Minds on Trial: Great Cases in Law and Psychology

The authors provide a scholarly yet entertaining look behind the scenes to the expert psychological evidence in 20 renowned cases. Some of the cases involve household names - Lee Harvey Oswald, Patricia Hearst, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Hinckley Jr., Dan White, Judas Priest, Woody Allen, Mike Tyson. Others are seminal cases in which the names are less well known - the fascinating 1956 case of "mad bomber" George Metesky, credited with initiating the field of criminal profiling, the Guildford Four IRA bombing case in 1974 that led to psychological interest in false confessions (and Icelandic psychologist Gisli Gudjonsson's development of an instrument to measure interrogative suggestibility), and the case of Daryl Atkins, in which the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for the mentally retarded.This book is appropriate for both professionals in forensic psychology and law and also for laypeople who enjoy fact-based accounts of true crime. I assign my graduate students several chapters as examples of forensic topics. In particular, the chapter on the USS Iowa explosion, which catalogues the failure of the "equivocal death analysis" technique, is a great example of the shortcomings of forensic profiling. And the chapter on Colin Ferguson provides a vivid example of the whittling down of competency jurisprudence in the wake of the 1993 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Godinez v. Moran.Minds on Trial is well-written, factually accurate, and educational. Yet it still works as entertaining bedtime reading. I recommend it highly.

Most of the time you hate textbooks and read them out of obligation, this is the first textbook in my college career that I actually enjoyed reading. It was so fascinating! Great read! I purchased the kindle edition and read it on my Mac and iPad most of the time, it was easy to format and change the font to be larger/smaller when I had eye fatigue; came in handy when I wanted to highlight and recall areas to study too!

I picked this book up for class. The narratives are good, and this is an interesting read; however, since I was having to do more research for class for these cases, I did find quite a bit of info left out of the cases. In some instances, the book will completely stick with the common myths for the cases and not tell the whole truth behind the story. Case in point is the story of "The Mad Bomber." Rather than, tell the true story of of the resolution which simply involves a secretary finding a forgotten record, the book concludes that the Mad Bomber was caught by some high-profile forsenic scientist which is simply not true. This is a decent supplemental to keep class interesting, but be weary of the book's accounts. Stay Vigilant!

An extremely interesting book about the uses of psychological testimony in court cases.

This was a great textbook. The cases are interesting, explained in a way that keeps you invested and still has you learning a lot. One of the best books I’ve had to read for a class

Bought for my forensic psychology class for college, its really a great read!

Well worth the read for anyone remotely interested in Psychology! Highlights the most interesting cases in Forensic Psychology in each chapter.

Everything was fine. Turns out that I don't need this book till next semester as I am doing the prerequisites for this class now, but reading it is still quite interesting.

I had high expectations for this book and was, sadly, disappointed. The problem mainly lies in two areas: the breadth of cases covered and the attention given to the trials of celebrities. Any one of the cases described could have been the subject of a book all on there own and so the lack of depth and analysis is consequently frustrating.Nevertheless this is a very interesting summary of the position of psychology within twenty famous cases although by their very nature as being famous cases they are exceptional and as so, a general understanding of psychology's use within the mass of more anonymous cases is difficult to discern.Overall this was a disappointing book and disappointing because the subject has such potential.

This is a concisely written and nevertheless satisfying book. I enjoyed the Tarasoff case particularly and despite knowing it relatively well I discovered new facts and areas that I did not know. I recommend this book thoroughly.

Interesting