Cognitive-psychology expertise and the calculation of the probability of a wrongful conviction

Cognitive psychologists are familiar with how their expertise in understanding human perception, memory, and decision-making is applicable to the justice system. They may be less familiar with how their expertise in statistical decision-making and their comfort working in noisy real-world environments is just as applicable. Here we show how this expertise in ideal-observer models may be leveraged to calculate the probability of guilt of Gary Leiterman, a man convicted of murder on the basis of DNA evidence. We show by common probability theory that Leiterman is likely a victim of a tragic contamination event rather than a murderer. Making any calculation of the probability of guilt necessarily relies on subjective assumptions. The conclusion about Leiterman's innocence is not overly sensitive to the assumptions-the probability of innocence remains high for a wide range of reasonable assumptions. We note that cognitive psychologists may be well suited to make these calculations because as working scientists they may be comfortable with the role a reasonable degree of subjectivity plays in analysis.