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Articles 1 - 19 of 19
Full-Text Articles in Judges
A Synthesis Of The Science And Law Relating To Eyewitness Misidentifications And Recommendations For How Police And Courts Can Reduce Wrongful Convictions Based On Them, Henry F. Fradella
A Synthesis Of The Science And Law Relating To Eyewitness Misidentifications And Recommendations For How Police And Courts Can Reduce Wrongful Convictions Based On Them, Henry F. Fradella
Seattle University Law Review
The empirical literature on perception and memory consistently demonstrates the pitfalls of eyewitness identifications. Exoneration data lend external validity to these studies. With the goal of informing law enforcement officers, prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, judges, and judicial law clerks about what they can do to reduce wrongful convictions based on misidentifications, this Article presents a synthesis of the scientific knowledge relevant to how perception and memory affect the (un)reliability of eyewitness identifications. The Article situates that body of knowledge within the context of leading case law. The Article then summarizes the most current recommendations for how law enforcement personnel should—and …
The Ambiguity And Unfairness Of Dismissing Bad Writing, Benjamin D. Raker
The Ambiguity And Unfairness Of Dismissing Bad Writing, Benjamin D. Raker
Cleveland State Law Review
Courts routinely choose to explicitly dismiss arguments and issues raised by parties, regardless of their merit, based on unexplained determinations that the briefing was bad. This practice, which I call abandonment by poor presentation, is sometimes justified by practicality, by pointing to federal and local rules, by waiver and forfeiture doctrines, and by the norm of party presentation. None of these justifications hold water. I contend that the real reason judges find abandonment by poor presentation is agenda control: judges rely on the practice as a means of retaining control over how they decide cases. This unexplained, poorly justified, and …
A Government Of Laws Not Of Precedents 1776-1876: The Google Challenge To Common Law Myth, James Maxeiner
A Government Of Laws Not Of Precedents 1776-1876: The Google Challenge To Common Law Myth, James Maxeiner
James R Maxeiner
Conventional wisdom holds that the United States is a common law country of precedents where, until the 20th century (the “Age of Statutes”), statutes had little role. Digitization by Google and others of previously hard to find legal works of the 19th century challenges this common law myth. At the Centennial in 1876 Americans celebrated that “The great fact in the progress of American jurisprudence … is its tendency towards organic statute law and towards the systematizing of law; in other words, towards written constitutions and codification.” This article tests the claim of the Centennial Writers of 1876 and finds …
Tell Us A Story, But Don't Make It A Good One: Resolving The Confusion Regarding Emotional Stories And Federal Rule Of Evidence 403, Cathren Page
Cathren Page
Abstract: Tell Us a Story, But Don’t Make It A Good One: Resolving the Confusion Regarding Emotional Stories and Federal Rule of Evidence 403 by Cathren Koehlert-Page Courts need to reword their opinions regarding Rule 403 to address the tension between the advice to tell an emotionally evocative story at trial and the notion that evidence can be excluded if it is too emotional. In the murder mystery Mystic River, Dave Boyle is kidnapped in the beginning. The audience feels empathy for Dave who as an adult becomes one of the main suspects in the murder of his friend Jimmy’s …
Behavioral International Law, Tomer Broude
Behavioral International Law, Tomer Broude
Tomer Broude
Economic analysis and rational choice have in the last decade made significant inroads into the study of international law and institutions, relying upon standard assumptions of perfect rationality of states and decision-makers. This approach is inadequate, both empirically and in its tendency towards outdated formulations of political theory. This article presents an alternative behavioral approach that provides new hypotheses addressing problems in international law while introducing empirically grounded concepts of real, observed rationality. First, I address methodological objections to behavioral analysis of international law: the focus of behavioral research on the individual; the empirical foundations of behavioral economics; and behavioral …
Metaphor And Analogy: The Sun And Moon Of Legal Persuasion, Linda L. Berger
Metaphor And Analogy: The Sun And Moon Of Legal Persuasion, Linda L. Berger
Linda L. Berger
Drawing on recent studies in social cognition, decision making, and analogical processing, this article will recommend that lawyers turn to novel characterizations and metaphors to solve a particular kind of persuasion problem that is created by the way judges and juries think and decide. According to social cognition researchers, we perceive and interpret new information by following a process of schematic cognition, analogizing the new data we encounter to the knowledge structures embedded in our memories. Decision-making researchers differentiate between intuitive and reflective processes (System 1 and System 2), and they agree that in System 1 decision making, only the …
Legal Writing As Good Writing; Tips From The Trenches, Michael A. Zuckerman, Andrey Spektor
Legal Writing As Good Writing; Tips From The Trenches, Michael A. Zuckerman, Andrey Spektor
Michael A. Zuckerman
No abstract provided.
