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Other Pergamon titles of Interest ALBERT Genius and Eminence BROWN Advances in the Psychology of Religion KAHLE Attitudes and Social Adaptation NIETZEL & DILLEHAY Psychological Consultation in the Courtroom SMITHSON eta/. Dimensions of Helping Behavior A related Pergamon journal International Journal of Law and Psychiatry Editor-in-chief: DAVID N. WEISSTUB Psychology In and Out of Court A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY by MICHAEL KING PERGAMON PRESS OXFORD · NEW YORK · BEIJING ■ FRANKFURT SÄO PAULO · SYDNEY ■ TOKYO · TORONTO U.K. Pergamon Press, Headington Hill Hall, Oxford OX3 OBW, England U.S.A. Pergamon Press, Maxwell House, Fairview Park, Elmsford, New York 10523, U.S.A. P E O P L E S REPUBLIC OF CHINA Pergamon Press, Qianmen Hotel, Beijing, People's Republic of China FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY Pergamon Press, Hammerweg 6, D-6242 Kronberg, Federal Republic of Germany BRAZIL Pergamon Editora, Rua Eqa de Queiros, 346, CEP 04011, Säo Paulo, Brazil AUSTRALIA Pergamon Press Australia, P.O. Box 544, Potts Point, N.S.W. 2011, Australia JAPAN Pergamon Press, 8th Floor, Matsuoka Central Building, 1-7-1 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160, Japan CANADA Pergamon Press Canada, Suite 104, 150 Consumers Road, Willowdale, Ontario M2J 1P9, Canada Copyright © 1986 Pergamon Books Ltd. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means: electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publishers. First edition 1986 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data King, Michael, 1942Psychology in and out of court. Bibliography: p. 1. Psychology, Forensic. I. Title. KD7487.K56 1986 347.41Ό66 344.10766 86-91528 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data King, Michael, 1942Psychology in and out of court: a critical examination of legal psychology. 1. Psychology 2. Psychology, Forensic 1. Title 340'. 1'9 K487.P75 ISBN 0-08-026798-X Printed in Great Britain by A. Wheaton & Co. Ltd., Exeter, Devon Acknowledgements I have Ian Morley to thank for the original idea of a book on law and psychology, although the final product may bear little resemblance to what Ian had in mind. I should also like to thank those who cast an eye, some more critical than others, over various parts of the book at various stages in its conception. They are Nikolas Rose, Michael Argyle, Jan Webb and William Twining. Finally, my thanks to the secretarial staff of the Law School, Warwick University and the Law Department of Brunei University for their help and to the staff of Pergamon Press for their patience. London, September 1986 MICHAEL KING CHAPTER 1 Making Ends Meet This book starts with a crescendo, albeit a repeated one, for that was the word used by Monahan and Loftus in 1982 to describe their chapter in the Annual Review of Psychology on the progress made by psychology and law over the 6 years since the previous chapter (dubbed "an overture"). They write: In the past 6 years, the American Psychology-Law Society has burgeoned to record membership levels, an American Board of Forensic Psychology was created to certify expertise in courtroom matters, and in 1981, the American Psychological Association conferred official legitimacy on the area by forming Psychology and Law as its 41st Division. It is now estimated that fully one-third of all graduate psychology departments in the United States offer courses related to law. In the United Kingdom lawyers and psychologists have been rather less ready to jump into each others arms. Admittedly our British Psychological Society created a