Digital Commons Network^™

Juries: Arbiters Or Arbitrary?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

No abstract provided.

Scientific Jury Selection And The Equal Protection Rights Of Venire Persons, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jury trials have always been a source of anxiety for litigators. Despite years of preparation, the outcome of a case can turn on the whimsical biases of a group of people who may or may not understand the legal arguments involved. In recent years, attorneys have taken steps to reduce this uncertainty by hiring social scientists who study jury decision making. One of the most popular services which these consultants offer is assistance in the jury selection process. The use of sociological and psychological methods in identifying and excluding unfavorable jurors from service, known as Scientific Jury Selection ("SJS"), has …

Heuristics And Biases In The Court: Ignorance Or Adaptation?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

No abstract provided.

Sentencing Roulette: How Virginia’S Criminal Sentencing System Is Imposing An Unconstitutional Trial Penalty That Suppresses The Rights Of Criminal Defendants To A Jury Trial, Caleb R. Stone

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Reflections On The Korean Jury Trial, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Korea's experience with its new jury system offers many lessons for those interested in juries and jury reform worldwide. Aiming for a unique jury system that was ideally suited to Korean citizens and their legal system, those who crafted Korea's jury incorporated elements of both classic jury systems and mixed tribunals. Initially, the jury deliberates on guilt independently of the judge, but the procedure includes optional as well as mandatory opportunities for the presiding judge to advise the jury during its deliberation. The Korean jury delivers an advisory rather than binding jury verdict. These and other features of the Korean …

Jury Voting Paradoxes, Jason Iuliano

Michigan Law Review

The special verdict is plagued by two philosophical paradoxes: the discursive dilemma and the lottery paradox. Although widely discussed in the philosophical literature, these paradoxes have never been applied to jury decision making. In this Essay, I use the paradoxes to show that the special verdict’s vote-reporting procedures can lead judges to render verdicts that the jurors themselves would reject. This outcome constitutes a systemic breakdown that should not be tolerated in a legal system that prides itself on the fairness of its jury decision-making process. Ultimately, I argue that, because the general verdict with answers to written questions does …

Reflections On The Korean Jury Trial, Valerie P. Hans

Valerie P. Hans

The Demographic Dilemma In Death Qualification Of Capital Jurors, J. Thomas Sullivan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Juries, Social Norms, And Civil Justice, Jason M. Solomon

Faculty Publications

At the root of many contemporary debates and landmark cases in the civil justice system are underlying questions about the role of the civil jury. In prior work, I examined the justifications for the civil jury as a political institution, and found them wanting in our contemporary legal system.

This Article looks closely and critically at the justification for the civil jury as an adjudicative institution and questions the conventional wisdom behind it. The focus is on tort law because the jury has more power to decide questions of law in tort than any other area of law. The Article …

Trial And Settlement: A Study Of High-Low Agreements, J. J. Prescott, Kathryn E. Spier, Albert Yoon

Articles

This article presents the first systematic theoretical and empirical study of highlow agreements in civil litigation. A high-low agreement is a private contract that, if signed by litigants before trial, constrains any plaintiff’s recovery to a specified range. In our theoretical model, trial is both costly and risky. When litigants have divergent subjective beliefs and are mutually optimistic about their trial prospects, cases may fail to settle. In these cases, high-low agreements can be in litigants’ mutual interest because they limit the risk of outlier awards while still allowing mutually beneficial speculation. Using claims data from a national insurance company, …

Translator, Traitor: A Critical Ethnography Of A U.S. Terrorism Trial, Maya Hess

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Historically, the role of translators and interpreters has suffered from multiple misconceptions. In theaters of war, these linguists are often viewed as traitors and kidnapped, tortured, or killed; if they work in the terrorism arena, they may be prosecuted and convicted as terrorist agents. In United States v. Ahmed Abdel Sattar, a/k/a "Abu Omar," a/k/a "Dr. Ahmed," Lynne Stewart, and Mohammed [sic] Yousry, 02 Cr. 395 (JGK) (S.D.N.Y. 2003), Yousry, an Arabic linguist and scholar of Middle Eastern history, was labeled such an agent, his work as translator/interpreter construed as material support to terrorism, and his expertise recast as dangerous …

Complex Litigation In The New Era Of The Ijury, Andrew J. Wilhelm

Pepperdine Law Review

This Comment argues for a comprehensive approach to legitimizing the lay jury—an approach involving education, attorney adaptation, courtroom renovations, and judicial knowledge—and a better understanding of how legal professionals can fairly and most effectively transmit knowledge to the average American. The lay jury can remain a vital, unique part of the American judicial system if the bench and bar take seriously their responsibilities and adapt to today’s new reality. Part II examines the background of three basic components of a successful contemporary trial: technology, litigation, and the jury. Part III explores how these three components have evolved in the modern …

