ARELLANO

UNIVERSITY
School of Law
Compilation of Reports on Legal Research

Atty. Cindy Cayco
(LEGAL RESEARCH PROFESSOR)

TUESDAY 5:30 to 7:30 PM

LOO | QUIOGUE | RAGOS | AYON | CATAQUIZ | JONIECA | NARITO | BAUTISTA



IMPORTANCE OF LEGAL RESEARCH

Vol. 41, No. 8, April 2013, Law Student Division, American Bar Association

Shawn G. Nevers

I doubt Steven Spielberg thought anyone watching Lincoln would think about legal
research, but that’s what happened to me. In one pivotal scene, Lincoln and his Cabinet gather
to discuss the proposed amendment abolishing slavery. Various Cabinet members are opposed
to supporting an amendment they see as unlikely to pass by the needed super-majority.

Lincoln, on the other hand, supports the amendment. He feels strongly that slavery must
be abolished, but, he worries that the Emancipation Proclamation is vulnerable. The
Proclamation was a war measure, he explains, but, without a war, questions about the legality of
the Proclamation and its effects will no doubt be raised. A constitutional amendment is the legal
cure needed to settle the uncertainty and end slavery for good.

As I listened to Lincoln explain his reasoning, I couldn’t help but think about legal research.
Lincoln had found, understood, and applied the law. This process allowed him to correctly assess
the legal weaknesses of the Emancipation Proclamation. It also helped him realize that a
constitutional amendment was the best solution available. In that way, legal research played a
critical role in Lincoln’s decision to pursue the 13th Amendment despite heavy opposition.

While Lincoln’s legal research didn’t include Westlaw or Lexis, its underlying principles of
finding, understanding, and applying the law remain the same today. Today’s lawyers continue
to use legal research on a daily basis to prepare them to advise clients, negotiate with opposing
counsel, or persuade a judge or jury.

You’ll experience the importance of legal research when a client seeks your help to modify
a child custody order, to sue for misappropriation of trade secrets, or to defend them in an insider
trading case. Legal research will help you find, understand, and apply the law. Performing good
legal research in this way will provide you with the foundation you need to proceed confidently
and achieve the best result for your client.

Despite the importance of legal research in legal practice, I’m often surprised at how
many first-year law students (and sometimes others) seem disinterested in the topic. Maybe I
shouldn’t be surprised—legal research doesn’t hold the appeal of some topics, like constitutional
or criminal law. Legal research also requires more hands-on work, which rarely evokes
endearment from law students. Many students even have the mistaken notion that legal
research is easy.


But, whatever the reason for the initial lack of interest in legal research, something
changes when law students head out to legal jobs during the summer. That’s because they’re
asked to research —again and again and again. In fact, the majority of law students I talk to spend
the majority of their summer researching.


So, while law students may or may not grow to love legal research, they do come to
understand that it’s a critical skill they must acquire. In fact, upon returning from the summer,
many of my former students remark that our legal research and writing class was by far the most
helpful of their first year. I always wish they would have realized this earlier—and they do too—
but better late than never.

The sooner you gain an appreciation for the importance of legal research the better. Here
are a few tips that might help:


Take a broader view of research. Some students and even attorneys have a narrow view
of research. To them, research is Lexis or Westlaw. Good legal research, however, is much more
than a research system; it’s a process. Good legal research is intertwined with analysis,
understanding, and application. While finding the law is important, “one has not truly found the
law until he understands it,” as one prominent law librarian has noted. A research system can’t
do that for you.


A lawyer’s understanding and analysis of a case often begins in the research stage when
she identifies the relevant facts and determines the legal issues that must be researched. This
analysis continues and is refined as she decides where, how, and what to search. As she finds
seemingly relevant legal materials, she must understand them and how they apply to the facts
of her case. This research provides a crucial analytical foundation that will inform her decisions
for the remainder of the case. When viewed in this light, research can be seen not merely as a
fleeting Westlaw search, but as a critical, enduring component of representing a client.


Take research seriously. If you’re serious about getting yourself ready to practice
competently, you need to be committed.

THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF A GOOD

INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEWER TRAINING
PROGRAM
Sheryl Atienza

Which interviewing skills yield the most accurate eyewitnesses accounts?

The goal of researchers to determine how effectively these skills are taught in
training programs.

Cognitive Interview Studies

• Fisher et al. (1989) and George and Clifford (1992) 


• Police officers as interviewers of victims and witnesses of crimes 


• Pre Training: Closed questions and few answer elaborations 


• Training: 
Fisher et al. – four (4) half-day sessions; George and Clifford – two (2)
full-day sessions 
◦ Lectures on good and poor interviewing 


• Post Training: use of more open-ended questions, fewer closed questions, fewer
leading 
questions 
Sternberg (1997) 


• First study in the Lamb et al. series to demonstrate improvement in the use of
open-ended questioning by investigative reviewers 


• Fourteen Israeli youth investigators 


• Three-year data collection period 


• Two prescriptive interviews: 
◦ Instruction and practice in rapport-building

scripts
◦ Open-ended and direct questions in the rapport-building phase ◦
Single statement in the substantive phase 


• Much more details and words with the aid of structured scripts 
Sternberg et al.
(1999) 


• Sternberg, Lamb, Esplin, Baradaran 


• Seven (7) investigative interviewers in the United States 


• Week-long training with follow-up supervision and feedback 


• Extended use of rapport-building phase and substantive phase; use of identical

questions 


• More open-ended questions; better performance than at baseline 
Orbach et al.

(2000) 


• Six (6) senior youth Israeli investigators

• Three-day training with follow-up supervision and feedback 


• Formal instruction on research literature and recommended interviewing

techniques; 
Comparison of questioning styles 


• Instruction and practice in utilizing the National Institute of Child Health and
Human 
Development (NICHD) protocol 


• NICHD script; monthly feedback on transcripts; in-depth discussion of recurring

problems 
and rehearsals for appropriate alternatives 


• Resulted to more superior interviews; more open-ended questions; fewer

focused, 
option-posing and suggestive questions 
Sternberg et al. (2001) 


• Six (6) experienced youth investigators in the United States 


• Five-day training with follow-up supervision and feedback 


• Instruction and practice in utilizing the National Institute of Child Health and
Human 
Development (NICHD) protocol 


• Frequency of open-ended questions increased with training 
Lamb, Sternberg,

Orbach, Esplin, et al. (2002) 


• Eight (8) experienced police officers 


• Five-day training program with follow-up supervision and feedback using the
same 
material (NICHD) 


• Improved performance with supervision; declined performance when

supervision ended; 
increased “risky practices” (option-posing and
suggestive questions) 
Lamb, Sternberg, Orbach, Esplin, et al. (2002) Series
Final Study 


• Direct comparison of several training techniques 


• Twenty-one (21) experienced youth investigators were exposed to one (1) of four
(4) 
training conditions 


• First two conditions: validation (5 days) and rapport building (2 days) 
◦

Workshops and instruction in areas such as child development and interviewer
influence 
◦ Interview procedures (2 days) 


• Third and Fourth conditions: ongoing supervision and feedback opportunities 


• Significant post training improvements in the use of open-ended questions


Conclusion 
On the basis of existing research, it is not possible to ascertain
the independent 
contribution of the precise elements that made these
training programs successful. However, it is believed that successful long-
term improvement depends on:

A. The operationalization of training principles via use of highly-structured

interview protocol; and 


B. The incorporation of multiple opportunities for practice and continuing
supervision 
There is a need to develop more cost-effective programs to
improve interviewing skills. 
Considering the precise nature of the training

programs in the aforementioned studies, the following contributed to their

success in improving interviewers’ performance in the long term:
1. Distribution of training over time 

2. Expert instruction and feedback 

3. Exemplars of good practice 

4. Participants’ motivation to improve their own performance 


INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEWING
Den Marcus Policar


I. INTRODUCTION

Interview are conducted at various stages of the investigative process,
ranging from the initial police interview of a victim, witness, or suspect to an in-
court interview in front of a judge or other decision maker. Interviews conducted
during the initial phase of the police investigation are usually the most critical in
determining whether a criminal case is solved especially when there is little or no
physical evidence (Fisher, Geiselman, & Raymond, 1987).

A properly conducted interview may advance the police investigation while
a poorly conducted interview has the potential to distort witnesses’ memories and
contaminate the entire investigative process.


II. FACTORS THAT DETERMINE THE QUALITY
OF ANY FORENSIC INTERVIEW

1. Factors relating to the interviewee
• Physical, mental, emotional state of the interviewee at the time of the event
and the interview.

2. Factors relating to the interview
• The interview setting and the purpose of the interview

3. Factors relating to the interviewer
• Questioning techniques, social status, and degree of bias.

III. INTERVIEW PROTOCOLS

1. Step-wise Interview (Yuille, 1996)
• Developed specifically for the investigative interviewing of children.


2. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
Protocol (Sternberg, Lamb, Esplin, Orbach, & Hershkowitz, 2002)
• Developed to obtain information from children who may be victims of or
witnesses to a crime about their experience.


3. The Guidance for Achieving Best Evidence in Criminal Proceedings (Home
Office, 2002)
• Developed principally for interviewing child witnesses as young as 3 years of
age and other vulnerable or intimidated witnesses like persons with
intellectual disabilities, or persons from different cultural backgrounds.


4. Conversation Management (Sheperd, 1998)
• Designed to provide interviewers with the skills needed to elicit more
information from a hostile witness.


5. Cognitive Interview (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992)
• Developed for the interviewing of cooperative adults.
• It is used primarily in situations in which the witness is genuinely attempting
to recall and describe what he or she knows, but needs assistance to
overcome the difficulties of remembering and describing the alleged offense
in detail.

IV. COMMON ELEMENTS OF A GOOD
INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW PROTOCOL


1. Good Rapport between the Interviewer and Interviewee

This is the initial phase of most interview protocols. It is devoted solely to
developing a positive interviewer-interviewee relationship. The interviewer will
make the interviewee feel that his story is going to be heard, accepted, and not
judged.

Building rapport is considered important as it promotes open
communication, develops trust, and increases the willingness of the interviewee to
cooperate which is usually done by displaying a sensitive and flexible response to
the interviewee’s needs, showing goodwill, listening carefully to the interviewee,
and not assuming that the interviewee is familiar with various legal or interview
procedure.



Three aims of the rapport-building phase:
a) The interviewee does most of the talking
• Conveys the impression the interview is interviewee-focused which
promotes more elaborate responses to subsequent questions during
the main part of the interview about the alleged offense (Sternberg,
et al., 1997)

b) The interviewer conveys understanding, acceptance, non-coerciveness, and
a non-judgmental perspective.

c) The interviewer creates an informal and relaxed context.
• Any diminution in formality of manner and language is likely to
decrease intimidation and anxiety.
• Research has shown that memory performance is improved when the
person interviewed is in a relaxed environment (Saywitz & Nathanson,
1993)

2. Clear description of the interviewer’s investigative needs

Witnesses often do not provide specific information even in interviews
where good rapport is established which causes frustration for the investigative
interviewers (Kebbell & Milne, 1998).

