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Full-Text Articles in Law
Inside The Judicial Mind, Chris Guthrie, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Andrew J. Wistrich
Inside The Judicial Mind, Chris Guthrie, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Andrew J. Wistrich
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The quality of the judicial system depends upon the quality of decisions that judges make. Even the most talented and dedicated judges surely make occasional mistakes, but the public understandably expects judges to avoid systematic errors. This expectation, however, might be unrealistic. Psychologists who study human judgment and choice have learned that people frequently fall prey to cognitive illusions that produce systematic errors in judgment. Even though judges are experienced, well-trained, and highly motivated decision makers, they might be vulnerable to cognitive illusions. We report the results of an empirical study designed to determine whether five common cognitive illusions (anchoring, …
Jurors, Judges, And The Mistreatment Of Risk By The Courts, W. Kip Viscusi
Jurors, Judges, And The Mistreatment Of Risk By The Courts, W. Kip Viscusi
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
A sample of almost 500 jury-eligible citizens considered a series of experimental situations involving accidents. The juror sample did not properly apply negligence rules, as their errors were particularly great for low-probability, large-loss cases. They also penalized corporations for undertaking corporate risk analyses that seek to trade off cost versus risk reduction benefits. Jurors' damages assessments were also more prone to error than were responses by a sample of state judges. Judges were less prone to erroneous risk beliefs and less subject to the zero-risk mentality.
Court Fixing, Tracey E. George
Court Fixing, Tracey E. George
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article critically examines the existing social science evidence on the relative importance of various individual factors on judicial behavior and adds to that evidence by considering the influence of prior academic experience on judges. Researchers have not focused much attention on the importance of a judge's background as a full-time law professor and legal scholar, although more than thirteen percent of courts of appeals appointees were former law professors. Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan both viewed the federal judiciary (particularly the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals) as integral to their policy agendas, and both further believed that …
The Most Dangerous Justice Rides Again: Revisiting The Power Pageant Of The Justices, Paul H. Edelman, Jim Chen
The Most Dangerous Justice Rides Again: Revisiting The Power Pageant Of The Justices, Paul H. Edelman, Jim Chen
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Who is the most powerful Supreme Court Justice? In 1996 we measured voting power on the Court according to each Justice's ability to form five-member coalitions. From the set of all coalitions formed by the Court during its 1994 and 1995 Terms, we developed a generalized Banzhaf index of the Justices' relative strength. Generally speaking, participating in a greater number of unique coalitions translates into greater judicial voting power. To supplement the small number of decisions then available, we derived hypothetical five-Justice coalitions from the intersections of actually observed coalitions involving more than five members. Professor Lynn Baker contested our …