Law Commons^™

Trends. Terrorism, Terror Management, And Faking Mental Disorder, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article highlights the difficulty of determining if defendants on trial are faking mental disorder. The case in question involves the bombing of United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Product-Related Risk And Cognitive Biases: The Shortcomings Of Enterprise Liability, James A. Henderson Jr., Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Products liability law has witnessed a long debate over whether manufacturers should be held strictly liable for the injuries that products cause. Recently, some have argued that psychological research on human judgment supports adopting a regime of strict enterprise liability for injuries caused by product design. These new proponents of enterprise liability argue that the current system, in which manufacturer liability for product design turns on the manufacturer's negligence, allows manufacturers to induce consumers into undertaking inefficiently dangerous levels or types of consumption. In this paper we argue that the new proponents of enterprise liability have: (1) not provided any …

Trends. Homosexual Politics And Security: The American Psychological Association (Apa) Brief Of Amicus Curiae No. 99-699, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article discusses the American Psychological Association's (APA's) brief of amicus curiae, which the APA submitted in order to provide a context for the Supreme Court of the United States to review the policy of the Boy Scouts of America and Monmouth Council, Boy Scouts of America, which involved the Boy Scouts, homosexuality, and claims about discrimination against homosexuals.

One Crime, Many Convicted: Dissociative Identity Disorder And The Exclusion Of Expert Testimony In State V. Greene, Mary Eileen Crego

Washington Law Review

In State v. Greene, the Supreme Court of Washington held that expert testimony about Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) was not admissible to support an insanity or diminished-capacity defense. Even though the court acknowledged DID as a generally accepted medical disorder, the court reasoned that such testimony would not be helpful to the trier of fact, as required by Washington Evidence Rule (ER) 702, because the court has not established a specific standard for determining the legal responsibility of a defendant with multiple personalities. This Note argues that the Greene court had sufficient scientific evidence to establish a legal standard …

Violence Risk Assessment: Scientific Validity And Evidentiary Admissibility, John Monahan

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Doubts About Daubert: Psychiatric Anecdata As A Case Study, Christopher Slobogin

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

How To Cross-Train For Peak Lawyering, Heidi K. Brown

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

On The Nature Of Norms: Biology, Morality, And The Disruption Of Order, Owen D. Jones

Michigan Law Review

For a long time - and through the now-quaint division of disciplines - morals and norms have been set apart from other behaviorbiasing phenomena. They have also been set apart from each other. Morals are generally ceded in full to philosophers. Norms have been ceded to sociologists. In retrospect, it is not clear why this should be so. Reality is notoriously impervious to taxonomy, and the axis supposedly distinguishing morals from other norms is, after all, arbitrary. Moreover, behavior-biasing phenomena interact in important ways, making the study of parts - without more - just the study of parts. But one …

The Tyranny Of Money, Edward J. Mccaffery

Michigan Law Review

The more things change, the more they stay the same. A human activity almost as venerable as the accumulation and opulent display of vast riches is the condemnation of the accumulation and opulent display of vast riches. People have been busily engaged at each for several millennia now. Both continue in full flower as America races into the twenty-first century with its liberal capitalist democracy ascendant around the world, its rich richer than ever, its less-rich curiously lagging behind. Yet figuring out what, exactly, is wrong with the excessive accumulation and opulent display of wealth, on the one hand, and …

Spectral Evidence: The Ramona Case: Incest, Memory, And Truth On Trial In Napa Valley, By Moira Johnston [Book Review], Cynthia Grant Bowman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The "New" Law And Psychology: A Reply To Critics, Skeptics, And Cautious Supporters, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Folk Psychology And Legal Understanding, Robert Birmingham

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Insurance: How It Matters As Psychological Fact And Political Metaphor, Thomas Morawetz

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

The Perils Of Public Opinion, Deborah W. Denno

Faculty Scholarship

Justice, Liability, and Blame: Community Views and the Criminal Law (“Justice”) is a rich, creative, and intriguing book with an ambitious goal: to examine the extent to which laypersons' views of justice (their “moral intuitions”) are reflected in current criminal codes. This Article discusses the significance of Justice's approach to understanding law and why the book is an excellent springboard for further research comparing community standards and legal codes. However, this Article particularly emphasizes the perils of incorporating public opinion into the law based upon three major sources: (1) this Article's own study of national and New Jersey demographic and …