There are at least two reasons why witnesses do not provide specific
information: First, the forensic interview procedure is unnatural because it violates
normal conversational processes. Second, the kinds of detail usually required for
police investigations are difficult to provide. When vulnerable interviewees are
pressured to recall highly specific details, they are more prone to fabrication or an
acceptance of false details. They merely choose an answer to please the
interviewer in a yes/no and forced-choice questions. (Eades, 1995)


Downside of intensive training and instruction (Nesbitt & Markham, 1999):

• Time consuming
• Forces the interviewee to play a more passive role
• Training children not to guess responses can lead them to answer “I don’t
know” to questions that they might otherwise have answered correctly


COMMON MISUNDERSTANDING IN INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEWS
MISUNDERSTANDINGS INSTRUCTION FOR OVERCOMING
MISUNDERSTANDING

Interviewees (particularly children and The interviewer needs to stress that he
people with an intellectual disability) does not know what has happened and
may be hesitant to correct the that, if the interviewer says something
interviewer because they believe the wrong, the interviewee should correct
interviewer knows best. him or her.

Interviewees often do not know the The interviewer should explicitly state
level of detail that is required in that he was not there when the alleged
investigative interviews and may event happened and that the more the
interviewee can report, the better.

believe that minor descriptive details Anything the interviewee remembers

are not important. could be useful, even little things that
the interviewee does not think are
important, and even if something is not
the whole answer.

Interviewees may believe that it is The interviewee should be encouraged
acceptable to make up a response. to say “I don’t know” or “I don’t
remember” when applicable.

When a question, or part thereof, is The interviewer should say, “if I ask a
repeated in an interview, the question again, it doesn’t mean I want
interviewee may assume that his initial you to change your answer. Just tell me
response was incorrect and should be what you remember the best you can.”
changed
The interviewee may believe that it is The interviewer should be informed
not acceptable to use slang or swear that he or she can use any words that
words or sexually explicit language, work, and that the interviewer will not
even when these words are the only be shocked, angry or upset.
words available to describe the offense.

Sometime interviewees will say they do The interviewer should explicitly state
not know the answer to a question that he does not mind rephrasing
when in fact, they do not understand questions.
the question.

Interviewees may not report The interviewer should say, “even if
information if they think the you think I already know something,
interviewer knows the information lease tell my anyway”.
already.

3. Open-ended questioning style

Open-ended questions refer to questions that requires a multiple-word or
free narrative response which is acknowledged as the most useful information
obtained in any forensic interview (Milne & Bull, 1999). It should be obtained
before asking any specific questions; and is obtained when interviewees are
encouraged to provide an account of the event or situation in their own words, at
their own pace, and without interruption.

There are three benefits of eliciting a free narrative response: First, it is more
accurate than responses to specific or closed questions (Lipton, 1977). Second,
specific questions can lead interviewers to underestimate the witness’s language
limitations, especially when the witness adopts strategies to conceal those
limitations (Snow & Powell, in press). Third, allows the interviewee time to collect
his or her thoughts and consequently promotes more elaborate memory retrieval.




Although free-narrative response typically provide the most accurate
information, they invariably do not provide all the information that the investigator
needs. Hence, interviewers usually follow up free-narrative reports with more
focused question to elicit unreported details. (George & Clifford, 1992)


Recommended strategies to minimize error in free-narrative reports (Walker,
1999):
• Making the topic or information that is requested clear at all times;
• Using the interviewee’s terminology;
• Simplifying the language;
• Watching carefully for signs of fatigue and poor concentration-and
scheduling frequent breaks
• Using meaningful labels for concepts related to distance, time, and
number.

4. Willingness to explore alternative hypotheses

Interviewers should be willing to rule out alternative hypothesis, rather than
simply trying to confirm what they already believe (Ceci & Bronfenbrenner, 1991)

Interviewers are particularly susceptible to interviewer bias when they
acquire prior information about the case from college agues, parents, or other case
workers and assume that this information is true.



Impact of interviewer bias:
a) Biased interviewer tend to inaccurately report the contents of the interview
so that these contents are consistent with their own beliefs (Langer &
Abelson, 1974).

b) When interviewers believe they know the truth about an event or an
individual, they tend to overlook, screen out, or ignore relevant and vital
information, information that may produce negative or inconsistent evident.
(Ceci & Bruck, 1993).

c) Biased interviewers tend to shape witnesses’ reports to be consistent with
their hypotheses about what happened through the use of misleading or
closed questions that restricts the range of possible answers (Jones & Powell,
2004)

Characteristics of a biased interviewer (Ceci & Buck, 1995):

a) Gather predominantly confirmatory evidence and avoid avenues that may
produce negative or inconsistent evidence.

b) Engage in a rigid form of questioning, interrupt the interviewee’s account,
and fail to summarize the interviewee’s responses.


c) Ignore information that does not fit with their perceptions or assumptions.

d) Fail to encourage interviewees to say “I don’t know” or establish a
relationship in which interviewees feel they can correct misunderstandings
in the interview.


e) Overlook or ignore the degree to which the interviewee’s responses are
constrained by limited language skills or a desire to please the interviewer

f) Fail to establish the source of reported information.


g) Ask leading and other questions that control the interviewee’s answer by
implying an answer or assuming facts that might be in dispute.

HOW TO DETECT DECEPTION
Apple Justin Requirme



I. INTRODUCTION
The study of deception spans many of psychology’s subdiscipline. It is necessary to
study emotion and physiological psychology to be able to argue why verbal content
of a true statement might differ from a false statement, we will study the mind in
order to explain why people with certain facial appearance are judged as liars more
often than others.

For professionals working within the field of law enforcement it is important to
assess the truth accurately. The consequences of failing to assess the truth can be
very severe.




II. DEFINING DECEPTION
Deception – a successful or unsuccessful deliberate attempt, without forewarning,
to create in another a belief which the communicator considers to be untrue.


TYPES OF LIES

1. Falsification – total falsehoods, wherein everything communicated is
contradictory to the truth (also called “outright lies”)

2. Distortions – departures from the truth to fit the liar’s goal (exaggerations are
classified as a distortion)

3. Concealed – a liar can say that he or she does not know (even if he or she does)
or that he or she does not remember (although he or she does)

III. BELIEFS REGARDING CUES TO DECEPTION

Belief - the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case with or
without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with
factual certainty.


Two methods to investigate people’s beliefs about cues to deception:

Survey – participants typically have been asked to rate the extent to which they
believe that a particular behavior of prespecified verbal and nonverbal behaviors is
indicative of deception.

Verbal behavior - encompasses any form of communication involving words,
spoken, written or signed.

Nonverbal behavior - communication through sending and receiving wordless
cues. It includes the use of visual cues such as body language, distance and physical
environments/appearance.

Laboratory based studies – participants what video tapes of liars and truth tellers,
then judge these “suspects” in terms of their veracity.


Why Do We Have Such Misconceptions about Deceptive Behavior?
Feedback often is inadequate and unsystematic in occupations where lie detection
is a central task.

E.g. The working environment of customs officer. If they decide not to search, they
will get no feedback, and they will never know whether it was correct to let the
travelers pass without visitation. They can only learn something from the travelers
if they search.

Cues to Deception in Police Interrogation Manuals

It is suggested that the interrogator should pay close attention to the suspects
behavioral responses and nonverbal behavior such as:

1. Posture shifts 6. Swift
2. Grooming gestures 7. Their hands are cold and clammy
3. Placing hand over the mouth 8. Stuttering and mumbling
4. Jerky movements 9. Fidgeting
5. Abrupt 10. Scratching

* keep in mind that not all behavior are reliable cues to deception.



IV. THE ABILITY TO DETECT DECEPTION

Ground Truth and Evaluation
Ground truth is a term used in various fields to refer to information provided by
direct observation (such as empirical evidence) as opposed to information provided
by inference.

Truth and Lie Biases
A truth bias is the tendency to more commonly believe that witness and suspect
statements are truthful rather than deceptive.

A lie bias is the tendency to more commonly believe that witness and suspect
statements are deceptive rather than truthful.

Confidence
Why is confidence important?
Because the felt or expressed level of confidence can influence both their won and
other people’s actions.

Three ways to catch a liar:
1. By analyzing his or her speech
2. By measuring his or her physiological responses
3. By observing his or her behavior

1. Speech Analysis
• is the process of analyzing the voice and the speech patterns of people.
Some approaches of speech analysis are focused on speech recognition
understanding the speech content. Other approaches are focused on
speech prosody understanding the speech “melody” or the pronunciation
patterns.
• is the most popular technique for assessing the veracity of verbal
statements.
• is a technique developed in Germany to determine the credibility of
children’s testimony in trails for sexual offenses.

Reality Monitoring - the ability to distinguish between memories for events that
have actually occurred and memories for imagined events, with actual events
characterized by higher levels of sensory perceptual information.

• the premise that memories of experienced events differ in quality from
memories of imagined events.
• Memories from real experience are obtained through perceptual processes
and are therefore likely to contain various type of information.


2. Physiological Analysis

Polygraph – a scientific measuring device that can display (via ink-pen on charts or
a computer visual display unit) a direct and valid representation of various types of
bodily activity.


Types of polygraph methods

A. Control Questions Test – compares responses to relevant questions with
responses to control questions.

Relevant questions – specific questions about the crime

Control questions – deals with acts that are related to the crime under
investigation, but do not relate specifically to the crime.


B. Guilt Knowledge Test - is a psychophysiological questioning technique that can
be used as part of a polygraph examination which purports to assess whether
suspects conceal “guilty knowledge” by measuring their physiological responses
while responding to a series of multiple choice questions.



3. Behavioral Analysis - is a scientific discipline concerned with applying techniques
based upon the principles of learning to change behavior of social significance. It is
the applied form of behavior analysis; the other two forms are radical behaviorism
and the experimental analysis of behavior.

PSYCHOLOGY AND LAW

OBJECTIVE INDICATORS OF DECEPTION
AND TRUTH:
Three Processes that Influence Lying
Ren Prescilla Untalan


Although these are processes that may reveal a liar, it may also apply to truth
tellers with some of the verbal and nonverbal cues applying to them as well.. For
example, and innocent suspect might be anxious if they worry that they will not be
believed by a police officer. because of that fear, they may show the same nervous
reactions as guilty liars who are afraid of being caught.


