Psychology and the Legal System

Lawrence S. Wrightsman (Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 1959) was professor of psychology at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. Wrightsman authored or edited ten other books relevant to the legal system, including Psychology and the Legal System (4th edition, coauthored with Michael T. Nietzel and William H. Fortune), The American Jury on Trial (coauthored with Saul M. Kassin), and Judicial Decision Making: Is Psychology Relevant? He was invited to contribute the entry on the law and psychology for the recently published Encyclopedia of Psychology, sponsored by the American Psychological Association and published by Oxford University Press. His research topics included jury selection procedures, reactions to police interrogations, and the impact of judicial instructions. He also served as a trial consultant and testified as an expert witness. Wrightsman is a former president of both the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the Society of Personality and Social Psychology. In 1998 he was the recipient of a Distinguished Career Award from the American Psychology-Law Society. This award has been made on only six occasions in the 30-year history of the organization; the preceding awardee was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun.

"Wrightsman, Nietzel, and Fortune is head and shoulders above any other textbook directed at this topic on the market. . . . It is quite comprehensive . . . engaging, and has an excellent list of references."

"Overall, I think that Wrightsman, Nietzel, and Fortune is the best book available for teaching a cross-section of undergraduates about the basics of psychology and law . . . . The text does a good job at bringing psychology students 'up to speed' on the basics of the legal system. One commendable feature of the book is the appropriate integration of real-world examples."