Law Commons^™

Religious Convictions, Anna Offit

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The Anglo-American jury emerged at a time when legal and religious conceptions of justice were entwined. Today, however, though the American public remains comparatively religious, the country’s legal system draws a distinction between legal and religious modes of determining culpability and passing judgment. This Article examines the doctrine that governs the place of religious belief and practice in U.S. jury selection proceedings. It argues that the discretion afforded to judges with respect to applying the Batson antidiscrimination doctrine has given these beliefs and practices an ambiguous status. On the one hand, judges aim to protect prospective religious jurors from discrimination. …

Theorizing Corroboration, Maggie Wittlin

Faculty Scholarship

A child makes an out-of-court statement accusing an adult of abuse. That statement is important proof, but it also presents serious reliability concerns. When deciding whether it is sufficiently reliable to be admitted, should a court consider whether the child’s statement is corroborated—whether, for example, there is medical evidence of abuse? More broadly, should courts consider corroboration when deciding whether evidence is reliable enough to be admitted at trial? Judges, rule-makers, and scholars have taken significantly divergent approaches to this question and come to different conclusions.

This Article argues that there is a key problem with using corroboration to evaluate …

The Informed Jury, Daniel Epps, William Ortman

Scholarship@WashULaw

The right to a criminal jury trial is a constitutional disappointment. Cases almost never make it to a jury because of plea bargaining. In the few cases that do, the jury is relegated to a narrow factfinding role that denies it normative voice or the ability to serve as a meaningful check on excessive punishment.

One simple change could situate the jury where it belongs, at the center of the criminal process. The most important thing juries do in criminal cases is authorize state punishment. But today, when a jury returns a guilty verdict, it authorizes punishment without any idea …

Playing By The Rule: How Aba Model Rule 8.4(G) Can Regulate Jury Exclusion, Anna Offit

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Discrimination during voir dire remains a critical impediment to empaneling juries that reflect the diversity of the United States. While various solutions have been proposed, scholars have largely overlooked ethics rules as an instrument for preventing discriminatory behavior during jury selection. Focusing on the ABA Model Rule 8.4(g), which regulates professional misconduct, this article argues that ethics rules can, under certain conditions, offer an effective deterrent to exclusionary practices among legal actors. Part I examines the specific history, evolution, and application of revised ABA Model Rule 8.4(g). Part II delves into the ways that ethics rules in general, despite their …

Jury Nullification: The Current State Of The Law, Louisa Heiny

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In 2018, the Utah legislature considered a proposed bill that would have explicitly granted jurors the right to nullify in criminal cases. This research, done in preparation for committee testimony, contains the most up-to-date law on the topic. It includes a fifty-state survey on whether juries in various jurisdictions are (1) given the right to consider the possible sentencing penalty before rendering a verdict; (2) told they may disregard the law; or (3) instructed on the right to nullify. Additionally, the research includes fifty-state survey data on whether judges may lie to juries about the right to nullify, and how …

Accounting For Awards: An Examination Of Juror Reasoning Behind Pain And Suffering Damage Award Decisions, Krystia Reed, Valerie P. Hans, Valerie F. Reyna

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

What do civil jurors think about when they are asked to make damage award decisions? Given the secrecy of the jury deliberation process, often we are unaware of jurors' thought processes. This Article presents the results from three studies in which mock jurors explained the reasoning behind their damage awards for pain and suffering. We highlight the most common explanations and distinguish between reasons justifying high and low pain and suffering awards. We conclude with a discussion for what this means for attorneys during trial.

Perjury By Omission, Ira P. Robbins

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” There are few legal phrases that the layperson can repeat verbatim; this is one of them. But how many people truly understand the nuances and ramifications of testifying under oath? Many assume that if they do not provide the “whole truth” under oath, they will face a perjury charge. However, perjury is a charge often threatened but rarely used. The offense requires that the defendant willfully and knowingly make a false statement, under oath, regarding a material fact.

The federal perjury statute does not contemplate …

Prosecuting In The Shadow Of The Jury, Anna Offit

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article offers an unprecedented empirical window into prosecutorial discretion drawing on long-term participatory research between 2013 and 2017. The central finding is that jurors play a vital role in federal prosecutors’ decision-making, professional identities, and formulations of justice. This is because even the remote possibility of lay scrutiny creates an opening for prosecutors to make common sense assessments of (1) the evidence in their cases, (2) the character of witnesses, defendants and victims, and (3) their own moral and professional character as public servants. By facilitating explicit consideration of the fairness of their cases from a public vantage point, …

The Persistence Of The Probabilistic Perspective, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

The publication now of an essay written by Craig Callen nearly a decade ago is cause for wistful celebration. Even while we are reminded how suddenly and prematurely Craig’s life ended, it is good to have one more academic contribution from him, especially because it is marked by the erudition, thoroughness, gentleness, and humor that characterized him.

