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Full-Text Articles in Law
Challenges Facing Judges Regarding Expert Evidence In Criminal Cases, Paul W. Grimm
Challenges Facing Judges Regarding Expert Evidence In Criminal Cases, Paul W. Grimm
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Competition In The Courtroom: When Does Expert Testimony Improve Jurors’ Decisions?, Cheryl Boudreau, Mathew D. Mccubbins
Competition In The Courtroom: When Does Expert Testimony Improve Jurors’ Decisions?, