Law Commons^™

Medical And Mental Health Implications Of Gestational Surrogacy And Trends In State Regulations On Compensated Gestational Surrogacy: A Report Submitted To The New York State Legislature, Steven Spandorfer, Allison Petrini, Sital Kalantry

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

As the New York State legislature considers legalizing compensated gestational surrogacy this legislative session, this report provides insight into (1) the impact of surrogacy on the medical and mental health of women who become surrogates and the children born through gestational surrogacy, and (2) how other state legislatures have addressed compensated gestational surrogacy in recent years.

Medical research demonstrates that there is significant growth in gestational surrogacy in the United States. The number of families working with gestational surrogates has quadrupled in the new millennium. Weill Cornell Medicine physicians and medical students reviewed the published literature on the medical and …

Dealing With Disruption: Emerging Approaches To Fintech Regulation, Saule T. Omarova

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

“Fintech” refers to a variety of digital assets, technologies, and infrastructure that deal with the operation of today’s financial markets. The regulation of this presents both legal and regulatory challenges. This article examines the regulatory responses to fintech disruption; specifically, the “experimentation” approach, the “incorporation” approach, and the “accommodation” approach. These approaches provide a baseline for further discussion and policy analysis in response to “Fintech.”

New Tech V. New Deal: Fintech As A Systemic Phenomenon, Saule T. Omarova

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Fintech is the hottest topic in finance today. Recent advances in cryptography, data analytics, and machine learning are visibly "disrupting" traditional methods of delivering financial services and conducting financial transactions. Less visibly, fintech is also changing the way we think about finance: it is gradually recasting our collective understanding of the financial system in normatively neutral terms of applied information science. By making financial transactions easier, faster, and cheaper, fintech seems to promise a micro-level "win-win" solution to the financial system's many ills.

This Article challenges such narratives and presents an alternative account of fintech as a systemic, macro-level phenomenon. …

Abandoning Law Reports For Official Digital Case Law, Peter W. Martin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Life, Death, And Neuroimaging: The Advantages And Disadvantages Of The Defense's Use Of Neuroimages In Capital Cases - Lessons From The Front, John H. Blume, Emily C. Paavola

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The use of neuroimaging in capital cases has become increasingly common. An informal survey of cases produced over one hundred opinions from reported decisions alone discussing the use of computed tomography (CT) scanning, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional MRI, positron emission tomography (PET) scans, single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scans, and similar technology in capital cases. This article gives practical advice to defense counsel considering the use of neuroimaging in a capital case. We discuss how, in the right case, this technology can be a valuable investigative tool used to produce an important component of a successful mitigation story. However, …

Science On Trial, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The increasing complexity of both criminal and civil jury trials raises a host of issues for lawyers and judges. For the litigator, the first question is whether a jury can be trusted with a case that turns on highly technical evidence. For the trial judge, there are decisions about the admissibility of expert testimony, whether it is based on sound science, and whether a jury is likely to be misled by scientific claims. Should the judge permit jury innovations such as note taking, question asking, and juror discussions of evidence during the trial, hoping to increase jury comprehension of the …

Statistics In The Jury Box: How Jurors Respond To Mitochondrial Dna Match Probabilities, David H. Kaye, Valerie P. Hans, B. Michael Dann, Erin J. Farley, Stephanie Albertson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article describes parts of an unusually realistic experiment on the comprehension of expert testimony on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequencing in a criminal trial for robbery. Specifically, we examine how jurors who responded to summonses for jury duty evaluated portions of videotaped testimony involving probabilities and statistics. Although some jurors showed susceptibility to classic fallacies in interpreting conditional probabilities, the jurors as a whole were not overwhelmed by a 99.98% exclusion probability that the prosecution presented. Cognitive errors favoring the defense were more prevalent than ones favoring the prosecution. These findings lend scant support to the legal argument that mtDNA …

Maintaining Competition In Copying: Narrowing The Scope Of Gene Patents, Oskar Liivak

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In supporting gene patents, the patent office, the courts and other supporters have assumed that gene discoveries are identical to traditional inventions and therefore the patent system should treat them as identical. In other words, they have assumed that the relatively broad claims that are used for traditional inventions are also appropriate for encouraging gene discovery. This article examines this assumption and finds that gene discoveries are critically different from traditional inventions and concludes that the patent system cannot treat them as identical.

As a doctrinal matter, this article applies the generally overlooked constitutional requirements of inventorship and originality and …

Judges, Juries, And Scientific Evidence, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The rise in scientific evidence offered in American jury trials, along with court rulings thrusting judges into the business of assessing the soundness of scientific evidence, have produced challenges for judge and jury alike. Many judges have taken up the duty of becoming “amateur scientists.” But what about juries? Surely they too could benefit from assistance as they attempt to master and apply complex testimony about scientific matters during the course of a trial. Concerns about the jury’s ability to understand, critically evaluate, and employ scientific evidence in deciding complex trials have led to many suggestions for reform.

This article …

Can Jury Trial Innovations Improve Juror Understanding Of Dna Evidence?, B. Michael Dann, Valerie P. Hans, David H. Kaye

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

A single spot of blood on a pink windowsill will tell investigators who broke a windowpane, turned a lock, and kidnapped 2-year-old Molly Evans from her bedroom in the middle of the night. An expert witness will testify that the DNA profile of the blood evidence recovered from the windowsill was entered into CODIS, an electronic database of DNA profiles. That process yielded a “hit,” identifying the defendant as the most likely source of the blood inside Molly’s room.

But will jurors be able to understand the expert’s intricate analysis and use it to reach a verdict? And what—if any—steps …

Testing Jury Reforms, Valerie P. Hans, B. Michael Dann, David H. Kaye, Erin J. Farley, Stephanie Albertson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

DNA evidence has become a key law enforcement tool and is increasingly presented in criminal trials in Delaware and elsewhere. The integrity of the criminal trial process turns upon the jury's ability to understand DNA evidence and to evaluate properly the testimony of experts. How well do they do? Can we assist them in the process?

Amicus Brief: Kumho Tire V. Carmichael, Neil Vidmar, Richard O. Lempert, Shari Seidman Diamond, Valerie P. Hans, Stephan Landsman, Robert Maccoun, Joseph Sanders, Harmon M. Hosch, Saul Kassin, Marc Galanter, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen Daniels, Edith Greene, Joanne Martin, Steven Penrod, James Richardson, Larry Heuer, Irwin Horowitz

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This brief addresses the issue of jury performance and jury responses to expert testimony. It reviews and summaries a substantial body of research evidence about jury behavior that has been produced over the past quarter century. The great weight of that evidence challenges the view that jurors abdicate their responsibilities as fact finders when faced with expert evidence or that they are pro-plaintiff, anti-defendant, and anti-business.

The Petitioners and amici on behalf of petitioners make a number of overlapping, but empirically unsupported, assertions about jury behavior in response to expert testimony, namely that juries are frequently incapable of critically evaluation …