William "Bill" Schmidt - Biography

	Contact Details
	Email: wms25@cam.ac.uk

Bill’s current research focuses on identifying the risk factors that contribute to wrongful convictions. For his MPhil dissertation, he examined cases forwarded to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), a public body tasked with investigating potential miscarriages of justice in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Specifically, he conducted a quantitative analysis of all murder cases forwarded by the CCRC to the Court of Appeal, in order to see which factors best predicted the Court’s quashing a case. His current project expands upon this study by increasing the number and types of cases analyzed, as well as by exploring each case in more detail.

Before coming to Cambridge, Bill’s primary research experience was in the field of psychology. The first lab in which he worked studied treatments for traumatic brain injury. He proceeded to a cognitive neuroscience lab, where he examined a large sample of MRIs in order to investigate correlations between the brain’s structural characteristics and a variety of psychometric scores. Bill later decided to explore the field of psychology and law, after briefly working for a criminal law firm. He conducted an independent project with a professor at Yale’s Department of Psychiatry researching jail diversion and community re-entry programs. His current research continues to employ psychological research methods to study the criminal justice system.

Bill is funded by the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. He is being supervised by Professor David Farrington.

Current Research

• Wrongful convictions, miscarriages of justice, false convictions

Education

• M.Phil. Criminology, University of Cambridge, 2010
• BA Psychology and English, Yale University, 2009

For Further information, please email Bill. A complete CV can be provided upon request.