guilty” is a legal conclusion, whereas “innocent” means the person didn’t commit the crime. For example, think of O.J. Simpson. In a court of law, he was found “not guilty” of killing his ex-wife – but if you ask the majority of Americans , they’ll tell you he’s not innocent. Here, we’re going to talk a bit about the distinction between the two conclusions – and why it matters to psychology and law researchers*. When we say that “not guilty” is a legal decision, we mean that it’s a decision based on criteria described by laws – namely in the U.S., if the prosecutor can convince the jury of the defendant’s