For The Misdemeanor Outlaw: The Impact Of The Ada On The Institutionalization Of Criminal Defendants With Mental Disabilities, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

This article argues that the Supreme Court's decision in Olmstead v. L.C., 119 S. Ct. 2176 (1999), finding a qualified right to community treatment and services for certain institutionalized persons under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), causes us to reconceptualize state policies that mandate that all defendants in four categories - those being evaluated for competency to stand trial, those found permanently incompetent to stand trial under the Supreme Court's decision in Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715 (1972), those being evaluated for insanity, and those found not guilty by reason of insanity - be treated and housed in …

Johnny's In The Basement/Mixing Up His Medicine: Therapeutic Jurisprudence And Clinical Teaching, Keri K. Gould, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

Clinical legal education is both more exhilarating and more stressful than "traditional" legal education. It forces students to confront their pre-existing assumptions about the practice of law and the representation of clients (frequently, indigent and marginalized individuals), and it similarly forces them to integrate new doctrine, theory, and practice in a very different way than "regular" law classes demand.

Therapeutic jurisprudence considers the role of the law as a therapeutic agent, and examines all aspects of the legal system in an effort to determine whether it is operating therapeutically or anti-therapeutically, and suggests that legal decision-makers consider the potential impact …

I Ain't Gonna Work On Maggie's Farm No More: Institutional Segregation, Community Treatment, The Ada, And The Promise Of Olmstead V. L.C., Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

Olmstead v. L.C., 119 S. Ct. 2176 (1999), qualifiedly affirming a decision that the Americans with Disabilities Act entitled plaintiffs - residents of Georgia State Hospital - to treatment in an "integrated community setting" as opposed to an "unnecessarily segregated" state hospital, potentially has the capacity to transform and revolutionize institutional mental disability law. Whether that potential is realized depends on multiple factors, especially the extent to which courts, legislatures and the public are willing to confront the extent to which sanism (an irrational prejudice of the same quality and character of other irrational prejudices that cause and are reflected …

Hidden Economy Of The Unconscious, The, Anne Dailey

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Striving For Rationality, Anne Dailey

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Stalking: Cultural, Clinical, And Legal Considerations, Carol E. Jordan, Karen Quinn, Bradley O. Jordan, Celia R. Daileader

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

Crimes of violence against women are unique in their treatment by our culture and our system of legal justice. Both culturally and statutorily, victims of crimes which have historically been perpetrated against women, such as rape, domestic violence, and stalking have received significant focus. This article highlights cultural considerations and provides a statutory and case law analysis.

Mental Health Advance Directives: Having One's Say?, Justine A. Dunlap

Faculty Publications

First, this Article traces the extension of the right to refuse treatment to the psychiatric realm. Next, the Article addresses advance directives for health care and their utility for mental health issues. Then, the Article examines state statutory and judicial responses to mental health advance directives. Finally, the Article analyzes why the right to control future psychiatric treatment, including the right to refuse treatment, has been slow to gain acceptance. Although mental health advance directives present real challenges, legally and otherwise, this Article concludes that they are firmly rooted in the law and their rejection is, more often than not, …

Homosexuality As Contagion: From The Well Of Loneliness To The Boy Scouts, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

In the political arena, there are currently two central and competing views of homosexuality. Pro-family organizations, working from a contagion model of homosexuality, contend that homosexuality is an immoral, unhealthy, and freely chosen vice. Many pro-gay organizations espouse an identity model of homosexuality under which sexual orientation is an immutable, unchosen, and benign characteristic. Both pro-family and pro-gay organizations believe that to define homosexuality is to control its legal and political status. This sometimes bitter debate regarding the nature of same-sex desire might seem like an exceedingly contemporary development. However, the ex-gay media blitz of 2000 represents only the latest …

A Different Kind Of Sameness: Beyond Formal Equality And Antisubordination Principles In Gay Legal Theory And Constitutional Doctrine, Nancy Levit

