Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Jury Responsibility In Capital Sentencing: An Empirical Study, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey, Martin T. Wells

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The law allows executioners to deny responsibility for what they have done by making it possible for them to believe they have not done it. The law treats members of capital sentencing juries quite differently. It seeks to ensure that they feel responsible for sentencing a defendant to death. This differential treatment rests on a presumed link between a capital sentencer's willingness to accept responsibility for the sentence she imposes and the accuracy and reliability of that sentence. Using interviews of 153 jurors who sat in South Carolina capital cases, this article examines empirically whether capital sentencing jurors assume responsibility …

Litigation Outcomes In State And Federal Courts: A Statistical Portrait, Theodore Eisenberg, John Goerdt, Brian Ostrom, David Rottman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

"U.S. Juries Grow Tougher on Plaintiffs in Lawsuits," the New York Times page-one headline reads. The story details how, in 1992, plaintiffs won 52 percent of the personal injury cases decided by jury verdicts, a decline from the 63 percent plaintiff success rate in 1989. The sound-byte explanations follow, including the notion that juries have learned that they, as part of the general population, ultimately pay the costs of high verdicts. Similar stories, reporting both increases and decreases in jury award levels, regularly make headlines. Jury Verdict Research, Inc. (JVR), a commercial service that sells case outcome information, often is …

Xenophilia In American Courts, Kevin M. Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Foreigner! The word says it all. Verging on the politically incorrect, the expression is full of connotation and implication. A foreigner will face bias. By such a thought process, many people believe that litigants have much to fear in courts foreign to them. In particular, non-Americans fare badly in American courts. Foreigners believe this. Even Americans believe this.

Such views about American courts are understandable. After all, the grant of alienage jurisdiction to the federal courts, both original and removal, constitutes an official assumption that xenophobic bias is present in state courts. As James Madison said of state courts: “We …

Courts In Cyberspace, Theodore Eisenberg, Kevin M. Clermont

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.