1. Emotion
• Usually guilt, fear, or excitement
• Strength depends on personality of the liar
• Arousal - considered the fourth process by the original authors but was
declared that it should be considered part of the emotion process
• VERBAL and NONVERBAL CUES:
- Pitch of voice

- Tense voice

- Facial expressions (in relation to attempted control), especially micro-

expressions

2. Content Complexity
• Plausible answers
• Avoiding contradicting statements
• Consistency of statements with what the observer knows or might find out
and with the liar’s own statements
• Occurs because experienced events differ in quality from imagined events



• VERBAL and NONVERBAL CUES:
- Word or sentence repetition

- Sentence change

- Sentence incompletion

- Slips of tongue

- Speech fillers (ah, um, er)

- Less movements (hand and arm gestures designed to modify,

emphasize, or supplement what is being said verbally) compared to

truth tellers
- Less visual, auditory, and spatial details compared to truth tellers

- Stories are usually told in chronological order because it is easier to do

so compared to truth tellers

3. Attempted Control
• Suppression of any cues that may reveal their lies
• Impression management
• Requires the liars to think hard, know how they normally respond, and
show only responses that they would like to show
• Liars may overcontrol they behavior, resulting to body language appearing
planned and rehearsed and the lack of spontaneity
• VERBAL AND NONVERBAL CUES:
- Less movements

- Appears less vocally expressive, more passive, and more uncertain

- Gaze indicating nervousness or the lack thereof

- Facial expressions, especially micro-expressions (ex: Felt smile v. False

smile)

STRATEGIES OF LIARS AND TRUTH TELLERS
The researchers admit that there is a lack of study in strategies of liars and
truth tellers. However, these three strategies have already been determined but
still subject to further research and should be used by observers and interrogators
with careful interpretation.

1. Pertaining to the theme of the statement: Plausibility and Credible Stories
• Has a clear-cut central action to which all other elements are connected
• Free from ambiguities
• Usually based on the experiences of the liar at some point of their lives but
alters the critical details

2. Pertaining to how the statement should be presented
• In a repeated interrogation, truth tellers reconstruct while liars try to
repeat
• In high stakes, truth tellers “keep it real”; liars “keep it simple” by not
adding details


3. Pertaining to how to act in terms of nonverbal behavior
• Avoidance of excess movements
• Maintaining eye contact

MEMORY AS A FACTOR IN DECEPTION
Research has found that there is a very close link between memory and the
formation of beliefs about cues to deception such as what was discussed above
where a liar bases his statements on an experience. Memory is the raw material of
which lies are made.

1. Simulated Amnesia
• In order to avoid punishment, suspects claim that they cannot remember
what took place - malingered amnesia
• Studies show 20%-30% of suspects claim amnesia but only few are real
• Distinguishing non-crime-related amnesia from crime-related amnesia

NON-CRIME-RELATED AMNESIA CRIME-RELATED AMNESIA

Tendency to have fragments or islands Total memory loss
of memories from the amnesic part of
the event
No clear beginning and end Distinct sharp beginning and end
Victims more willing to try memory- Victims more dogmatic about their
enhancing techniques amnesia


2. Memory of Deceptive and Truthful Statements
• Objective verbal cues to deception
• Deceptive statements tend to be less plausible and less structured in a
logical and sensible way
• Liars’ stories seem to make less sense than truth tellers’ stories

IMPROVING THE ABILITY TO DETECT DECEPTION

Regarding Training to Detect Deception and Techniques to Enhance Lie Detection:
There have been studies on how to conduct training to detect deception but
the authors found these still lacking. However, these studies have shown that
training observers with the six visual and vocal cues (adaptors, hand gestures,
pauses, response latency, speech errors, and message duration) were able to
slightly improve their deception detection.

The authors then presented three alternative ways to detect deceit:

1. Combining Verbal and Nonverbal Cues
• In reviewing deception detection, researchers are divided into camps
regarding responses. Rarely has it been examined simultaneously.
• Vrij et al’s study found that considering verbal and nonverbal cues
simultaneously is a more accurate way to detect deception

2. Implicit Lie Detection
• Conversation rules that regulate polite behavior
• Instead of saying “Are you lying?”, say “Do you really like the person that
you just described?” or any questioned formed in such a way depending on
the situation

3. Strategic Disclosure of Evidence
• Not much studies have been done on this alternative but the studies that
have been done show a significant effect on deception detection
• Showing of evidence to the suspect early or late in the interrogation

Children’s Recall and Testimony

Anna Hyacinth Nicerio

CHILDREN’S SUGGESTIBILITY

Variety of influences can contaminate children’s testimonies
1. False information and negative stereotypes conveyed outside the
interviewing context

2. Misleading questions during interviews 

3. Social reinforcement for particular types of answers 

4. Instructions to visualize or speculate about non experienced events. 



Age Trends in Suggestibility: Reports Elicited with Open-Ended Questions
Ø Many children reported non experienced events in free recall, and 

Ø There was no tendency for the younger children to report more false
information than the older children. 

Ø Children were both highly accurate (when adults had not contaminated
their reports) and highly inaccurate (when 
adults had exposed them to
false information). 

Ø The children reported comparable rates of false events regardless of
whether or not the events involved touching, 
demonstrating that
touching events are not always especially salient or distinctive. 

Ø Older children often knew that the suggested events had not actually
happened. 
Age Trends in Suggestibility: Reports Elicited with Specific
Questions 

Ø Suggestibility is more pronounced when interviewers ask specific
questions. 

Ø A recent study by Principe and Ceci (2002) drives home the message
that:
(1)subtle influences outside interview settings can contaminate
children’s reports, even when reports are elicited with 
open-ended
questions; and
(2) suggestive questioning dramatically increases the rate
of false reporting. 
Children’s Memory for Repeated Events 


Ø Repeated experience both decreased and increased susceptibility,

depending on the degree of detail stability across the repeated events.
(Connolly and Lindsay, 2001)
– used yes/no recognition questions. 


Ø Suggestibility was reduced for fixed details of repeated events, but error
rates were not higher for variable details than for details that were
experienced in only a single event. (Powell et al., 1999)
– used cued recall.


Ø Powell and Roberts (2002) included question format (cued recall vs.
yes/no recognition) as a between-subjects factor. Their central finding
was that, after exposure to misinformation, children exposed to repeated
events made more errors regarding variable details compared to children
exposed to a single event, but only when they were responding to yes/no
questions. 
CHILDREN’S TESTIMONIES AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 



Four principles help explain why data on children’s testimony that is theoretically
exciting may nonetheless have limited value for practitioners who evaluate
complicated cases:
1.Children Have Difficulty Using Rules to Guide Their Behavior 

2.Children Often Perform Poorly When Instructions Are Abstract and Not
Explicitly Connected to the Task 

3.Children Display Mental Abilities before They Acquire the Ability to Reflect
upon Their Mental Processes 

4.Children’s Performance Is Highly Variable, So It Is Difficult to Judge Which
Children Are Reliable Witnesses 



Children Have Difficulty Using Rules to Guide Their Behavior 

Ø One set of interviewing strategies involves instructions that motivate
children to report completely and accurately. e.g. forensic interviewers
deliver ground rules to inform children that it is appropriate to say “I
don’t know” rather than to guess, to ask the interviewer to clarify
questions, and to correct the interviewer if he or she says something
that is incorrect (Poole & Lamb, 1998). 


Ø A reason why children fail to follow rules is that they have difficulty
with behavioral inhibition; that is, difficulty blocking a strong or
desirable response in order to substitute another response. 

Ø Relying on children to edit their reports is likely to be least effective
when children are young or when interviews are so long that children
lose sight of initial instructions. 


Children Often Perform Poorly When Instructions Are Abstract and Not Explicitly
Connected to the Task
Ø Another set of interviewing strategies involves training children to
improve their source-monitoring ability before an interview. The goal is
to test whether source-monitoring training that was unrelated to target
events would generalize to discussions about target events. 
e.g.
researchers trained children to say “no” when appropriate, and brief them
that some events mentioned in 
their training might not have happened.


Ø Success with one training procedure does not necessarily generalize to
other training procedures. 


Ø Other laboratories that have successfully trained young children to
monitor the source of their memories 
have done so within these
parameters: (Thierry & Spence, 2002) 

(1) Source-monitoring training and target items were drawn from the
same target events 

(2) Consistent question types were used for training and testing 

(3) There were no intermediate interviews. 



Children Display Mental Abilities before They Acquire the Ability to Reflect upon
Their Mental Processes
Ø Robinson and Whitcombe (2003) tested whether preschoolers would rely
on their own knowledge or an experimenter’s knowledge to answer a
question. The children tended to base their decisions on information from
the better-informed source (i.e., implicit source monitoring) but had
difficulty reporting what information they had used to make their
decisions (i.e., explicit source monitoring). 


Ø Children may be able to monitor sources when the decision processes are
automatic and require no effortful reflection but may nevertheless have
difficulty when they are required to engage in more deliberate and
strategic decision making. (Robinson, 2000) 



Ø Children have difficulty articulating their own or other people’s mental
processes. 
Children’s Performance Is Highly Variable, So It Is Difficult to
Judge Which Children Are Reliable Witnesses 


Ø Children err on questions for a variety of reasons, and those who err on
one type of question may not err on another type. Clearly, arguments
about a specific child’s deficiencies must be linked to data that target
specific social or cognitive processes. (Brady et al., 1999) 


Ø Often, individual difference variables simply fail to predict the quality of
children’s testimony. IMPLICATIONS FOR CASE ANALYSES AND FUTURE
RESEARCH 



Unfortunately, there appears to be no magic bullet for resolving the difficult
cases:


(1) An open-ended interview may not overcome the damage done by prior
suggestive influences;


(2) Even school-age children sometimes have difficulty distinguishing information
from several sources;


(3) There are no known markers of reliability in the structure of event narratives
that work well enough to remove uncertainty in individual cases; and
(4) Children
often lack the insight to reflect upon and discuss the evolution of their reports.

Do developmental psychologists bring anything to the task of analyzing cases?

Yes. They understand how children use language, so they can suggest alternative
interpretations of children’s reports and point out statements that lend themselves
to independent corroboration. They can spot statements that are better ignored
because they sound off-topic or were elicited by unintelligible questions. Most
importantly, they can shift focus away from a single hypothesis and help set
children’s reports in a broader temporal and social context.

Ø Given our current knowledge, children’s reports are only one line of evidence
in a complicated case, and they may not always be the most important
evidence. Therefore, it is as important for researchers to convey the
limitations of the knowledge base as it is for them to share what is known. 


Ø Forensic developmental psychology - field that applies developmental
knowledge to the problems that arise when children intersect with the legal
system. Bruck and Poole (2002) 


Eye Witness Recall and Testimony

Donald Adrian Castillo


The Rashomon Dilemma: The Complexity of Eyewitness Recall

– highlights the intricacies of eyewitness recall and testimony in real-life situations
– conveys the fact that memory does not operate like a video recorder.



How to Determine the Quality of an Eyewitness?

QUANTITY - evaluating memory primarily in terms of the number of (stored)
items that can be recovered
ACCURACY - faithfulness of memory in representing past events.



