Assessing the reliability of child sex abuse allegations: Protocol for the attorney and forensic practitioner

Child sex abuse allegations commonly arise in criminal prosecutions, child protection matters, and divorce/custody disputes. These allegations are high stakes situations for both children and the accused. This outline provides a framework for assessing the reliability of allegations. It is based on a large evidence based review of the literature. Context—what is the family/relationship context […]

Alexithymia and Violence: Understanding Rage Murder

This a presentation at the Society for Personality Assessment in Washington DC in March 2018 on the clinical and forensic assessment of alexithymia. The attached paper examines alexithymia and rage-type murder, typically extreme violence that occurs in intimate relationships. The paper discusses rage type murder as a type of affective or impulsive violence as opposed […]

Shoddy Reliability of Forensic Evidence I: Bite-mark forensics

Today’s NY Times (“Lives in Balance, Texas Leads Scrutiny of Bite-Mark forensics”; 12/13/2015) reports on the recent exoneration of a man imprisoned for 28 years, based on shoddy forensic bite-mark evidence. The ongoing crisis in forensic evidence and expert testimony–reflected in admissions that crime labs (including the FBI) use sloppy methods and unreliable science continues […]