Q13 - Nearly every criminal trial includes

[sportsfan8491]

I'd like to provide an answer to this question and would appreciate an expert's opinion, if what I've said isn't accurate or needs to be touched up.

This short stimulus provides us with a hypothesis from cognitive psychologists: misidentification by eyewitnesses (I viewed this as the cause) leads to mistaken convictions in criminal trials (viewed this as the effect).

Several things came to mind when I read the hypothesis, the first of which was: how do we know that this is in fact misidentification and that there isn't something else causing the jurors to mistakenly convict (i.e. an ulterior, vindictive motive possibly to harm the person on trial)? The second question that I had was: just how often does an eyewitness's testimony result in a conviction, or even a 'mistaken' conviction for that matter?

Remember, that this is a strengthen EXCEPT question, so the four wrong answers will strengthen the hypothesis by addressing the gaps between the two statements in the cognitive psychologists' claim.

(A) is wrong because it strengthens the notion that it is a common reason for conviction; this addresses the second gap I mentioned above

(B) is wrong because it strengthens the notion that the person on trial has in fact been misidentified by the eyewitness, more often than not as well. This makes it seem more likely that the eyewitness didn't have an ulterior motive and that it was genuinely a case of misidentification.

(C) is wrong for basically the same reason that the previous answer choice was wrong. This makes it seem more likely that the eyewitness didn't have an ulterior motive and that it was genuinely a case of misidentification.

(D) is correct because it seems to weaken the hypothesis slightly, but a subtle assumption needs to be made in order to make this a 'true' weakening type of answer choice. So, if anything, this answer choice is out of scope. I think it weakens by showing that the convictions might not be mistaken because if jurors are instructed by the judge, then it seems less likely that they would mistakenly convict someone. The assumption that I brought up has to do with the fact that the jurors actually listen to the judge's instruction and act according to what they have been told by the judge.

(E) is wrong because it strengthens the hypothesis by providing a reason for why jurors might be more inclined to mistakenly convict someone because of a misidentification provided by a very convincing eyewitness, whom, in actuality, might not have any idea of what they're really talking about.

The only concern that I had was with the wording "common reason" in the hypothesis. Experts, does this mean that we are dealing with a correlation or a cause/effect claim? I was a little torn here, and I thought it was more of a cause/effect claim, so I'd appreciate clarification on this aspect of the question.

Thanks in advance and I hope my analysis was insightful and, for the most part, accurate as well.

[ohthatpatrick]

Nice write-up! I have very few tweaks.

In the hypothesis, the word "common" has nothing to do with whether something is causal or not. "Common" only deals with the frequency with which something occurs.

It is common for lawyers to be right handed.

That just means right handed lawyers are not a rare breed, but says nothing about whether being a lawyer makes you right handed or being right handed makes you a lawyer.

The word "reason" is what makes the hypothesis causal. "Reason" / "explanation" / "that is why" / "because of this" / "due to this", etc. are phrases that assign causality.

I think all your explanations made sense, except for a little mix-up with (B).

You were originally, correctly, addressing other possible reasons for mistaken convictions (in an effort to play devil's advocate to the hypothesis) ... you were saying, "maybe jurors just have an ulterior motive or a grudge against the defendant and so they mistakenly convict him regardless of the eyewitness evidence".

Then, discussing (B), you said it would go against that idea, suggesting that witnesses misidentify by accident, not by ulterior motive.

We were concerned with whether JURORS might mistakenly convict out of an ulterior motive, not whether WITNESSES mistakenly identify out of ulterior motive.

But your initial sentiment about (B) was on point and sufficient to eliminate (B). (Just thought I'd correct that last part in case it confused anyone)

Nice work!

[WaltGrace1983]

I still don't understand how (B) and (C) strengthen . It seems to just strengthen the idea of misidentification but we are not really concerned about strengthening that, are we? What I mean is that we are supposed to strengthen the connection between "misidentification" and "mistaken conviction." We already know that the misidentification happened - do we need to know why it happened? Does this question even have a core? Whenever a strengthen question talks about strengthening a "hypothesis" or a "claim" then usually a core is not in place. What is going on here?

(A) seems like the ideal strengthener because it gets at this gap. It says that the misidentification actually means something. What if eyewitnesses misidentify but the jury doesn't take it seriously anyway? (A) rules out the idea that this hypothetical would happen more often than not.

(D) doesn't do much (which is why it is right). It just says that judges will say when eyewitnesses are fallible. But this doesn't answer the question of how misidentification leads to convictions. We want to STRENGTHEN that misidentification actually leads to convictions. Can the courts know when someone is being misidentified? If so, do we know when misidentifications are fallible? There are just too many further questions to ask and the only way to strengthen the hypothesis would be to add unwarranted assumptions.

(E) this also strengthens quite well! If unreliable witnesses (those who misidentify) → usually appear confident → jurors very likely to believe them, then this would help solidify the idea that misidentification leads to false convictions. Why? Because apparently those who misidentify appear confident! Those who appear confident usually win over the jury! If you win over the jury, it seems very reasonable to conclude that the jury would then falsely convict someone.

So I wonder about (B) and (C). I just don't see its function but I knew that they were wrong because they were both similar and (D) was clearly wrong. (B) and (C) just seem like premise boosters - which I know don't strengthen the argument. I just feel like there is something here that I am missing.

[maryadkins]

Just because answers could strengthen better doesn't mean they don't strengthen. Our argument says nothing about how frequently people are actually wrong, but (B) and (C) give us a frequency, and it's not good for people on trial:

(B) says in MOST crimes witnesses are not good at remembering, and if that's the case, that's a pretty good strengthener for the argument that their testimony is bad...and sure, there's still a gap in that we don't know if the defendants are convicted or not based on this. But so what? It still strengthens by moving us closer to the conclusion.

(C) says the same thing: it's likely they're wrong. That means they're more likely to be wrong than right.

I knew that they were wrong because they were both similar and (D) was clearly wrong. (B) and (C) just seem like premise boosters - which I know don't strengthen the argument. I just feel like there is something here that I am missing.

Keep going back to the idea that you're picking the BEST answer.