Input-Bound Quantity Measure vs Output-Bound Accuracy Measure

Input-Bound Quantity Measure
Used to tap the amount of studied information that can be recovered 

Percent recall 

Holds the person responsible for what he or she fails to report 



Output-Bound Accuracy Measure
Reflects that each reported item is correct 

Evaluates the dependability of memory for which information can be trusted to be
correct 

Percent of recalled items that is correct 

Holds the person accountable only for what he or she reports 


Strategic Controls to Enhance Accuracy of Reports of Eyewitness

Report Option
involves choosing either volunteer o to withhold particular items of information
– i.e., to respond “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember

Control Over Grain Size
– involves choosing the level of detail or generality at which to report
remembered information


Components Contributing to Memory Performance
• Retention
• Monitoring
• Control

Retention
• The amount of correct information that can be retrieved
• Usually reflected by memory quality and accuracy performance

Stages Influencing Retention
• Initial Encoding of information

• Storage or maintenance of information over time
• Retrieval or reconstruction of stored information


Factors Affecting Retention: Encoding Factor

The Perceptual Quality of the Target Event
• Factors that improve perceptual quality of the target event tend to improve
encoding

-e.g., shorter exposure durations, illumination conditions
– Trust the eyewitness
who had a better view of the event

Distinctiveness: The Importance or Salience of the Event

Flashbulb Memory
• to label vivid and detailed recollection of the circumstances where people hear
about:
o Important event 

o Surprising event 

o emotionally arousing event 


• less than compelling with inconsistencies between: 

o details reported after long retention intervals 

o reported initially 


Ordinary Memory
• relatively accurate and long- lasting when they relate to highly distinctive and
personally significant events
• Amount of Allocated Attention
• conscious attention to the incoming information was considered a necessary
condition

Eyewitness with overloaded or distracted attention
• Will later remember fewer details from the event 

• Less accurate

Eyewitness with full attention
• Would likely remember the event more completely and more accurately

Incidental versus Intentional Encoding

Incidental
• Most real-life memory situations 

• More ecologically valid approach for eyewitness research 


Intentional
• Done in a typical memory test or experiment
• Would produce a more accurate results

Depth of Processing (Elaboration)
• The more deeply or meaningfully the incoming information is processed, the
better it is retained, regardless of the intention to learn
• Yields greater distinctiveness of richly elaborated trace from other memory
traces
• Enhanced connectivity and integration of target information with other stored
information 

• May impair memory accuracy 


Constructive Processes
• the assimilation of newly acquired information into pre-existing knowledge or
schemas increases the likelihood that the information will be recalled later
• Prior knowledge, schemas and attitudes may often impair accuracy


 Factors Affecting Retention: Storage Factors

Passage of Time (Retention Interval)
Reminiscence - witnesses who cannot recall certain information when questioned
about it, but then spontaneously recall that information after the questioning is
over.
– primary cause of forgetting is loss of access to stored information rather than
loss of the information itself



Tip-of-the-Tongue phenomenon
– temporary inaccessibility of information
– person has strong feeling he knows the answer but temporarily unable to
retrieve it.



Hierarchical Storage
– Certain types of information appear to be more likely than others to remain
accessible over time 

– General meaning or “gist” of encoded materials remains more accessible than
the verbatim form 

– Concepts may be represented as memory as bundles of features or attributes
– bound together to different degrees 

– are accessible or inaccessible with relative independence from one
another 



Interpolated Testing/Retelling
– Memory testing as an effective inoculator against forgetting 

– A frequent human activity, can enhance memory quantity for the 
reviewed
details 

– It may also reduce memory quantity for those details that were not reviewed 

– Any biases or schema-based intrusions that taint such a review may become
even more pronounced in the subsequent recollection of the event 


Misleading Postevent Information

Misinformation effect - exposure to misleading information, presented after an
event, can distort the memory for that event
• Response biases or strategic effects that occur when no memory for the original
event details exists 

• Error in source monitoring that wrongly attributes the misled item to the
original event 


Memory Implantation
• People can be induced to confidently and vividly recall entire events that did
not occur in reality, and provide a detailed account of them.
• Causes of Implantation of false personal memories:
o acceptance of the plausibility of the suggested event 

o creation of contextual information for the event 

o commission of a source-monitoring error, in which the person wrongly
attributes the created image to a past personal experience 



Factors Affecting Retention: Retrieval Factors
Retrieval Cues
• aspects of the rememberer’s physical and cognitive environment that drive the
retrieval process 

• its effectiveness in enhancing memory quantity depends on the degree of match
between the features they provide and the encoded features 


Context Reinstatement
• tied to entire events rather than to particular items


State-dependent retrieval
• re-experiencing the same state of mind or mood at retrieval that the person
was in at encoding

Reconstructive Processes
• People’s beliefs, knowledge, perspectives, and expectations influence:
o information they retrieve from memory how they interpret that information


EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION
Mary Louis Senores

In Criminal Law, evidence is received from a witness “who has actually seen an
event and can so testify in court”

Eyewitness Identification Paradigm
This involves mock witnesses viewing a live or videotaped enactment of a crime,
going away and doing something else for some period of time (i.e., a filler activity),
and then viewing a lineup (either live or photo array).

IDENTIFICATION PERFORMANCE

OFFENDER VARIABLES

Changed Appearance and Disguises

There are two main scenarios to consider here.

After the event, the offender’s appearance either 
changes “naturally” with time
(e.g., changes in face or build with age, changes in complexion) or is deliberately
changed in a natural way (e.g., shaving a beard off, wearing a mustache, wearing
glasses). The consequence of this variable is that witnesses should either choose
less from a lineup or choose incorrectly (either choosing a known- innocent foil in
a target-present or absent- lineup or an innocent suspect in a target-absent lineup)
more often than in situations in which the appearance has not changed. 

At the time of the event, concealing or unrealistically distorting his or her
appearance (e.g., by wearing a beanie, balaclava, or stocking on their head). In this
case two issues emerge.
First, the witness is not able to encode the entire stimulus (face), thus
producing a mismatch between the encoding and test stimuli. 


Second, it is also quite possible that the witness will perceive the
subsequent identification task to be more difficult, thus reducing pre-decisional
confidence and potentially influencing choosing behavior. 


Distinctiveness
By dint of a particular feature, features, or configuration of features, a distinctive
face lies outside the domain of typical faces. Variations in distinctiveness of the
offender may exert important influences at the levels of encoding, retrieval, and
metacognition. Consider how encoding may differ for distinctive and typical faces.


Two things are likely to happen with a distinctive stimulus:
1. It will attract greater attention and produce stronger encoding 

2. The specific distinctive element is more likely than a typical element to be
clearly represented in memory. 


WITNESS VARIABLES

Age

Young Children - Perhaps the major issue to consider is the converging results from
children’s studies indicating a greater propensity to choose when confronted with
a target-absent lineup and, hence, the increased likelihood of a false identification.
Young children (preschool age) also showed a tendency to select multiple
individuals from a sequential lineup. Overall, children (both younger and older)
showed a greater tendency to choose than adults, irrespective of the type of lineup
format employed.

Older Witnesses - Older individuals (in the 60- to 80-year-old age range) also
exhibit similar patterns of choosing behavior to those shown by young children:

That is, they are more likely to choose from target-absent lineups, and there is
some suggestion that this pattern may also apply to target- present lineups.

Other Witness Factors

Cognitive/perceptual abilities
Individuals with cognitive and perceptual impairments are more likely to be
inaccurate. Any physiological deficits associated with perceiving events will
decrease witness’ ability to encode information. 


Stress 

Moderate level of stress tends to enhance eyewitness memory. Severe stress on
the other hand, decreases eyewitness accuracy. 


Alcohol/drugs 

Intoxication at the time of the event impairs memory ability 


Ability to describe faces


SITUATIONAL VARIABLES

Exposure Duration and Viewing Conditions

Longer exposure durations and better viewing conditions would obviously be
expected to produce a better or more readily accessible memory representation
and, hence, increase the likelihood of an accurate identification.

Cross-Race Effect
This term refers to the poorer identification performance demonstrated by people
of a particular race when attempting to identify someone from another race
compared with that shown when identifying someone of their own race.

VARIABLES OPERATING BETWEEN THE EVENT AND THE IDENTIFICATION TEST

Here we examine several issues: the effect of variations in retention interval; the
effect of experiences such as being interviewed, looking at mug shots or other
forms of interference prior to the identification test; and context reinstatement.

Retention Interval

This is the delay between the event and the identification test. 


Different studies used different retention interval manipulations, ranging from a
few hours to many months. 


An increased retention interval clearly provides increased opportunities for
interference with, as well as decay of, the memory trace of the offender. 


Both laboratory and real-world data sets (e.g., Shepherd, 1983; Valentine et al.,
2003) suggest that the most apparent performance decrement occurs after a delay
of a week or so, although the evidence certainly does not point to the existence of
a neat relationship between the two variables. 


Although some evidence indicates that facial identification performance is not
neatly predicted by retention interval (Shapiro & Penrod, 1986)— possibly
reflecting the range of retention intervals examined—relatively long retention
intervals have been implicated in poorer identification performance. 


EFFECTS OF INTERVENING EXPERIENCES

Verbal Overshadowing
• The term refers to the reduction in the proportion of correct identifications
observed when witnesses are asked to give a verbal description of the offender
before making an identification (compared with performance of those not
required to verbally describe the offender).

Memory Transference
• A person may seem familiar at an identification test because he or she is the
culprit or looks like the culprit. But other factors may underlie this familiarity.
“Unconscious transference” has been described as the transfer of one
individual’s identity to that of another person from a different setting, time, or
context. Unconscious transference is most likely to occur when the memory
traces for the assailant and the bystander are of equal strength, which would
thereby prevent discrimination between them on the basis of those contextual
cues that were encoded when the individuals were first encountered.

Repeated Retrieval
• An attempt at recall could be spontaneously initiated by the witness when
thinking about or discussing the case, it could be triggered by questioning from
others, by being invited to attempt identification, and so on.

Context Reinstatement
• This procedure attempts to improve memory performance by encouraging a
witness to locate the event and the stimulus in the context in which it occurred.
Witnesses may be asked to recreate their cognitive and emotional states and a
mental image of the environmental characteristics associated with the target
stimulus; this reinstatement may include viewing photos of, or visiting, the scene
of the event. The logic is that an enriched context will increase the likelihood of
an accurate retrieval (Tulving & Thomson, 1973).

IDENTIFICATION TEST
• This section focuses on several important issues that relate to the conduct of the
identification test: social factors, lineup instructions, lineup composition, and
lineup presentation mode.
• Although these issues are often treated as if they were independent, there are
likely to be relationships between social factors and the other aspects of the
identification test that we review.

Social Factors
• External stimuli that might greatly affect the witness’ confession and selection in
the line-up presented by the authorities.

Lineup Instructions
• The precise instructions received by the witness prior to, or at, the lineup exert
a significant influence on identification performance and, specifically, on
choosing behavior. The key element of the lineup instructions is whether the
witness is clearly advised that the offender may, or may not, be present in the
lineup. Instructions containing such a clear warning are referred to as unbiased
instructions; those lacking such a warning (e.g., “See if you can pick out the
offender from this lineup”) are referred to as biased instructions. Unbiased
instructions may vary in the extent to which they emphasize the consequences
of the witness’s decision, although here we focus solely on the basic (warning vs.
no warning) distinction.

Lineup Composition
The key issues with respect to lineup composition are the number of stimuli that
should appear in the lineup and the criteria for choosing those stimuli. In different
jurisdictions lineup size varies.

Lineup Presentation Mode
• What is hoped for when conducting a lineup is that the witness will find (or not
find) a lineup member who matches his or her mental representation of the
offender. In other words, the witness is, ideally, making an absolute judgment
about the status of each lineup member.