The Jury And Participatory Democracy, Alexandra D. Lahav

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction: The Civil Jury As A Political Institution, Jason M. Solomon, Paula Hannaford-Agor

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Jury Ignorance And Political Ignorance, Ilya Somin

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

What's It Worth? Jury Damage Awards As Community Judgments, Valerie P. Hans

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fiduciary Principles And The Jury, Ethan J. Leib, Michael Serota, David L. Ponet

William & Mary Law Review

This Essay argues that because jurors exercise state authority with wide discretion over the legal and practical interests of other citizens, and because citizens repose trust and remain vulnerable to jury and juror decisions, juries and jurors share important similarities with traditional fiduciary actors such as doctors, lawyers, and corporate directors and boards. The paradigmatic fiduciary duties—those of loyalty and care—therefore provide useful benchmarks for evaluating and guiding jurors in their decisionmaking role. A sui generis public fiduciary duty of deliberative engagement also has applications in considering the obligations of jurors. This framework confirms much of what we know about …

Diversity And The Civil Jury, Christina S. Carbone, Victoria C. Plaut

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Jury As A Political Institution: An Internal Perspective, Robert P. Burns

William & Mary Law Review

In this Essay, I will briefly describe some of the more obvious ways in which the jury has been considered a political institution. I will then discuss the senses in which we can understand the term “political” in the context of the American jury trial. I will describe the senses in which Hannah Arendt, perhaps the most important political philosopher of the twentieth century, tried to distinguish between “the political” and the “the legal” and the limitations of any such distinction. I will then turn to the heart of this Essay, a description of the ways in which the American …

Juries As Regulators Of Last Resort, Stephan Landsman

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Blackstone's Curse: The Fall Of The Criminal, Civil, And Grand Juries And The Rise Of The Executive, The Legislature, The Judiciary, And The States, Suja A. Thomas

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Embedded Experts On Real Juries: A Delicate Balance, Shari Seidman Diamond, Mary R. Rose, Beth Murphy

William & Mary Law Review

“Experts” appear in the modern American courtroom on the jury as well as in the witness box, posing a dilemma for the legal system by offering a potentially valuable resource and an uncontrolled source of influence. Courts give ambiguous guidance to jurors on how they should handle their expertise in the deliberation room. On the one hand, jurors are told that they should “decide what the facts are from the evidence presented here in court.” By direct implication, then, jurors should not use outside information to evaluate the evidence. Jurors are also told, however, that they should “consider all of …

Political Decision Making By Informed Juries, William E. Nelson

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Exploration Of "Noneconomic" Damages In Civil Jury Awards, Herbert M. Kritzer, Guangya Liu, Neil Vidmar

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Restoring The Civil Jury's Role In The Structure Of Our Government, Sheldon Whitehouse

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Opening Remarks, Akhil Reed Amar

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

What's It Worth? Jury Damage Awards As Community Judgments, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Responding To Independent Juror Research In The Internet Age: Positive Rules, Negative Rules, And Outside Mechanisms, Robbie Manhas

Michigan Law Review

Independent juror research is an old problem for jury trials. It invites potentially prejudicial, irrelevant, and inaccurate information to guide jury decisionmaking. At the same time, independent juror research compromises our adversarial system by preventing parties from responding to all the evidence under consideration and obfuscating the record on which the jury’s decision is made. These threats have only increased in the internet age, where inappropriate sources of information are ubiquitous and where improper access is hard to detect. Nevertheless, courts and parties continue to engage in the same inhibitory measures they have employed for decades. This Note argues for …

Gideon V. Wainwright A Half Century Later, Yale Kamisar

Reviews

When he was nearing the end of his distinguished career, one of my former law professors observed that a dramatic story of a specific case "has the same advantages that a play or a novel has over a general discussion of ethics or political theory." Ms. Houppert illustrates this point in her very first chapter.

You Can't Handle The Truth! Trial Juries And Credibility, Renée M. Hutchins

Faculty Scholarship

Every now and again, we get a look, usually no more than a glimpse, at how the justice system really works. What we see—before the sanitizing curtain is drawn abruptly down—is a process full of human fallibility and error, sometimes noble, more often unfair, rarely evil but frequently unequal.

The central question, vital to our adjudicative model, is: How well can we expect a jury to determine credibility through the ordinary adversary processes of live testimony and vigorous impeachment? The answer, from all I have been able to see is: not very well.