Rebecca Helm - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Rebecca Helm

The International Journal of Evidence & Proof

This article examines how criminal defence lawyers in the English adversarial system understand a... more This article examines how criminal defence lawyers in the English adversarial system understand and use digital evidence (DE). Its first aim is to provide an empirical insight into their practices. Secondly, the article seeks to analyse the difficulties encountered by these professionals in accessing and working with DE—both those that they receive from the prosecution and those presented by the DE they need to defend their clients. Thirdly, the article discusses how criminal defence lawyers understand DE and its limitations and select relevant expert witnesses. Fourthly, it considers how the tensions discussed can be overcome. It is argued that while systemic issues outside the control of criminal defence lawyers are likely to impact the speed with which DE and witness expertise are secured, improving these professionals’ digital literacy remains key to best representation and successful criminal justice outcomes.

Social Science Research Network, 2022

<p>This chapter examines the procedural roles of professional judges, lay judges, and lay j... more <p>This chapter examines the procedural roles of professional judges, lay judges, and lay jurors in criminal adjudication. It considers the relationships between each actor and other participants in the criminal process, using examples from specific jurisdictions within three identified adjudicatory frameworks. It also discusses competing trends in the roles of each actor in systems across the world, focusing on increased reliance on professional judges in some countries and introduction of new lay judge and jury systems in others. The likely impact of these shifts is explored by comparing patterns in judge versus jury decision-making. The chapter concludes by highlighting reasons for global trends observed in the allocation of decision-making in criminal adjudication to particular actors, noting the desire for greater accountability in systems shifting toward more judicial control as well as the attraction of democratizing decision-making in systems embracing trial by jury.</p>

Human Rights Law Review, 2021

National authorities have responded with different regulatory solutions in attempts to minimise t... more National authorities have responded with different regulatory solutions in attempts to minimise the adverse impact of fake news and associated information disorder. This article reviews three different regulatory approaches that have emerged in recent years—information correction, content removal or blocking, and criminal sanctions—and critically evaluates their normative compliance with the applicable rules of international human rights law and their likely effectiveness based on an evidence-based psychological analysis. It identifies, albeit counter intuitively, criminal sanction as an effective regulatory response that can be justified when it is carefully tailored in a way that addresses legitimate interests to be protected.

Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 2016

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 2016

Empirical research has confirmed the correctness of the legal realists’ assertion that “judges ar... more Empirical research has confirmed the correctness of the legal realists’ assertion that “judges are human.” It demonstrates that judicial decisions are sometimes tainted by bias, ideology, or error. Presumably, arbitrators are “human” in that sense too, but that conclusion does not necessarily follow. Although arbitrators and judges both umpire disputes, they differ in a variety of ways. Therefore, it is possible that arbitrators’ awards are either better or worse than judges’ decisions. This article reports the results of research conducted on elite arbitrators specializing in resolving commercial disputes. Our goal was to determine whether, like judges, arbitrators are subject to three common cognitive illusions—specifically, the conjunction fallacy, the framing effect, and the confirmation bias. We also wanted to find out whether, like judges, arbitrators exhibit a tendency to rely excessively on intuition that may exacerbate the impact of cognitive illusions on their decision mak...

The British journal of developmental psychology, Jan 12, 2015

In their article, Warneken and Orlins () provide insight into children's prosocial lie-tellin... more In their article, Warneken and Orlins () provide insight into children's prosocial lie-telling. Their work adds to a growing body of literature regarding the development of prosocial behaviour and indicates that young children will tell 'white lies' in order to improve the mood of others. This work has important implications for forensic contexts that we note.

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, Nov 20, 2017

The version presented here may differ from the published version. If citing, you are advised to c... more The version presented here may differ from the published version. If citing, you are advised to consult the published version for pagination, volume/issue and date of publication

Digital Evidence and Electronic Signature Law Review

Brian Altman KC reviewed unreliable expert evidence on the Horizon software system. The Post Offi... more Brian Altman KC reviewed unreliable expert evidence on the Horizon software system. The Post Office denied, including to Parliament, that there was any evidence of miscarriages of justice revealed before the Court of Appeal in 2021. In his review, Brian Altman KC indicated the prosecutions was fundamentally sound; this paper looks at the quality of the judgments arrived at to come to that conclusion. Index words: Altman General review; Post Office Limited; Horizon IT system; unreliable evidence; Clarke Advice; Swift Review; Bates litigation; Hamilton appeals

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Routledge via the ISB... more This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Routledge via the ISBN in this record

Cognitive Science, 2017

Criminal behavior and related disorders have been associated with abnormal neural activity when e... more Criminal behavior and related disorders have been associated with abnormal neural activity when experiencing or anticipating risks and rewards, as well as when exercising inhibition. However, behavioral and neural substrates of risk preferences and criminality have received scant attention when unconfounded with experience, anticipation, and inhibition. We test predictions of fuzzy-trace theory (FTT) in two experiments using a risky-choice framing task. Behavioral results show that individuals with a greater history of criminal behavior are less likely to engage in simple meaning-based processing and are less confident when doing so. These findings are supported by fMRI results showing a greater history of criminal behavior is associated with increased activation in regions associated with cognitive control when engaging in simple meaning-based processing. These results provide insight into the cognitive processes and brain mechanisms that are associated with criminal behavior.