1. Sequential lineup
Witness must exercise “absolute judgment” comparing each photograph or
person only to their memory of what the offender looked like.


The key features of sequential lineup procedure include:
The lineup members are presented one at a time
The witness must make a final decision about each lineup member
before presented with the next (i.e., any choice, whether correct or
incorrect, will terminate the lineup) and is not allowed to revise that
decision 

The witness is unaware of the number of lineup members to be shown.



2. Simultaneous lineup
Witnesses must use “relative judgment” to compare lineup photographs or
members to each other.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE IDENTIFICATION DECISION

Identification Latency
• It is considered to be one potentially informative indicator of accuracy. The
rationale is that witnesses who have a strong memorial representation of the
offender are able to determine if the stimuli presented during testing match
their internal representation more rapidly than those with a weak
representation.

Confidence
• The variable that has attracted the most attention as a marker of identification
accuracy is the confidence that the witness holds in that decision. Intuitively it
makes sense that there should be a meaningful relationship between the
accuracy and confidence of people’s judgments. Indeed, such relationships have
been found in many different domains of judgment research (e.g., general
knowledge, recall, recognition memory, and psychophysical discrimination). It is
also the case that eyewitness identification confidence is seen as an important
indicator of the likely accuracy of witness identifications by the various different
sectors of the criminal justice system.

POST IDENTIFICATION TEST VARIABLES
• Here we focus on possible influences on people’s memories of their witnessing
experience, their identification, and their expressed confidence in that
identification.

What are some of the potentially influential events that may occur?
• A witness may receive some kind of feedback from the police, lawyers, co-
witnesses, or even media sources. Such feedback may be explicit: For example,
a co-witness may say that he or she made the same identification choice; the
police may indicate that the witness picked the suspect or that he or she had
failed to do so. Feedback information may also be much more subtle, for
example, in the form of nonverbal cues or verbal intonation. And feedback could
be in the form of cues that witnesses may interpret as confirming, such as being
told that they will be called as a witness in court, that their testimony is
important, and so on.

BROAD CONCLUSIONS
Two broad conclusions emerge from the preceding discussions.
• It is clear that the available empirical research falls a long way short of providing
definitive answers to many questions. In some cases (e.g., the impact of
exposure duration on identification accuracy), this shortfall probably comes as
quite a surprise. Despite the volume of published research on eyewitness
identification, the evidence in many areas is scarce, inconclusive (often for some
of the methodological reasons outlined earlier), and has not yet encompassed
the examination of many potentially important interactions. 


• Much of the research has been conducted outside of some theoretical framework
that would facilitate the systematic investigation of issues required to produce
conclusions that would provide broad explanatory power—and, in turn, practical
recommendations upon which we could rely. Not only does the lack of a clear
theoretical framework restrict the likelihood of broad conclusions, but it also
poses a major limitation on our capacity to integrate a diverse array of individual
empirical findings. 


Psychology and Law

Shashley Bernardez

MONITORING
Courtroom witnesses must differentiate between correct and incorrect
information. 


Their ability to monitor their knowledge and to regulate their memory reporting
accordingly will be critical in determining their memory performance. 


Reporting inaccurate information reflects not only a failure of memory processes
but also a failure of the monitoring process to “realize” that the information that
comes to mind is faulty. 


It is important to attempt to identify the contributions of memory monitoring to
memory performance, as well as the factors that affect the accuracy of that
monitoring. 




Contributions to Memory Quantity and Accuracy

Source-monitoring errors

failures to attribute the retrieved 
information to its proper source
can result in confusion in differentiating details of events that were
experienced in one situation from those that pertain 
to another

can be more harmful than 
retrieval failures


Reality monitoring – the ability to distinguish imaginings
Example: A television host was wrongly identified by a rape victim as the
rapist because the victim was watching the interview just before she was
raped, and she confused the memory of his image with that of the rapist.

Source-monitoring framework

Rapid heuristic process that takes advantage of the fact that mental
experiences from different sources typically differ on various dimensions.

Factors that promote source- monitoring errors leading to memory distortions

High degree of perceptual or semantic similarity between sources
Use of less thorough evaluative processes

Memory Implantation

Likely to occur id a person is encouraged to engage in mental imagery of the
suggested event perhaps creating vivid visual images that are later difficult
to distinguish from real memories and are consequently misattributed to
reality.

Attributional approach to memory

Derived from the unconscious attribution of fluent processing 
to the past 


Fluent Processing of a stimulus

Enhanced by its previous presentation, and when such 
fluency is attributed
to past 


Selective Construction and Preservation of Experience (SCAPE) Framework 

Remembering is based not only on the actual properties of the stimuli but
also on the relationship between
stimuli and the rememberer’s
expectations

Inferential Mechanisms

Takes the absence of memory for expected distinctive information as
evidence that a target item was not previously experienced

Recollection Rejection

Mechanism that, either deliberately or not, suppresses the reporting of false
but gist consistent information when verbatim traces of the target are
available

Memory Editing-Rejection Mechanisms
Risk that true events may also be screened out of eyewitness reports,
resulting in the omission of information that may be vital

Factors Affecting Monitoring and its Accuracy

It is assumed that the output of this monitoring process is a subjective assessment
of the likelihood that a particular answer is correct—an assessment process that
can be tapped by confidence ratings. 


Koriat and Levy-Sadot (1999) 


proposed a dual-process framework for the analysis of metacognitive
monitoring that distinguishes between metacognitive feelings that are based
on nonanalytic inferences and metacognitive judgments that are based on
analytic inferences.
Analytic–inferential bases entail the conscious, deliberate utilization of
specific beliefs and information to form an educated guess about various
aspects of one’s own knowledge.
Nonanalytic bases entail the implicit application of global, general-purpose
heuristics to reach a metacognitive judgment.

Memory Content

Base their confidence on pertinent information retrieved from memory 

Koriat, Lichtenstein, and Fischhoff (1980) 

presented participants with two alternative questions, requiring them
to provide reasons for and against each of the alternatives before
choosing an answer, and finally to rate their confidence in the chosen
answer

Gigerenzer, Hoffrage, and Kleinbölting (1991)
In this framework, confidence judgments represent the outcome of a
well-structured inductive inference.
When people consider a question they are completely (100%)
confident in their answer only if they can retrieve the number of
inhabitants in each city. Otherwise, they must form a probabilistic
mental model (PMM) that puts the specific question into a larger
context and enables its solution by inductive inference

Perceptual Fluency

Busey, Tunnicliff, Loftus, and Loftus (2000)
Presented participants with a series of faces in five different luminance
conditions and tested them in either a bright or a dim condition. A face that
was studied under low luminance was recognized more poorly, but more
confidently, under bright than under dim testing. Fluent perceptual
processing of the faces in the bright testing condition may have inflated
participants’ confidence judgments.

Retrieval Fluency

Refers to the ease with which an item, idea, or contextual information comes to
mind during an attempt to retrieve it.

Nelson and Narens (1990) found that people expressed stronger confidence in the
answers that they retrieved more quickly, whether those answers were correct or
incorrect.

Kelley and Lindsay (1993) demonstrated a similar effect of retrieval fluency on
confidence and, ultimately, on memory accuracy. Participants were asked to
answer general-information questions and to express their confidence in the
correctness of their answers. 


Retrieval fluency may also underlie the imagination-inflation phenomenon: that is,
the finding that the mere act of imagining a past event increases a person’s
confidence that the event actually happened in the past. 


Garry et al. (1996) pretested their participants on how confident they were that a
number of childhood events had happened, asked them to imagine some of those
events, and then gathered new confidence judgments. Imagination instructions
inflated confidence that the event had occurred in childhood. 


Hastie, Landsman, and Loftus (1978) also found that repeated questioning about
an imagined detail of a story increased confidence in that detail. 


Turtle and Yuille (1994, Experiment 1) observed an increase in subjective

confidence from one to two recall occasions. 


Both the witnesses themselves and investigators, judges, and jurors are justified in
placing more faith in details the witness is sure about than in details about which
he or she is unsure. This level of monitoring effectiveness, however, should be
distinguished from 
the generally weak confidence– accuracy relation observed
using between-subjects designs in eyewitness research.



CONTROL
• The effect of monitoring on the amount and accuracy of reported information is
realized via control:

• Whereas the monitoring mechanism provides an assessment of the source and
ultimately the correctness of the information that comes to mind, it is the control
mechanism that determines what to do with that assessment.

• n dealing with the “problem,” the approach has been either to take control away
from the rememberer, for instance, by using forced-report testing techniques.
• There has been more intrinsic interest in the control of memory reporting in
naturalistic memory research, perhaps because not only is such control
ubiquitous in real-life remembering, but also because it clearly has a substantial
impact on memory accuracy.

• Recall questioning offers rememberers at least two means by which they can
enhance the accuracy of what they report.
First, report option, involves choosing either to volunteer or to withhold
particular items of information (i.e., to respond “don’t know” or “don’t
remember”).
Second, the control over grain size, involves choosing the level of detail
(precision) or generality (coarseness) at which to report remembered
information.

Contributions to Memory Quantity and Memory Accuracy

Control of Report Option

• The distinction between memory quantity and memory accuracy is particularly
crucial with regard to the performance effects of personal control of memory
reporting. This is because these effects are typically characterized by a quantity-
accuracy trade-off (Klatzky & Erdelyi, 1985; Koriat & Goldsmith, 1996c): The
accuracy of what one reports can be enhanced by the selective screening of
one’s answers, but this generally comes at the expense of a reduction in the
quantity of correct information that is provided.

• Simulation analyses indicated that, under typical (moderate) levels of monitoring
effectiveness, the rate of the trade-off tended to increase as the report criterion
was raised, so that simply providing the option of free report should allow
relatively large gains in accuracy to be achieved at relatively small quantity costs,
compared to forced report, but additional gains in accuracy in response to higher
accuracy incentives should involve disproportionately larger quantity costs. 


• Affecting the rate of the trade-off is monitoring effectiveness: As monitoring
effectiveness improves, the option of selective reporting allows larger increases
in accuracy to be achieved at smaller costs in quantity. 


Control over Grain Size


• The potential contributions of monitoring and control processes to memory
quantity and accuracy are complicated even further when a second means of
control is considered: control over the level of precision or “grain” of the
information that is reported. 


• When participants are allowed the freedom to choose a grain size for their
answers and to withhold the answer entirely if necessary (as is the case, for
instance, in openended free-narrative memory reporting), they will utilize this
freedom to maintain a stable level 
of accuracy over time. Work in progress is
examining this issue and other aspects of the joint control of grain size and report
option in memory reporting.



Factors Affecting Control
• When control of report option or grain size is given to the rememberer, whether
and how he or she will exercise that control is undoubtedly influenced by a
constellation of factors, several of which are reviewed here.


Accuracy Motivation, Communication Factors, and Personal-Social Goals
• Koriat and Goldsmith’s (1994, 1996c) work, described earlier, highlights the
importance of accuracy motivation: When people are more highly motivated to
be accurate, they tend to employ a more conservative control policy (i.e., a
higher report criterion).

