Do Judicial Instructions Aid in Distinguishing Between Reliable and Unreliable Jailhouse Informants?

Jailhouse informants are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. In an attempt to preempt such miscarriages of justice, several states (e.g., Connecticut and California) have mandated that judicial instructions be provided to act as a safeguard against false testimony. This study evaluated the effectiveness of these instructions in helping jurors distinguish between reliable and unreliable jailhouse informants. Participants read a trial transcript that varied instructions (Standard, Connecticut, Enhanced) and informant reliability (reliable, unreliable). The results indicated that the instructions had no effect on verdict decisions. Even though verdicts did not vary, participants rated the unreliable informant as less trustworthy, honest, and interested in justice than the reliable informant. This is consistent with previous findings that indicate that participants are aware of the legal prescriptions given in the instructions, but they do not implement them in making decisions. Therefore, instructions may be an insufficient safeguard.

Who gives the most reliable account of a psychiatric patient's personality?

Objective: To compare the perceived accuracy of diagnostic information derived from psychiatric patients and a range of other informants using a schedule for assessing personality disorders (Personality Assessment Schedule). Method: The Personality Assessment Schedule includes a rating of reliability of the information obtained from whatever source. A record was made of these reliability scores in 405 patients with psychiatric disorder; 146 with both subjects and other informants and 259 with the informant only, and analysed using non-parametric statistics. Results: There was significant variation in the distribution of scores among the four psychiatrists who rated 232 of the interviews with informants, suggesting that inter-individual differences are paramount in deciding who is a reliable informant. Nevertheless, the views of other informants when they were spouses or cohabitees were judged to be more accurate than those of other relatives or acquaintances. No differences were found in the perceived reliability of data from subjects and informants when both were interviewed separately. Conclusions: Subjects and informants are judged to be equally reliable in giving assessments of personality status but the informants who have the closest relationship to subjects, spouses and cohabitees, are judged superior to informants of more distant immediate relationship in the accuracy of their information about personality status.

Recent studies in Neo-Aramaic dialects

Since the beginnings of Neo-Aramaic studies in the second half of the last century, with the work of pioneers such as Stoddard (1855), Sachau (1865) and Noldeke (1868) in East-Neo-Syriac, Prym and Socin (1883) in West-Neo-Syriac (Tur ‘Abdln) and Parisot (1898–9) in West-Aramaic of Ma'lūla and related dialects, research in the field of Neo-Aramaic dialectology has never known such an intensive upsurge as there has been in the second half of this century. Although harsh religious persecution by the Muslims and other unendurable hardships, particularly in this century, exterminated a large proportion of the speakers of these dialects or drove them from their original sites to Russia, America, various European countries and even Australia, where their idioms are likely to die within the next few generations, the interest in their more or less modest remnants is increasing. It is as if Aramaists had finally responded to an earnest last-moment appeal and understood the need to save this linguistic heritage before it disappears totally. However, it is symptomatic that researchers trying to record a dying dialectin situ(Krotkoff, Aradhin in Iraqi Kurdistan 1959, published 1982; Jastrow, Hertevin in East Turkey 1970, published 1988) were unable to find more than a single reliable informant on the dialects of the villages of their respective research

Searching the cause for seizures

As in other neurological disorders, the diagnostic process in a child with epileptic seizures attempts to answer two questions: (1) the ascertainment of the type of seizure that the child has experienced, and its focus, if any; and (2) the cause for the attacks. The paper by Yalaz and Treves,1 published in the current issue of Pediatrics, raises the point as to how extensively one should search for an answer to these questions. A thorough history, taken not only from the parent, but also from the child who may prove to be a surprisingly reliable informant, is undoubtedly the single most important prerequisite for diagnosing the seizure type.