Nancy Levit

Gay legal theory is at a crossroads reminiscent of the sameness/difference debate in feminist circles and the integrationist debate in critical race theory. Formal equality theorists take the heterosexual model as the norm and then seek to show that gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals - except for their choice of partners - are just like heterosexuals. Antisubordination theorists attack the heterosexual model itself and seek to show that a society that insists on such a model is unjust. Neither of these strategies is wholly satisfactory. The formal equality model will fail to bring about fundamental reforms as long as sexual …

The Inefficiency Of Mens Rea, Claire Oakes Finkelstein

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Using Bargaining For Advantage In Law School Negotiation Courses, Chris Guthrie

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Options, options, options ....The Negotiation literature-at least the "problem-solving" or "interestbased" or "principled" negotiation literature'repeats this mantra over and over and over. It seems self-evident that having lots of options is a good idea because more options means more to choose from. The more options there are to choose from, however, the more difficult choosing can be. Options, in short, may increase the likelihood that one will make an optimal decision, but they impose added "decision costs" on the decision maker. Law professors now face this happy dilemma when choosing materials for their Negotiation courses. Options abound-including the negotiation chapters …

The Mythical Power Of Myth? A Response To Professor Dauer, Nathalie Des Rosiers

Seattle University Law Review

Professor Dauer makes two very interesting points about why endorsing a therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) approach rocks fundamental assumptions about the common law legal system. First, he argues that demonstrating impartiality more than empathy is a practice so entrenched in the system that it cannot be dislodged. Second, he argues that the TJ approach that I advocate in my discussion of the Quebec Secession Reference is more "mediation" than adjudication. I would like to respond to both points and conclude with another example as to how a TJ approach may prove attractive in times of criticism about judicial activism in constitutional …

Therapeutic Jurisprudence In The Appellate Arena—A Louisiana Jurist's Response, Sol Gothard

Seattle University Law Review

Having recognized that there can be both therapeutic and antitherapeutic effects of judicial decisions, I would like to offer this consideration concerning the use of therapeutic jurisprudence in the appellate courts. In his Article, Therapeutic Jurisprudence in the Appellate Arena, David Wexler asks, "Does the ability to issue advisory opinions enhance a court's ability to create 'therapeutic' doctrines?" As a general rule, courts are not allowed to issue advisory opinions and there are strong reasons for such a prohibition.

Therapeutic Jurisprudence And The Appellate Courts: Possibilities, Linda M. Mcgee

Seattle University Law Review

Therapeutic jurisprudence has multiple possibilities, provided it does not add another layer of cost, delay, and time to the process. First, we should see "a reduced number of cases for the appellate court to decide, fewer remands and secondary appeals, the streamlining of appeals through partial resolution of issues, the satisfaction of parties' underlying needs and interests, and the reduction of the time a case spends on appeal." Second, the outcome does not have to become part of the case law that applies to similar cases, possibly establishing negative precedent. Third, mediation allows personal healing and the development of positive, …

Advocacy Of The Establishment Of Mental Health Specialty Courts In The Provision Of Therapeutic Justice For Mentally Ill Offenders, Leroy L. Kondo

Seattle University Law Review

This Article explores the establishment of mental health courts as a partial solution to the perplexing societal problem that relegates mentally ill offenders to a "revolving door" existence in and out of prisons and jails.This inescapable situation results from a paucity ofeffective humanitarian policies, laws, and procedures for treating such medically disordered defendants. The establishment of mental health specialty courts is investigated as a potential means of addressing the complex legal issues and psycho-sociological problems faced by the judicial system in dealing with mentally ill offenders.

Cyberspace And The "Devil's Hatband", Jonathan J. Rusch

Seattle University Law Review

In this Article, I maintain that while there is an ongoing conflict of legal traditions over the desirability of fences in cyberspace, there are definite virtues in the creation of such fences, so long as we understand the physical, psychological, and moral dimensions of that process. Part I will present a brief survey of the history of barbed wire in the Old West, paying particular attention to the contending legal traditions that affected the manner and extent of that growth in the West. These contending legal traditions, which related to "fencing in" versus "fencing out" cattle, played a key role …