• Fisher (1999) explains that the use of uninhibited retrieval instructions in the
Cognitive Interview is designed to elicit details edited out by witnesses in their
spontaneous reporting, but which may be forensically important. 


• In most cases the incentives for accuracy or quantity/informativeness are not
explicit; rather, they are implicit in the personal–social 
context of remembering
(Pasupathi, 2001).

Test Format
• Test format refers to whether the rememberer produces his or her own answers
(production or recall format) or must choose a response from a limited set
provided by the questioner (selection or recognition format). This variable is also
implicated in the belief that directed questioning or recognition testing can have
contaminating effects on memory. 


• Answering this question is made difficult by the general confounding of test
format and report option that occurs in memory testing: In free-narrative and
recall testing, people both produce their own answers (production format) and
report only what they feel they actually remember (free report), whereas in
directed questioning and recognition testing, people are not only confined to
choosing between the alternatives presented by the interrogator (selection
format), but are generally exposed to either implicit or explicit demands to
answer each and every question (forced report).

• Koriat and Goldsmith (1994, 1996c) concluded that free selection may be a
generally superior testing procedure to free production, because it elicits better
quantity performance with no reduction in accuracy.



State of Mind
• The witness’s “state of mind” at the time of reporting may also affect the control
of memory reporting.

• An interesting case is hypnosis, which is often used as a mnemonic enhancement
technique (Pettinatti, 1988).

• Although memory testing under hypnosis has generally been shown to yield
more correct recalls than without hypnosis, it yields more incorrect recalls as
well (Dywan & Bowers, 1983), consistent with the idea that the effects of
hypnosis are mediated by a lowering of the report criterion (Klatzky & Erdelyi,
1985).

Control Sensitivity
• Koriat and Goldsmith (1996c) found an exceedingly high correlation between the
decision to volunteer an answer and confidence in that answer with
undergraduate participants. 


• Relatively high correlations between control sensitivity and measures of
executive functioning and measures of clinical awareness (Koren et al., 2004)
were found, suggesting a link between 
control sensitivity and overall level of
metacognitive and executive functioning.

• Situational factors at retrieval, such as divided attention, time pressure, and
drugs or intoxication might affect control sensitivity as well, though this
possibility remains a topic for future research.




CONCLUSION: SOME METATHEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR EYEWITNESS
(MEMORY) RESEARCH
• Emphasized the basic distinction between two properties of memory—quantity
and accuracy— and examined the factors affecting memory in terms of both
properties. 


• Highlighted the contribution of metacognitive monitoring and control processes
to memory performance and gave these contributions great weight in our
presentation. 


• In assessing eyewitness recollections, the quantity of the target information that
is recalled has received considerable attention in both traditional and eyewitness
memory research. However, in real- life situations, and particularly in 
the
courtroom, output-bound accuracy is no less important. In fact, errors made by
eyewitnesses have been found to be the most common cause of the false
conviction of innocent people (Huff, Rattner, & Sagarin, 1996).

• One goal of the present chapter, then, is to bring findings from the two
approaches together and attempt to integrate them into a common “coordinate
system” (cf. Koriat & Goldsmith, 1994, Figure 1). Such integration would seem to
be a necessary first step toward the development of a theoretical framework
that could provide a comprehensive understanding of the different aspects of
memory— including eyewitness memory— and engender a unified research
approach. The benefits of such a framework would be immense. It would allow
researchers, for instance, to apply the broad base of knowledge regarding the
factors affecting memory quantity performance toward an understanding of
memory accuracy performance, and vice versa.

• The second unique feature of this chapter is the attention devoted to the
metacognitive processes of monitoring and control at the reporting stage, as
they mediate both memory quantity and accuracy.

• The joint consideration of cognitive and metacognitive components of memory
performance has important theoretical and practical implications. On a
theoretical level, this perspective implies that factors thought to affect retention
might, in fact, exert their influence via an effect on monitoring or control (e.g.,
see Higham, 2002; Memon & Higham, 1999).

• Differential effects on memory quantity and accuracy performance are to be
expected when different underlying components are affected in different ways.

• Providing a complete or accurate account of an event may not be the only or even
primary aim of an eyewitness. 


• Therefore, the evaluation of memory performance in terms of memory quantity
and memory accuracy may not always be appropriate—at least not from the
witness’s perspective. 


Restriction in Passage of Budget or Revenue Bills

Shim-B Malazarte

Revenue or Appropriation bills are subject to restriction or qualification as provided

in Section 25 of Article VI, 1987 Constitution

1. Budget preparation by the President and submission to congress- “The

Congress may not increase the appropriations recommended by the President for
the operation of the Government as specified in the budget. The form, content and
manner of preparation of the budget shall be prescribed by law.”

• Congress spending power known as the “power of the purse”

• Power of appropriation carries with it the power to specify the project or
activity to be funded under the appropriation law.

2. Each provision must relate specifically to particular appropriation- “ No

provision or enactment shall be embraced in the general appropriation bill unless it
relates specifically to some particular appropriation therein. Any such provision or
enactment shall be limited in its operation to the appropriation to which it relate.”

• Restriction precludes Congress from including in appropriation bill-

“Inappropriate provision”

3. Procedure in approving appropriation - the procedure in approving

appropriation for the Congress shall strictly follow the provision for approving
appropriates for the other departments and agencies.

4. Special appropriation bill to specify the purpose. - “A special appropriations bill

shall specify the purpose for which it is intended, and shall be supported by funds
actually available as certified by the National Treasurer , or to be raised by
corresponding revenue proposed therein”

5. Restriction on transfer of appropriation; exception- “No law shall be passed

authorizing any transfer of appropriations, however, the President, the President
of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court, and heads of Constitutional Commission may, by law, be
authorized to augment any item in the general appropriations law for their
respective offices from savings in other items of their respective appropriations.”

• Member of the Congress may suggest; as the case who should give his
approval when two requirements are met;

1. the fund to be realized or transferred are actually savings in the items
of expenditures from which the same are to be taken;
2. the transfer or realignment is for the purpose of augmenting the items
of expenditures to which transfer or realignment is to be made.

6. Discretionary fund requirements - Discretionary funds appropriated for

particular officials shall be disbursed only for public purposes to be supported by
appropriate vouchers and subject to such guidelines as may be prescribed by law.

7. Automatic re-enactment of budget - “if, by the end of any fiscal year, the
Congress shall have failed to pass the general appropriations bill for the ensuing
fiscal year, the general appropriations law for the preceding fiscal year shall be
deemed reenacted and shall remain in force and effect until the general
appropriations bill is passed by the Congress.”

8. President’s veto power - “the President shall have the power to veto any
particular item or items in an appropriation, revenue or tariff bill, but the veto shall
not affect the item or items t o which he does not object.”

9. No public funds to be spent except by law - No money shall be paid out of

the treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation made by law.

10. No public money or property for religious purposes. - No public money or

property shall be appropriated, applied, paid, or employed, directly or indirectly,
for the use, benefit or support of religion, or of any sect, church, denomination,
sectarian institution, or system of religion, or any priest, preacher, minister, other
religious teacher, or teacher, or dignity is assigned, to the armed forces, or to any
penal institution, or government orphanage or leprosarium.

11. Money for special purpose. - All money collected on any tax levied for a
special purpose shall be treated as a special fund and paid for such purpose only. If
the purpose for which a special fund was created has been fulfilled or abandoned,
the balance, if any shall be transferred to the general funds of the government.

12. Highest budgetary priority to education, directory.

Section 5 (5) of Article XIV of the Constitution provides:

“the State shall assign the highest budgetary priority to education and ensure
that teaching will attract and retain its rightful share of the best available
talents through adequate remuneration and other means of job satisfaction
and fulfillment.”

Summary of Rules
Ronnel Cortez Andal


Rules and Records of legislative proceedings

The Constitution requires that legislative proceedings be duly recorded in

accordance with the rules of each of the Houses Article VI Sec. 16 (4) provides:


(3) Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, x x x.

(4) Each House shall keep a Journal of its proceedings, and from time to time
publish the same, excepting such parts as may, in its judgment, affect
national security; and the yeas and nays on any question shall, at the request
of one-fifth of the Members present, be entered in the Journal. Each House
shall also keep a Record of its proceedings.

Power to issue its rule of proceedings

Each House has the power to issue its own rules of proceedings. The rules may not,
however, ignore constitutional restraints or violate fundamental rights, and further
that there should be a reasonable relation between the mode or method of
proceedings established by the rules and the result which is sought to be attained.

Unimpeachability of legislative journals

The Journal is regarded as conclusive with respect to matters that are required by
the Constitution to be recorded therein. With respect to other matters, in the
absence of evidence to the contrary, the Journals have also been accorded
conclusive effect.

In case of conflict between the enrolled bill and the legislative journals, it is the
former that should prevail, except as to matters that the Constitution requires to
be entered in the journals.



Enrolled Bill

The bill as passed by Congress, authenticated by the Speaker and Senate President
and approved by the President.

The enrolled bill doctrine

The signing of a bill by the Speaker of the House and the Senate President and the
certification of the Secretaries of both Houses of Congress that it was passed are
conclusive of its due enactment.

The reason why an enrolled bill is accorded conclusive verity lies in the fact that the
enrolled bill carries on its face a solemn assurance by the legislative and executive
departments of the government, charged respectively with the duty of enacting
and executing the laws, that it was passed by the assembly.

Withdrawal of authenticity

The Speaker and the President of the Senate may withdraw their respective
signatures from the signed bill where there is serious and substantial discrepancy
between the text of the bill as deliberated in the legislature and shown by the
journal and that of the enrolled bill.

STATUTES
Mendenilla, Mark Norman

A. IN GENERAL

Ø A whole body or system of law.

Ø Rule of conduct formulated and made obligatory by the legitimate power of
the state
Ø Includes Republic Acts, Presidential Decrees, Executive Orders ( The
President, in the exercise of his legislative power ), Presidential Issuances
( Ordinance Power ), Jurisprudence, Ordinances passed by the Sanggunian
of the Local Government Units.

Statues, generally

Ø A legislative enactment (Philippine Commission, Philippine Legislature,

Batasang Pambansa, Congress )
Ø Presidential Decrees issued by Former Pres. Marcos during Martial Law
Period ( 1973 Constitution )
Ø Executive Orders issued by Former Pres. Corazon Aquino during the
Revolutionary Period Freedom Constitution)

PUBLIC LAW - affects the public at large

• General - applies to the whole state and operates throughout the

state alike upon all people or all of a class.
• Special – relates to particular person or things of a class or to a
particular community
• Local – operation is confined to specific place or locality ( e.g,
municipal ordinance )

PRIVATE LAW – applies only to specific person or subject.

Permanent and Temporary Statutes

Ø Permanent – one whose operation is not limited in the duration but

continues until repealed.
Ø Temporary – duration is for a limited period of time fixed in the statute itself
or whose life ceases upon the happening of an event ( e.g. statute answering
for an emergency ).

