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Full-Text Articles in Law
U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Liability Survey: Inaccurate, Unfair, And Bad For Business, Theodore Eisenberg
U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Liability Survey: Inaccurate, Unfair, And Bad For Business, Theodore Eisenberg
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce uses its Survey of State Liability to criticize judiciaries and seek legal change but no detailed evaluation of the survey’s quality exists. This article presents evidence that the survey is substantively inaccurate and methodologically flawed. It incorrectly characterizes state law; respondents provide less than 10 percent correct answers for objectively verifiable responses. It is internally inconsistent; a state threatened with judicial hellhole status ranked first in the survey while venues not on the list ranked lower. The absence of correlation between survey rankings and observable activity suggests that other factors drive the rankings. Two factors …
Comments On "Getting Scarred And Winning Lotteries: Effects Of Exemplar Cuing And Statistical Format On Imagining Low-Probability Events," By Newell, Mitchell, And Hayes (2008), Jonathan Koehler, Laura Macchi
Comments On "Getting Scarred And Winning Lotteries: Effects Of Exemplar Cuing And Statistical Format On Imagining Low-Probability Events," By Newell, Mitchell, And Hayes (2008), Jonathan Koehler, Laura Macchi
Faculty Working Papers
Newell, Mitchell, and Hayes (NMH) conduct three experiments designed to test whether exemplar cuing (EC) theory or a statistical format theory provides a more accurate account for how people make judgments about low-probability events. They report finding support for the statistical format theory and little or no support for EC. However, NMH misstate the requirements for the production of exemplars in EC theory. As a result, they confuse non-exemplar conditions with exemplar conditions in their experiments, and find results that are virtually irrelevant to EC theory.
The Deterrent Effect Of Death Penalty Eligibility: Evidence From The Adoption Of Child Murder Eligibility Factors, Michael D. Frakes, Matthew Harding
The Deterrent Effect Of Death Penalty Eligibility: Evidence From The Adoption Of Child Murder Eligibility Factors, Michael D. Frakes, Matthew Harding
Faculty Scholarship
We draw on within-state variations in the reach of capital punishment statutes between 1977 and 2004 to identify the deterrent effects associated with capital eligibility. Focusing on the most prevalent eligibility expansion, we estimate that the adoption of a child murder factor is associated with an approximately 20% reduction in the homicide rate of youth victims. Eligibility expansions may enhance deterrence by (1) paving the way for more executions and (2) providing prosecutors with greater leverage to secure enhanced non-capital sentences. While executions themselves are rare, this latter channel is likely to be triggered fairly regularly, providing a reasonable basis …