Charles Patrick EwingMinds 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!

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

This is one of the few textbooks I have actually enjoyed. The chapters broken down in a great way and it was not a dry read.

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

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

I love this book. I got it for a class but loved the content. I had to take a criminology class and analyze the chapters, very informative as well. It also arrived in a timely fashion.

This book has been very helpful to in my class but it is also a very interesting read! The trials that are being discussed are very fascinating, especially the use of social science in the trials. Very good book, in great condition