Other classes of Statutes

Ø Prospective or Retroactive – according to its application

Ø Declaratory, Curative, Mandatory, Directory, Substantive, Remedial and
Penal – according to operation
Ø Affirmative and Negative – according to form

Manner of referring to Statues

Ø Public Acts – by Philippine Commission and Philippine Legislature ( 0901 to

1935 )
Ø Commonwealth Acts – issued between 1936 to 1946
Ø Republic Acts – by Congress between 1946 to 1972 and 1987 to present
Ø Batas Pambansa – Batasang Pambansa
• Note: Laws are identified by Serial Number and / or Title

B. ENACTMENT OF STATUTES

Legislative Power, generally

Ø The power to make new laws, alter/ amend and repeal existing laws.
Ø A power vested in the Congress ( 1987 Philippine Constitution )
Ø President ( 1973 Constitution and Freedom Constitution )
Ø Sangguniang Panlalawigan, Panglungsod, Bayan, Pangbarangay ( only within
their respective jurisdiction )
Ø Administrative or Executive Officer ( issues rules and regulations to
implement a SPECIFIC LAW )

Congress Legislative Power

Ø The determination of the legislative policy and its formulation and

promulgation as a defined and binding rule of conduct
Ø Legislative power is a plenary except only to such limitations are expressed
in the Constitution

Procedural Requirement, generallyn

Ø Passage of Bills and Republic Acts ( provided in the Constitution )

Ø Enactment of laws ( Rules of both houses as provided in the Constitution )

Passage of Bills

ü Proposed legislative measures introduced by a member of the Congress for

enactment into a law
• shall embrace only one subject which shall be expressed in the title
• may originate from either of the houses ( upper house and lower house )
• Exclusive to lower house ( Appropriation, Revenue/ Tariff, Bills Authorizing
Increase of Public Debts, Bills of Local Application and Private Bills )
ü Signed by Authors
ü File with the Secretary of the House
ü Secretary reports the bill for the First Reading: reading the number and title;
referral to the appropriate Committee for study and recommendation.
• Committee holds Public Hearings and submits report and
recommendation for calendar for Second Reading.

ü Second Reading: bill is read in full ( with amendments proposed by the
Committee ) – unless copies are distributed.
• Bill shall be subject to debates, motions and amendments. And shall be
voted on by the members present
• If approved, shall be included in the calendar for the Third Reading.

ü Third Reading: final voting by Yeas and Nays.


ü Bill approved on the Third Reading shall be transmitted to the “Other House”
for concurrence ( same process as the first passage )
• If the other house approves without amendments, bill shall be passed to
the President
• If the other house introduces amendments or disagreements arises,
differences shall be settled by the Conference Committees of both houses.
Reports and recommendations of 2 Conference Committees shall have to
be approved by both houses and shall be passed to the President.


ü The President either:
• Approves and signs – bill becomes a law.
• Vetoes ( within 30 days after receipt )
§ If the President vetoes – sends back to the House where the bill
originated with recommendation.
§ 2/3 of all the members approves, it shall be sent to the other house
for approval
§ 2/3 of the members from the other house approves, the bill
becomes a law.

• Inaction
§ If the President did not act on the bill within 30 days upon receipt
thereof, the bill becomes a law.

PARTS OF STATUTES
Jane Eunice Gadin

I. Preamble
A preamble is a prefatory statement or explanation or a finding of facts,
reciting the purpose, reason, or occasion for making the law to which it is
prefixed. It is usually found after the enacting clause and before the body of law.

II. Title of statute

The Constitution provides that every bill passed by the Congress shall
embrace only one subject which shall be expressed in the title thereof.

a. Purposes of title requirement

• To prevent hodgepodge or log-rolling legislation
• To prevent surprise or fraud upon the legislature, by means of
provisions in bills of which the title gave no information
• To fairly apprise the people of the subjects of the legislation that
are being heard thereon
• To be as guide in ascertaining legislative intent when the language
of the act does not clearly express its purpose


b. Subject of repeal of statute
• Where a statute repeals a former law, such repeal is the
effect and not the subject of the statute; and it is the subject, not the
effect of the law, which is required to be briefly expressed in its title.

c. How requirement of title is construed

Where there is doubt as to whether the title sufficiently expresses the
subject matter of the statute, the question should be resolved against
the doubt as in favor of the constitutionality of the statute.

d. When requirement not applicable
The requirement that a bill shall embrace only one subject which shall
be expressed in its title does not apply to laws in force and existing at
the same time the 1935 Constitution took effect.

e. Effect of insufficiency of the title
A statute whose title does not conform to the constitutional
requirement or is not related in any manner to its subject is null and
void.

III. Enacting clause

The enacting clause is that part of a statute written immediately after the
title thereof which states the authority by which the act is enacted.

For example:

• Philippine Commission: “By authority of the President of the United

States, be it enacted by the United States Philippine Commission.”

• Philippine Legislature: “By authority of the United States, be it
enacted by the Philippine Legislature.”



IV. Purview or body of statute
The purview or body of a statute is that part which tells that what the law
is all about. The body of a statute should embrace only one subject.

The legislative practice in writing a statute is to divide an act into sections,
each of which is numbered and contains a single proposition.

V. Separability clause
A separability clause is that part of a stature which states that if any
provision of the act is declared invalid, the remainder shall not be affected
thereby. The presumption is that the legislature intended a statute to be
effective as a whole and would not have passed it had it foreseen that
some part of it is invalid.

VI. Repealing clause
When the legislature repeals a law, the repeal is not a legislative
declaration finding the earlier law unconstitutional. The power to declare
a law unconstitutional does not lie with the legislature, but with the
courts.

VII. Effectivity clause

The effectivity clause is the provision when the law takes effect. Usually,
the provision as to the effectivity of the law states that it shall take effect
15 days from publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of
general circulation.

PRESIDENTIAL ISSUANCES
LISSA MARIE LOO

§ President issues in the exercise of his ordinance power.

§ Basis: Chapter 2, Book III of E.O. No. 292 (Admin Code of 1987).

§ President may issue any of the following:

EXECUTIVE ORDERS

Acts of the President providing for rules of a general or permanent character in
implementation or execution of constitutional or statutory powers shall be
promulgated in executive orders.


ADMINISTRATIVE ORDERS
Acts of the President which relate to particular aspects of governmental operations
in pursuance of his duties as administrative head shall be promulgated in
administrative orders.

PROCLAMATIONS

Acts of the President fixing a date or declaring a status or condition of public

moment or interest, upon the existence of which the operation of a specific law or
regulation is made to depend, shall be promulgated in proclamations which shall
have the force of an executive order.
MEMORANDUM CIRCULARS
MEMORANDUM CIRCULARS

Acts of the President on matters relating to internal administration, which the

President desires to bring to the attention of all or some of the departments,
agencies, bureaus or offices of the Government, for information or compliance,
shall be embodied in memorandum circulars.

MEMORANDUM ORDERS

Acts of the President on matters of administrative detail or of subordinate or

temporary interest which only concern a particular officer or office of the
Government shall be embodied in memorandum orders.

GENERAL OR SPECIAL ORDERS

Acts and commands of the President in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the
Armed Forces of the Philippines shall be issued as general or special orders

SUPREME COURT RULE-MAKING POWER

KEVIN QUIOGUE


ART. 8, Section 5. The Supreme Court shall have the following powers:

5. Promulgate rules concerning the protection and enforcement of
constitutional rights, pleading, practice, and procedure in all courts, the
admission to the practice of law, the integrated bar, and legal assistance
to the under-privileged. Such rules shall provide a simplified and
inexpensive procedure for the speedy disposition of cases, shall be uniform
for all courts of the same grade, and shall not diminish, increase, or modify
substantive rights. Rules of procedure of special courts and quasi-judicial
bodies shall remain effective unless disapproved by the Supreme Court.



ART. 6, Section 30.

“No law shall be passed increasing the appellate jurisdiction of the

Supreme Court as provided in this Constitution without its advice and
concurrence.”

§ It has been held that a statute which provides that a decision of a quasi-judicial
body be appealable directly to the SC, if enacted without the advice and
concurrence of the SC, cannot be effective.

Rule 43 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure on Appeals from Quasi Agencies
to the Court of Appeals shall apply.

1997 Rules of Civil Procedure

§ Promulgated by SC, in the exercise of its rule-making power.
§ Introduced new provisions,
§ modified and/or re-arranged old provisions of the Rules of Court Rules 1 to 71,
§ which now form part of the Rules of Court.


Rule-making power of the SC

§ power to repeal procedural laws, such as those which prescribe the method of
enforcing rights or obtaining redress for their invasion.


Substantive and Procedural
§ Legislature

o Substantive
• If it takes away vested rights.
• If the rule creates rights such as the right to appeal

o Procedural
• If the rule operates as a means of implementing an existing right.
• Where to prosecute an appeal or transferring the venue or appeal is
procedural.
§ i.e. decreeing that appeals from the decision of the Ombudsman
in an administrative actions be made to the CA.
§ Requiring that appeals from decisions of the NLRC be filed wit
the CA.
§ Supreme Court
o Does not have the power to promulgate rules which are substantive in
nature


TEST: Whether the rule really regulates procedure, that is, the judicial process for
enforcing rights and duties recognized by substantive law and for justly
administering remedy and redress for a disregard of them.

LEGISLATIVE POWER OF LGU

DANIEL RAGOS

Power of local legislative bodies to enact ordinances, such as:

§ Baranggay ordinance
§ Municipal ordinance
§ City ordinance
§ Provincial ordinance


For an ordinance to be valid, it must not only be within the corporate powers of
the city or municipality to enact but must also be passed according to the
procedure prescribed by law. It must be in accordance with certain well-established
basic principles of a substantive nature. These principles require that an ordinance:

1. must not contravene the Constitution or any statute
2. must not be unfair or oppressive
3. must not be partial or discriminatory
4. must not prohibit but may regulate trade
5. must be general and consistent with public policy, and
6. must not be unreasonable.


Baranggay Ordinance:

Sangguniang barangay – smallest legislative body; may pass an ordinance by
majority of all its members; subject to review by Sangguniang bayan/panglungsod

Sangguniang bayan/panglungsod – take action on the ordinance within 30 days
from submission; if there’s inaction, it is presumed to be consistent with the
municipal or city ordinance; if inconsistency is found, it will remand to the
Sangguniang barangay.

Municipal Ordinance:

Power to enact municipal ordinance is lodged with the Sangguniang Bayan.

Necessary for the passage of any ordinance:

§ Affirmative vote of a majority of the members of the Sangguniang Bayan present
and voting, there being a quorum.

§ Ordinance is submitted to the Municipal Mayor who, within 10 days from
receipt thereof, shall return it either with his approval or veto.

§ If he does not return it within that time, it shall be deemed approved.

§ The Sangguniang Bayan may, by two-thirds vote of all members, override the
veto of the mayor, in which case it shall become effective.

§ Approved ordinance is submitted to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan for review.

§ The Sangguniang Panlalawigan may, within 30 days from receipt of the
ordinance, invalidate it in whole or in part, and its action shall be final.

§ If the Sangguniang Panlalawigan does not take action within 30 days after its
submission, it shall be presumed consistent with laws and therefore valid.

City Ordinance:

Power to pass city ordinance is vested in the Sangguniang Panlungsod.

