Accomplice Witnesses And Jailhouse Informants

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: never Too Specific: coercion2% picked this

   Evidence obtained through coercion, whether that coercion results from positive pressure or negative pressure, can never

   The author isn't saying that we can never regard this as reliable evidence. She's only stressing that jurors put more faith into it than they should. Also, calling bartered testimony "evidence obtained through coercion" is too specific. Some bartered testimony is obtained through coercion but the passage was not using those ideas interchangeably.

   2%
2. B

   Correct54% picked this

   Numerous considerations suggest that the courts? reliance on the testimony of accomplice witnesses and jailhouse informants may result in

   Why this is right

   This nicely captures "we have a legal problem: bartered testimony is prone to be flawed, since the people offering it are doing so for self-interested reasons, and the jurors hearing it put too much trust in its authenticity". The language about "convictions based on false testimony" didn't land well with me on a first read. It seems true on a common sense level, but I didn't remember hearing that emphasized in the passage. But when we research our qualms, we can see that this language is discussed at the beginning of the second paragraph. Courts hold that they adequately protect the accused against conviction based on false testimony, and naturally our author pivots with a "However, these safeguards do not always provide protection (against conviction based on false testimony".

   Skill tested: Main Point · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

   54%
3. C

   Too Narrow12% picked this

   Studies show that jurors give undue weight to confession testimony, a fact that may be explained by people?s general tendency to ignore situational factors

   This is pretty good, but it only captures the last two paragraphs. It leaves out the conversation involving the skewed incentives of the prisoners / accomplices who are providing the bartered testimony. It feels like only half of the Main Point, because the problem the author is putting together is "the providers of the testimony have reason to fib" + "the people hearing the testimony aren't good at being properly skeptical".

   12%
4. D

   Out of Scope: traditional legal arguments21% picked this

   Traditional legal arguments offered in support of permitting the testimony of accomplice witnesses and jailhouse informants are based on a set of assumptions

   This passage didn't pit new studies against traditional legal arguments. The closest thing we have to that is "While courts have recognized .... " at the beginning of the 2nd paragraph. But the passage doesn't enumerate a set of assumptions and then counter them with studies.

   21%
5. E

   Too Strong: substantial / heavily Too Narrow11% picked this

   There is substantial evidence to indicate that the testimony of accomplice witnesses and jailhouse informants is heavily influenced by

   While the author is certainly emphasizing the risk of inaccurate bartered testimony based on the incentives, we can't find lines in the passage that say "substantial evidence that testimony is heavily influenced". Furthermore, this answer would have the same downside that (C) had: it only captures half the problem. (E) focuses on the skewed incentives of the providers of bartered testimony. (C) focuses on the undue faith jurors put into bartered testimony. Our correct answer should feel like it's broad enough to cover both of those two central facets of the problem. Our correct answer says "numerous considerations", which leaves space for both of these things.

   11%