Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Evidence Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Courts

Michigan Law Review

Journal

Juries

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Evidence

An Outsider's View Of Common Law Evidence, Roger C. Park May 1998

An Outsider's View Of Common Law Evidence, Roger C. Park

Michigan Law Review

same line by a Newton. There have been improvements since Bentham's jeremiad. But Anglo-American evidence law is still puzzling. It rejects the common-sense principle of free proof in favor of a grotesque jumble of technicalities. It has the breathtaking aspiration of regulating inference by rule, causing it to exalt the foresight of remote rulemakers over the wisdom of on-the-spot adjudicators. It departs from tried-and-true practices of rational inquiry, as when it prohibits courts from using categories of evidence that are freely used both in everyday life and in the highest affairs of state. Sometimes it seems to fear dim light …


Legal Psychology: Eyewitness Testimony--Jury Behavior, Michigan Law Review Mar 1983

Legal Psychology: Eyewitness Testimony--Jury Behavior, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Legal Psychology: Eyewitness Testimony--Jury Behavior by L. Craig Parker


Civil Juries And Complex Cases: Let's Not Rush To Judgment, Richard O. Lempert Nov 1981

Civil Juries And Complex Cases: Let's Not Rush To Judgment, Richard O. Lempert

Michigan Law Review

When a fundamental constitutional right is at issue, it is admittedly difficult for the Court to treat the lower courts as laboratories. But if the constitutional right turns on empirical questions, it is better to wait for knowledge than to rush toward a judgment that may later be shown to have vitiated an important right across all circuits. If the Court feels compelled to resolve the conflict, the better decision - if empirical issues are seen as central - is to sustain the right to jury trial regardless of complexity. Sustaining that right will allow courts and researchers to collect …


Modeling Relevance, Richard O. Lempert May 1977

Modeling Relevance, Richard O. Lempert

Michigan Law Review

During the past decade, particularly during the years immediately following the California Supreme Court's decision in People v. Collins, a number of articles have appeared suggesting ways in which jurors might use certain mathematical techniques of decision theory as aids in the rational evaluation of circumstantial evidence. Professor Tribe, in an important response to the post-Collins articles, argues against introducing these techniques into the factfinding process. Problems that Tribe foresees include the necessary imprecision of the probabilistic estimates that these techniques require, the dwarfing of soft variables by those that are more readily quantified, and the potential dehumanization …


Medical Facts That Can And Cannot Be Proved By X-Ray: Historical Review And Present Possibilities, Samuel W. Donaldson Apr 1943

Medical Facts That Can And Cannot Be Proved By X-Ray: Historical Review And Present Possibilities, Samuel W. Donaldson

Michigan Law Review

As the science of the practice of medicine has progressed, new discoveries have brought out newer methods of diagnosis and treatment. With the discovery of x-rays by Professor Wilhelm Roentgen in 1895, an entirely new field was opened. The growth of this new field of medical radiology has been unusually rapid and of great importance. Radiology embraces the use of x-rays, radium, and other radioactive substances. Roentgenology is a division of radiology in that it is limited to the use of the Roentgen rays or x-rays, and medical roentgenology may be termed as the use of x-rays for the diagnosis …


Trial - Directed Verdict Where Testimony Is Conflicting, Edward S. Biggar May 1940

Trial - Directed Verdict Where Testimony Is Conflicting, Edward S. Biggar

Michigan Law Review

Defendants engaged the plaintiff to repair a barn roof. In his suit to recover damages for injuries sustained while on the defendants' premises, the plaintiff testified that he had been struck by a truck which one of the defendants had been driving. The defendants testified that they had discovered the plaintiff lying injured at the side of the barn, near a ladder which had been placed against it. Defendants moved for a directed verdict, which was denied, and after a verdict for the plaintiff, defendants appealed from the denial of their motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Held, that …