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Full-Text Articles in Law
Engaging Capital Emotions, Douglas A. Berman, Stephanos Bibas
Engaging Capital Emotions, Douglas A. Berman, Stephanos Bibas
All Faculty Scholarship
The Supreme Court, in Kennedy v. Louisiana, is about to decide whether the Eighth Amendment forbids capital punishment for child rape. Commentators are aghast, viewing this as a vengeful recrudescence of emotion clouding sober, rational criminal justice policy. To their minds, emotion is distracting. To ours, however, emotion is central to understand the death penalty. Descriptively, emotions help to explain many features of our death-penalty jurisprudence. Normatively, emotions are central to why we punish, and denying or squelching them risks prompting vigilantism and other unhealthy outlets for this normal human reaction. The emotional case for the death penalty for child …
Emotional Adaptation And Lawsuit Settlements, Peter H. Huang
Emotional Adaptation And Lawsuit Settlements, Peter H. Huang
Publications
In Hedonic Adaptation and the Settlement of Civil Lawsuits, Professors John Bronsteen, Christopher Buccafusco, and Jonathan Masur note an unexplored aspect of protracted lawsuits: During prolonged litigation tort victims can adapt emotionally to even permanent injuries, and therefore are more likely to settle--and for less--than if their lawsuits proceeded faster. This Response demonstrates that this is a facile application of hedonic adaptation with the following three points. First, people care about more than happiness: Tort victims may sue to seek justice or revenge; emotions in tort litigation can be cultural evaluations; and people are often motivated by identity and …