Dr Eve Brank1, Dr Jennifer Groscup1, Dr Lori Hoetger1, Emma Marshall1, Kayla Sircy1, Yanelli Guzman1
1University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, United States
Biography:
Eve M. Brank, J.D., Ph.D., is the Aaron Douglas Professor of Psychology and College of Arts and Sciences Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A past president of the American Psychology-Law Society and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, she has spent nearly two decades studying consent to search, police legitimacy, and Fourth Amendment doctrine, research supported by the National Science Foundation. She is the author of The Psychology of Family Law, winner of the Lawrence S. Wrightsman Book Award, and co-author of the book Aging and the Criminal Legal System.
Abstract:
In the United States, the Fourth Amendment allows consent to substitute for a warrant, with voluntariness decided after the fact as a binary judgment. The current program of research asks whether that binary standard matches how voluntariness is actually experienced during a police-citizen encounter. Across a series of controlled experiments, we manipulated features of simulated consent search requests: formal rights waivers, verbal warnings about the right to refuse, officer positioning and distance, canine presence, and procedural justice cues. Findings across studies converge on relatively consistent patterns. Formal waivers and explicit warnings increase perceived agency and police legitimacy, while certain officer positioning reduce perceived voluntariness. Confirming some procedural justice aspects in this context, institutional trust improved evaluations of the search request, but did not decrease willingness to consent. Current work extends this program of research to child welfare professionals working alongside police, examining how parents experience voluntariness during joint investigations, with other studies underway on law enforcement with pregnancy loss cases. Together, these findings suggest voluntariness is graded and situational, not the binary switch the law assumes. The presentation will conclude by comparing this program of research to Australian and New Zealand search authorities, examining law reform that balances public safety and individual rights.