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The Trial Lawyer And The Reptilian Brain: A Critique, Louis J. Sirico, Jr.
The Trial Lawyer And The Reptilian Brain: A Critique, Louis J. Sirico, Jr.
Cleveland State Law Review
This Article brings together neuroscience, cultural symbolism, and the strategies of practicing lawyers to critique the reptile strategy, now popular among trial lawyers. The strategy directs the lawyer to trigger the reptilian brains of jurors so that they react instinctively to threats to themselves and their communities. When humans feel threatened, the reptilian brain, the most primitive part of the brain, takes charge and instinctively controls human conduct. Therefore, if a lawyer can make a juror feel threatened, the lawyer makes an appeal to the juror’s reptilian brain and virtually assures a victory. Thus, a lawyer’s argument should intensify the …
Foster V. Chatman: A Missed Opportunity For Batson And The Peremptory Challenge, Nancy Marder
Foster V. Chatman: A Missed Opportunity For Batson And The Peremptory Challenge, Nancy Marder
All Faculty Scholarship
In 2016, the United States Supreme Court decided that the prosecutors in Foster v. Chatman exercised race-based peremptory challenges in violation of Batson v. Kentucky. The Court reached the right result, but missed an important opportunity. The Court should have acknowledged that after thirty years of the Batson experiment, it is clear that Batson is unable to stop discriminatory peremptory challenges. Batson is easy to evade, so discriminatory peremptory challenges persist and the harms from them are significant. The Court could try to strengthen Batson in an effort to make it more effective, but in the end the only way …
Jury Simulation Goals, Jonathan J. Koehler, John B. Meixner Jr.
Jury Simulation Goals, Jonathan J. Koehler, John B. Meixner Jr.
Scholarly Works
What are the goals that researchers who conduct jury simulations have or should have? Drawing on Pennington and Hastie (1981), we identify three primary goals: (1) develop theory, (2) describe how juries perform, and (3) improve the jury process. Where basic theory matters most, studies should be designed in ways that stress internal validity. Where describing the behaviors of real juries or persuading policy makers about changes that should be made, studies should focus on external and ecological validity as well. We urge researchers who are interested in describing jury behavior and improving the jury process to conduct ecologically valid …