Necessary for the passage of any ordinance:

§ Affirmative vote of the majority of the members of the Sangguniang Panlungsod
present and there being a quorum.

§ Approved ordinance shall be submitted to the City Mayor who, within 10 days
from receipt thereof, shall return it with his approval or veto.

§ If he does not return it within that time, it shall be deemed approved.

§ The Sangguniang Panlungsod may repass a vetoed ordinance by two-thirds vote
of all the members thereof.

§ If the city is a ‘component city’ – the approved ordinance is submitted to the
Sangguniang Panlalawigan for review which shall take action therein within 30
days, otherwise, it will be deemed valid.




Provincial Ordinance:

§ The Sangguniang Panlalawigan, as a legislative body of a province, may by a vote
of a majority of the members present, there being a quorum, enact ordinances
affecting the province.

§ The ordinance is then forwarded to the Governor who, within 15 days from the
receipt thereof, shall return it with his approval or veto.

§ If he does not return it within that time, it shall be deemed approved.

§ A vetoes ordinance may be repassed by the Sangguniang Panlalawigan by a two-
thirds vote of all of its members.

EFFECT AND OPERATION OF STATUTES

MARK LENARD BAUTISTA


When Laws Take Effect:

§ Laws shall take effect after fifteen (15) days following the completion of their
publication either in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation
in the Philippines, unless it is otherwise provided. (Executive Order No. 200);

§ Before a person may be bound by law, he must first be officially and specifically
informed of its contents. Thus, Publication (in full) shall be an indispensable
requirement for the effectivity of laws. (Tañada v. Tuvera);

§ The clause “unless it is otherwise provided” solely refers to the 15-day period,
and not on the requirement of publication.




When Presidential Issuances Take Effect:

§ Rules and regulations issued to enforce or implement a law, or to fill in the details
of a statute, whether they are penal or non-penal, take effect after fifteen days
following their publication, unless the statute provides a different date;

§ The requirement of publication applies to Presidential issuances unless such are
merely interpretative or internal in nature;

§ Every agency shall file with the University of the Philippines Law Center three
(3) certified copies of every rule adopted by it. (1987 Administrative Code);

When Local Ordinances Take Effect:

§ Local ordinances shall take effect ten (10) days from the date a copy is posted in
a bulletin board at the entrance of the provincial capitol or city, municipality or
barangay hall, AND in at least two (2) other conspicuous places in the local
government unit concerned;

§ The text of the ordinance or resolution shall be disseminated and posted in
Filipino or English and in the language or dialect understood by the majority of
the people in the local government unit concerned;


§ Gist of ordinance with penal sanctions shall be published in a newspaper of
general circulation within the respective province concerned;




Force and Territoriality of Statutes:

§ Statutes which are permanent and indefinite will be in force until changed or
repealed by the legislature;

§ Temporary statutes terminate upon the expiration of the term therein stated or
upon the concurrence of certain events. No repealing statute is necessary to
end its legal effect;

§ Within the territorial limit of the Philippines, its decrees are supreme, and its
commands are paramount.

EFFECT AND OPERATION OF STATUTES

HANNA AYON



STATUTES CONTINUE IN FORCE UNTIL REPEALED



Classification according to duration and effect:

• Temporary Statutes are those, according to their provisions, are in force only for a limited
period, and they may terminate upon the expiration of the term therein stated or upon
the occurrence of certain events.

• Permanent/Indefinite Statutes continues in force until changed or repealed by the
legislature. It has been held that “law once established continues until changed by some
competent legislative power.”

Statutes, once created, persist until a change takes place, and when changed, it continues in such
changed condition until the next change, so forever.




TERRITORIAL AND PERSONAL EFFECT OF STATUTES

The Philippines, being independent and sovereign, may exercise its authority over its entire
dominion.

Within its limits, its decrees are supreme, its commands paramount. Its laws govern therein and
everyone to whom it applies must submit to its terms.

MANNER OF COMPUTING TIME

• Where a statute requires the doing of an act within a specified number of days, such as
ten days, from notice, it means 10 calendar days and not working days.


• Where the word “week” is used as a measure of time and without reference to the
calendar, it means a period of seven consecutive days without regard to the day of the
week from which it begins.


• Article 13 of Civil Code states that:

Ø Years: 365 days
Ø Months: 30 days, except if months are designated by their name
Ø Days: 24 hours
Ø Nights: from sunset to sunrise


• The exclude-the-first and include-the-last day rule governs the computation of period.

Ø If the last day falls on a Sunday or legal holiday, the act can still be done the following
day.

Ø This principle does not apply to the computation of the period of prescription of a
crime, in which the rule is that if the last days in the period of prescription of a felony
falls on a Sunday or legal holiday, the information concerning said felony cannot be
filed on the next working day, as the offense has been by then already prescribed.

VALIDITY OF STATUTES
AARON NARITO


TEST OF CONSTITUTIONALITY

The test of Constitutionality of a statute is what the Constitution provides in relation to what can
or maybe done under the statute, and not by what it has been done under it.


Declaration of a statute as unconstitutional when;

1. It creates or establishes a methods or forms that infringe constitutional principles.
2. Its purpose or effect violates Constitutional or its basic principles.
3. It allows something to be done which the Constitution condemns or prohibits.
4. It attempts to validate a course of conduct the effect of which the Constitution specifically
forbids.
5. It is vague, lacks comprehensible standards that men of common intelligence must
necessarily guess at its meaning and differ in its application.


Test of Validity of Ordinances

1. It must not contravene the Constitution or any statute.
2. It must not be unfair or oppressive
3. It must not be partial or discriminatory
4. It must not prohibit but may regulate trade.
5. It must be general and consistent with public policy.
6. It must not be unreasonable.

EFFECTS OF UNCONSTITUTIONALITY

1. Unconstitutional law is not a law it confers no right, it imposes no duties; it affords no
protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, inoperative as though it had
never been passed.
2. Recognition of statutes operative fact before a declaration of nullity.




INVALIDITY DUE TO CHANGE OF CONDITIONS

Emergency Powers
- Valid at the time of its enactment as an exercise of police power.
- Invalid only because the change of conditions make its continued operation
violative of the Constitution.



PARTIAL INVALIDITY

General rule, where part of the statute is void as repugnant to the Constitution, while another
part is valid, the valid portion, if separable from the invalid, may stand and be enforced.




SEPERABILITY CLAUSE

Creates the presumption that the legislature intended separability rather than complete nullity
of the statute.

Exception: when parts of the statute are so mutually dependent or connected, as
conditions, considerations, inducements, or compensations for each other, as to warrant
belief that the legislature intended them as a whole, the nullity of one part will vitiate the
rest.

VALIDITY OF STATUTES
JANNICA MARIE CATAQUIZ


PRESUMPTION OF CONSTITUTIONALITY

• Every Statute is presumed VALID.
• The responsibility of upholding the constitution rests not on the Courts alone but on the
Legislative and Executive branches as well.
• To declare the law unconstitutional, the repugnancy of the law to the constitution must be
clear and unequivocal.
• All reasonable doubts should be resolved in favor of the Constitutionality of the Law.
• The final arbiter of unconstitutionality of law is the Supreme Court En Banc.




EXERCISE FOR EXERCISE OF JUDICIAL POWER

• The existence of an appropriate case;
• An interest personal and substantial by the party raising the constitutional question;
• The pleas that the function be exercised at the earliest opportunity; and
• The necessity that the Constitutional question passed upon in order to decide the case.

APPROPRIATE CASE

• Bona fide case – one which raises a justiciable controversy.
• Judicial power is limited only to real, actual, earnest and vital controversy.
• Controversy is justiciable when it refers to matter which is appropriate for Court review;
• Courts cannot rule on “political questions.”

STANDING TO SUE

• Locus Standi – a personal and substantial interest in the case such that the party has sustained
or will sustain direct injury as a result of the governmental act that is being challenged.
• Interest – an interest in issue affected by the decree.
• Citizen - acquires standing only if he can establish that he has suffered some actual or
threatened concrete injury as a result of the allegedly illegal conduct of the government.
• Member of the Senate or of the House has legal standing to question the Validity of the
Presidential veto or a condition imposed on an item in an appropriations bills.
• Supreme Court may, in its discretion, take cognizance of a suit which does not satisfy the
requirement of legal standing.



WHEN TO RAISE CONSTITUTIONALITY

• At the earliest possible opportunity – i.e. in the pleading
• It may be raised in a motion for reconsideration/new trial in the lower court; or
• In Criminal cases – at any stage of the proceedings or on appeal
• In Civil cases – where it appears clearly that a determination of the question is necessary to a
decision, and in cases where it involves the jurisdiction of the court below.



NECCESITY OF DECIDING CONSTITUTIONALITY

• Where the Constitutional question is of paramount public interest and time is of the essence
in the resolution of such question, adherence to the strict procedural standard may be relaxed
and the court, in its discretion, may squarely decide the case.
• Where the question of validity, though apparently has become moot, has become of
paramount interest and there is undeniable necessity for a ruling, strong reasons of public
policy may demand that its constitutionality be resolved.

EFFECT AND OPERATION OF LAWS

MARY JOY JONIECA


WHEN LAWS TAKE EFFECT
Article 2. Laws shall take effect after fifteen days following the completion of their
publication in the Official Gazette, unless it is otherwise provided. This Code shall
take effect one year after such publication.


TANADA v. TUVERA
Publication is a must before a statute becomes effective.


EFFECTIVITY

PRESIDENTIAL ISSUANCES: Publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of
general circulation, except those which are merely interpretative or internal in
nature.

RULES AND REGULATIONS
Shall comply with the publication requirements and requirements of filing with
the UP law.
LOCAL ORDINANCE
After 10 days from the date a copy thereof is posted in a bulletin board and in at
least 2 other conspicuous places in the LGU concerned.

A text shall be disseminated and posted in Filipino or English and in the language
or dialect understood by the majority of the people in the LGU concerned.

Gist of all ordinances with penal sanctions shall be published.

In the case of highly urbanized cities, the main features of the ordinance or
resolution duly enacted or adopted shall, in addition to being posted, be published
once in a local newspaper of general circulation.

Atty. Cindy Cayco’s Legal Research Class, First Semester, 2018-2019

Message of Group 4, the Last Group to Report

Dear, Atty. Cindy Cayco,

We do not owe our professional success to our destiny, courage,
luck, belief, confidence or fortune. We owe it to a wonderful scholar
like you. Nothing can come close to the inspirational presence of an
instructor like you in a student’s journey. You have no idea how
important a role you play in shaping our research development in the
field of law, and those little words of encouragement, means a lot to
all of you.

Thank you!

Atty. Cindy Cayco’s Legal Research Class, First Semester, 2018-2019

Message of Shashley Bernardez, Class Beadle

Dear, Atty. Cindy Cayco,

On behalf of the class, we would like to thank you for your
passion and steadfast diligence to teach us. Thank you for
keeping us engaged, learning, and laughing. Thank you for
making Legal Research and its approach very simple and
straightforward, and made us appreciate Legal Research even
more. We all had a fantastic time by taking your course.

Thanks!