The International Journal of Evidence & Proof, 2021

Eyewitness evidence is often important in criminal cases, but false or misleading eyewitness evid... more Eyewitness evidence is often important in criminal cases, but false or misleading eyewitness evidence is known to be a leading cause of wrongful convictions. One explanation for mistakes that jurors are making when evaluating eyewitness evidence is their lack of accurate knowledge relating to false memory. This article examines lay beliefs relating to memory and ways in which they diverge from expert consensus. It identifies ways in which current directions provided to jurors in this area are likely to be deficient in influencing juror knowledge and in helping them apply that knowledge in a case context, and develops criteria that can be used to assess the likely effectiveness of directions. A new evidence-based training direction is designed based on these criteria, and tested in a mock jury study (N = 411). Results suggest that the proposed direction is more effective than a basic direction in influencing juror knowledge and facilitating the application of that knowledge to case f...

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 2021

Existing research suggests that incentives to plead guilty may influence guilty and innocent defe... more Existing research suggests that incentives to plead guilty may influence guilty and innocent defendants differently. This study examines that possibility through testing theoreticallyinformed predictions relating to the interaction between different types of plea discount (sentence length and sentence type), guilt, and probability of conviction in predicting plea decisions, with a focus on the discounts in England and Wales. Participants (N=3,375) made plea decisions in vignettes that varied discount type offered, probability of conviction, and guilt between-subjects. Participants also answered questions about considerations that were important to them when making plea decisions. Results provide support for predictions, specifically at higher levels of probability of conviction, by showing that a discount resulting in a categorically different sentence type (probation rather than custody) encouraged both 'guilty' and 'innocent' participants to plead guilty, but that a discount resulting only in a shorter sentence of the same type (a 1/3 reduction in sentence-length) only encouraged 'guilty' participants to plead guilty. Participant reports of the considerations important to them when pleading suggest that the categorical discount reduced the importance of factual guilt or innocence in the decision-making of innocent defendants. Findings suggest that utilising plea discounts that vary sentences quantitatively but not categorically is important in maximising the extent to which plea discounts appeal to guilty but not innocent defendants.

Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2019

The Journal of Criminal Law, 2019

A criminal conviction resulting from a guilty plea rather than a full trial is typically justifie... more A criminal conviction resulting from a guilty plea rather than a full trial is typically justified on the basis that the defendant had the ability to go to trial but instead chose to admit guilt in exchange for a small sentence reduction. In other words, the conviction, and associated waiver of rights, occurred by consent. In this article, I challenge that notion by drawing on psycho-legal research on vulnerability and consent and research on guilty pleas in the USA. I suggest that while plea procedure in England and Wales appears less coercive than the practice of ‘plea bargaining’ in the United States, aspects of the system are highly problematic and are likely to be leading to non-consensual guilty pleas, through which innocent defendants are pleading guilty.

Law and Human Behavior, 2018

Legal systems often require the translation of qualitative assessments into quantitative judgment... more Legal systems often require the translation of qualitative assessments into quantitative judgments, yet the qualitative-to-quantitative conversion is a challenging, understudied process. We conducted an experimental test of predictions from a new theory of juror damage award decision making, examining how 154 lay people engaged in the translation process in recommending money damages for pain and suffering in a personal injury tort case. The experiment varied the presence, size, and meaningfulness of an anchor number to determine how these factors influenced monetary award judgments, perceived difficulty, and subjective meaningfulness of awards. As predicted, variability in awards was high, with awards participants considered to be "medium" (rather than "low" or "high") having the most dispersion. The gist of awards as low, medium, or high fully mediated the relationship between perceived pain/suffering and award amount. Moreover, controlling for participants' perceptions of plaintiffs and defendants, as well as their desire to punish and to take economic losses into account, meaningful anchors predicted unique variance in award judgments: A meaningful large anchor number drove awards up and a meaningful small anchor drove them down, whereas meaningless large and small anchors did not differ significantly. Numeracy did not predict award magnitudes or variability, but surprisingly, more numerate participants reported that it was more difficult to pick an exact figure to compensate the plaintiff for pain and suffering. The results support predictions of the theory about qualitative gist and meaningful anchors, and suggest that we can assist jurors to arrive at damage awards by providing meaningful numbers.

Journal of Law and Society, 2019

This article develops an interpretative framework to examine when incentives to plead guilty shou... more This article develops an interpretative framework to examine when incentives to plead guilty should be found to constrain defendant choice to waive fair trial rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. This framework is informed by existing jurisprudence, specifically the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in Natsvlishvili and Togonidze v. Georgia and Deweer v. Belgium, and socio-legal literature. According to the framework, an incentive to plead guilty should be found to violate fair trial rights where it makes it unreasonable to expect defendants to exercise their right to a full trial, is independent of the projected outcome at trial, and causes the defendant to plead guilty. An empirical analysis of guilty-plea practice in England and Wales informed by this new framework identifies problematic incentives and suggests such incentives may disproportionately influence vulnerable defendants.

Psychology, Crime & Law, 2018

In the American criminal justice system the vast majority of criminal convictions occur as the re... more In the American criminal justice system the vast majority of criminal convictions occur as the result of guilty pleas, often made as a result of plea bargains, rather than jury trials. The incentives offered in exchange for guilty pleas mean that both innocent and guilty defendants plead guilty. We investigate the role of attorneys in this context, through interviews with criminal defense attorneys. We examine defense attorney perspectives on the extent to which innocent defendants are (and should be) pleading guilty in the current legal framework and their views of their own role in this complex system. We also use a hypothetical case to probe the ways in which defense attorneys consider guilt or innocence when providing advice on pleas. Results indicate that attorney advice is influenced by guilt or innocence, but also that attorneys are limited in the extent to which they can negotiate justice for their clients in a system in which uncertainty and large discrepancies between outcomes of guilty pleas and conviction at trial can make it a sensible option to plead guilty even when innocent. Results also suggest conflicting opinions over the role of the attorney in the plea-bargaining process.