Controlling The Jury-Teaching Function, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

When evidence with a scientific basis is offered, two fundamental questions arise. First, should it be admitted? Second, if so, how should it be assessed? There are numerous participants who might play a role in deciding these questions—the jury (on the second question only), the parties (through counsel), expert witnesses on each side, the trial court, the forces controlling the judicial system (which include, but are not limited to, the appellate courts), and the scientific establishment. In this Article, I will suggest that together, the last two—the forces controlling the judicial system and the scientific establishment—have a large role to …

Newsroom: Court As Classroom 03-01-2018, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Disbelief Doctrines, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Employment discrimination law is riddled with doctrines that tell courts to believe employers and not workers. Judges often use these disbelief doctrines to dismiss cases at the summary judgment stage. At times, judges even use them after a jury trial to justify nullifying jury verdicts in favor of workers.

This article brings together many disparate discrimination doctrines and shows how they function as disbelief doctrines, causing courts to believe employers and not workers. The strongest disbelief doctrines include the stray comments doctrine, the same decisionmaker inference, and the same protected class inference. However, these are not the only ones. Even …

Surprise Vs. Probability As A Metric For Proof, Edward K. Cheng, Matthew Ginther

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In this Symposium issue celebrating his career, Professor Michael Risinger in Leveraging Surprise proposes using "the fundamental emotion of surprise" as a way of measuring belief for purposes of legal proof. More specifically, Professor Risinger argues that we should not conceive of the burden of proof in terms of probabilities such as 51%, 95%, or even "beyond a reasonable doubt." Rather, the legal system should reference the threshold using "words of estimative surprise" -asking jurors how surprised they would be if the fact in question were not true. Toward this goal (and being averse to cardinality), he suggests categories such …

The Silence Penalty, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

In every criminal trial, the defendant possesses the right to testify. Deciding whether to exercise that right, however, is rarely easy. Declining to testify shields defendants from questioning by the prosecutor and normally precludes the introduction of a defendant’s prior crimes. But silence comes at a price. Jurors penalize defendants who fail to testify by inferring guilt from silence.

This Article explores this complex dynamic, focusing on empirical evidence from mock juror experiments—including the results of a new 400-person mock juror simulation conducted for this Article—and data from real trials. It concludes that the penalty defendants suffer when they refuse …

The Subversions And Perversions Of Shadow Vigilantism, Paul H. Robinson, Sarah M. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

This excerpt from the recently published Shadow Vigilantes book argues that, while vigilantism, even moral vigilantism, can be dangerous to a society, the real danger is not of hordes of citizens, frustrated by the system’s doctrines of disillusionment, rising up to take the law into their own hands. Frustration can spark a vigilante impulse, but such classic aggressive vigilantism is not the typical response. More common is the expression of disillusionment in less brazen ways by a more surreptitious undermining and distortion of the operation of the criminal justice system.

Shadow vigilantes, as they might be called, can affect the …

Trials By Peers: The Ebb And Flow Of The Criminal Jury In France And Belgium, Claire M. Germain

UF Law Faculty Publications

The participation of lay jurors in criminal courts has known much ebb and flow both in France and in Belgium. These two countries belong to the civil law tradition, where juries are the exception rather than the rule in criminal trials, and they only exist in criminal cases, not civil cases. In spite of some similarities, there are substantial differences between the two countries, and their systems will be examined in turn.

