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I owe a humongous debt of gratitude to Karoli for all the assistance with getting this site up and running and for helping me with the template. Without her help, I’d probably have canceled my internet subscription and I’d be curled up in a ball, shaking violently right now.

Thanks for reading!

As you can see, there are a few changes on the blog. I’m still working on it and for that I apologize. Here are some of the things I’ve done:

• Removed the top graphic to make more room for text. While visually appealing, it was moving the first post halfway down the page.
• Cleaned up the syndication options. Now all you have to do is click on either "bookmark" or "subscribe" on the right and a nifty window pops up with an extensive list of services for you to choose your favorite from to subscribe to this blog.
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A University of Virginia study suggests that eyewitness reliability is linked to the age of the eyewitness. According to the study, older eyewitnesses are more likely to be mistaken in recollecting details and are also more likely to be certain about their erroneous recollections.

The researchers said they found through a series of experiments that when younger and older adults were matched on their overall memory for experienced  events, both groups showed comparable rates of suggestibility errors in which they claimed to have seen events in a video that had been suggested in a subsequent questionnaire. However, older adults were “alarmingly” likely to commit these suggestibility errors when they were most confident about the correctness of their response, the press release said. Younger people were more likely to commit these errors when they were uncertain about the accuracy of their response, it said.

Previous studies by other investigators have shown that older adults are more likely than younger people to “remember” events that did not occur, and to misremember events that did occur. The U.Va. study further suggest that this occurs because older adults are more inclined to miscombine details of events, which results in a high degree of confidence that they are remembering these details accurately.

Here is a press release regarding the study. I have been unable to locate a copy of the study. If it is available online for free, please leave a comment with the link and I will add it to the post.

I am hereby officially inviting my fellow CT PDs and defense attorneys that read this blog to contribute by posting about any legal developments in the state or any legal issues that “grind your gears”. If you’re interested, send me an e-mail and we’ll start the process!