Assuring "Detached But Passionate Investigation And Decision": The Role Of Guardians Ad Litem In Saikewicz-Type Cases, Charles Baron
Assuring "Detached But Passionate Investigation And Decision": The Role Of Guardians Ad Litem In Saikewicz-Type Cases, Charles Baron
Charles H. Baron
The author focuses this Article upon the aspect of the Saikewicz decision which determines that the kind of "proxy consent" question involved in that case required for its decision "the process of detached but passionate investigation and decision that forms the ideal on which the judicial branch of government was created." This aspect of the decision has drawn much criticism from the medical community on the ground that it embroils what doctors believe to be a medical question in the adversarial processes of the court system. The author criticizes the decision from an entirely opposite perspective, arguing that the court's …
Timeless Trial Strategies And Tactics: Lessons From The Classic Claus Von Bülow Case, Daniel M. Braun
Timeless Trial Strategies And Tactics: Lessons From The Classic Claus Von Bülow Case, Daniel M. Braun
Daniel M Braun
In this new Millennium -- an era of increasingly complex cases -- it is critical that lawyers keep a keen eye on trial strategy and tactics. Although scientific evidence today is more sophisticated than ever, the art of effectively engaging people and personalities remains prime. Scientific data must be contextualized and presented in absorbable ways, and attorneys need to ensure not only that they correctly understand jurors, judges, witnesses, and accused persons, but also that they find the means to make their arguments truly resonate if they are to formulate an effective case and ultimately realize justice. A decades-old case …
How Embedded Knowledge Structures Affect Judicial Decision Making: An Analysis Of Metaphor, Narrative, And Imagination In Child Custody Disputes, Linda L. Berger
How Embedded Knowledge Structures Affect Judicial Decision Making: An Analysis Of Metaphor, Narrative, And Imagination In Child Custody Disputes, Linda L. Berger
Linda L. Berger
We live in a time of radically changing conceptions of family and of the relationships possible between children and parents. Though undergoing “a sea-change,” family law remains tethered to culturally embedded stories and symbols. While so bound, family law will fail to serve individual families and a society whose family structures diverge sharply by education, race, class, and income. This article advances a critical rhetorical analysis of the interaction of metaphor and narrative within the specific context of child custody disputes. Its goal is to begin to examine how these embedded knowledge structures affect judicial decision making generally; more specifically, …
Opinion Writing And Opinion Readers, Meehan Rasch
Opinion Writing And Opinion Readers, Meehan Rasch
Meehan Rasch
The authors - a federal appellate judge and his law clerks - bring unique perspectives to bear on the topic of opinion writing and opinion readers. The contents of this Article were inspired in large part by the work done by the authors in editing and preparing the second edition of Judge Aldisert's classic book Opinion Writing, which for many years was distributed to all federal trial and appellate judges, and to all state appellate judges, when they took the bench. A broader audience of professional opinion writers and students of the judicial process now has access to Opinion Writing, …
Of Metaphor, Metonymy, And Corporate Money: Rhetorical Choices In Supreme Court Decisions On Campaign Finance Regulation, Linda L. Berger
Of Metaphor, Metonymy, And Corporate Money: Rhetorical Choices In Supreme Court Decisions On Campaign Finance Regulation, Linda L. Berger
Linda L. Berger
No abstract provided.
A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp
A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp
ExpressO
The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.
Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp
Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp
ExpressO
This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.
Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor
Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor
ExpressO
No abstract provided.
Book Review: Forensic Linguistics, Dru Stevenson
Book Review: Forensic Linguistics, Dru Stevenson
ExpressO
Review of John Gibbons' text "Forensic Linguistics"
The Role Of Purposivism In The Delegation Of Rulemaking Authority To The Courts, Michael Rosensaft
The Role Of Purposivism In The Delegation Of Rulemaking Authority To The Courts, Michael Rosensaft
ExpressO
The courts are often used by Congress as a “political lightning rod,” when Congress cannot decide how to resolve an issue. Congress relies on administrative agencies for their expertise, and it also makes sense for Congress to delegate some rulemaking authority to the courts, relying on a court’s expertise in developing caselaw in an incremental basis. However, this authority should not be lightly implied. A court can tell that Congress has delegated rulemaking authority to it when the purpose of the statute is clear and the text is broadly worded. It thus makes sense in these cases that purposivism should …
A Reply--The Missing Portion, Pierre Schlag
Did She Mention My Name?: Citation Of Academic Authority By The Supreme Court Of Canada, 1985-1990, Vaughan Black, Nicholas Richter
Did She Mention My Name?: Citation Of Academic Authority By The Supreme Court Of Canada, 1985-1990, Vaughan Black, Nicholas Richter
Dalhousie Law Journal
Readers of court judgments will have observed that in the course of expressing reasons for the decisions they reach, judges commonly refer to books and articles written by academics. This is not surprising. Many scholarly publications contain information, arguments and opinions pertinent to the choices that judges must make, and lawyers commonly refer to such works in the written and oral arguments they present to courts. We would therefore expect the judges who must assess and respond to such arguments to make mention of that scholarly material. Moreover a certain portion of academic writing-in particular, a preponderance of law review …