In France, the Cour d’assises itself was inherited from the French Revolution. Since a law of 1941, it is a mixed jury system, meaning that lay citizens sit …

It's Still Too Easy To Push Blacks, Minorities Off Of Juries, Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Brief For 72 Professors Of Intellectual Property Law As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondents In Oil States Energy V. Greene's Energy, Gregory Reilly, Mark Lemley, Arti Rai

All Faculty Scholarship

This is a brief of 72 IP professors opposing the claim in Oil States that the IPR procedure is unconstitutional.Petitioner argues that only a court – indeed, only a jury – has the power to decide that the United States Patent and Trademark Office erred in granting a patent. That argument flies in the face of the history of patent law and this Court’s precedents.Patents are a creature of statute: as early as 1834, this Court specifically recognized that there is no “natural” or common law right to a patent. Rather, under its Article I power to establish a patent …

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 …

Newsroom: Logan On Trump And Libel Law 01-03-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

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 …

Copyright Law’S Origin Stories, Laura A. Heymann

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: Can Court 'Restore Fundamental Liberties'? 03-23-2016, Sheldon Whitehouse, David A. Logan

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Infinity Goes On Trial: Sanism, Pretextuality, And The Representation Of Defendants With Mental Disabilities, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

This paper, presented to the mid-winter meeting of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (Austin, TX, 2/18/16), explains why it is essential for lawyers representing criminal defendants with mental disabilities to understand the meanings and contexts of sanism - a largely invisible and largely socially acceptable irrational prejudice of the same quality and character of other irrational prejudices that cause (and are reflected in) prevailing social attitudes of racism, sexism, homophobia, and ethnic bigotry - and pretextuality - the means by which courts regularly accept (either implicitly or explicitly) testimonial dishonesty, countenance liberty deprivations in disingenuous ways that bear …

Comparative Reflections On Duncan V. Louisiana And Baldwin V. New York, William Pizzi

Publications

No abstract provided.

Legal Interpreter For The Jury: The Role Of The Clerk Of The Court In Spain, Mar Jimeno-Bulnes, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The Clerk of the Court (secretario judicial) in Spanish provincial courts is an important legal actor in the proceedings of the modern Spanish jury, introduced in 1995. In contrast to the general verdicts of traditional common-law juries, Spanish juries must answer an often lengthy list of specific questions, and must provide the reasoning supporting these responses. Early on, many Spanish juries found the task of providing legally acceptable responses and reasons challenging. Because the law permits the clerk to enter the deliberation room to assist the jury in its writing of the verdict, the clerk has come to act as …

Introduction To Juries And Mixed Tribunals Across The Globe: New Developments, Common Challenges And Future Directions, Nancy S. Marder, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This introduction to the special issue of Oñati Socio-legal Series describes the goals of the conference on Juries and Mixed Tribunals across the Globe, and identifies themes that emerged as jury scholars from all over the world examined different forms of lay participation in legal decision-making. The introduction focuses on common challenges that different systems of lay participation face, including the selection of impartial fact finders and the presentation of complex cases to lay citizens. The introduction and special issue articles also highlight new developments and innovative practices to address these challenges, including some tools, like decision trees, that remain …

An Empirical Research Agenda For The Forensic Sciences, Jonathan J. Koehler, John B. Meixner Jr.

Scholarly Works

After the National Academy of Sciences issued a stunning report in 2009 on the unscientific state of many forensic science subfields, forensic science has undergone internal and external scrutiny that it had managed to avoid for decades. Although some reform efforts are underway, forensic science writ large has yet to embrace and settle upon an empirical research agenda that addresses knowledge gaps pertaining to the reliability of its methods. Our paper addresses this problem by proposing a preliminary set of fourteen empirical studies for the forensic sciences. Following a brief discussion of the courtroom treatment of forensic science evidence, we …

Cross-Sectional Challenges: Gender, Race, And Six-Person Juries, Jeannine Bell, Mona Lynch

Articles by Maurer Faculty

After two grand juries failed to indict the police officers that killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner in 2014, our nation has engaged in polarizing discussions about how juries reach their decision. The very legitimacy of our justice system has come into question. Increasingly, deep concerns have been raised concerning the role of race and gender in jury decision-making in such controversial cases. Tracing the roots of juror decision-making is especially complicated when jurors’ race and gender are factored in as considerations. This Article relies on social science research to explore the many cross-sectional challenges involved in the jurors’ decision …

Restoring The Civil Jury In A World Without Trials, Dmitry Bam

Faculty Publications

Early in this nation’s history, the civil jury was the most important institutional check on biased and corrupt judges. Recently, concerns about judicial bias, especially in elected state judiciaries, have intensified as new studies demonstrate the extent of that bias. But the jury of Hamilton, Madison, and Jefferson is nowhere to be found. In fact, the civil jury is virtually dead. It is used in less than 1% of all civil cases, and even when it makes a rare appearance, the jury’s powers have been significantly curtailed.

This article argues that we must reimagine the civil jury to match the …