Max Steller

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Max Steller (born February 29, 1944 in Breslau ) is a German forensic psychologist .

From 1988 until his retirement in 2009, Steller was Professor of Forensic Psychology at the Institute for Forensic Psychiatry at the Free University of Berlin . The main focus of his work is assessing credibility in court. In the Worms trials , Steller's credibility reports in 1996/1997 led to the acquittal of all defendants from the allegation of mass child abuse . In 2000 he and Klaus Fiedler received the German Psychology Prize .

Contribution to the turnaround in judicial practice since 1999

On the occasion of an appeal procedure , the 1st Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH), headed by Gerhard Schäfer, decided in a fundamental decision for the first time that reports on the credibility of statements must meet strict methodological criteria according to the current scientific status and must be comprehensible and transparent in detail. The Federal Court of Justice established the scientific basis for this determination on the expertise obtained specifically for this purpose from Max Steller and Renate Volbert (both Berlin) and Klaus Fiedler and Jeannette Schmid (both Heidelberg). The previously widespread practice of eclectic and intuitive reports on the credibility of statements was decisively rejected with this fundamental decision, which has noticeably improved the quality of the administration of justice on this issue since then.

Works

  • Social Therapy Instead of Prison - Psychological Problems of Treating Delinquents. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch. 1977.
  • Psychophysiological assessment of statements - Scientific basics and possible applications of "lie detection". Göttingen: Hogrefe. 1987.
  • Manual of Legal Psychology. Ed. Together with Renate Volbert, Göttingen: Hogrefe. 2008
  • Together with Volbert, R & Galow, A: The credibility report . In: H.-L. Kröber, D. Dölling, N. Leygraf, H. Saß. Handbook of Forensic Psychiatry. Volume 2: Psychopathological foundations and practice of forensic psychiatry in criminal law . Springer-Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 9783798517455 , pp. 623-689.
  • Nothing but the truth? Why anyone can be found innocent. Heyne Verlag, Munich 2015, ISBN 9783641114107 , preview Google Books

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Max Steller: Nothing but the truth? Why anyone can be found innocent . Heyne Verlag, Munich 2015, ISBN 9783641114107 , Exact text passage in Google Books preview .
  2. ↑ Federal Court of Justice sets minimum requirements for criminal procedural credibility reports . BGH press release No. 63, July 30, 1999 ( at lexetius )
personal data
SURNAME Steller, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German forensic psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 29, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw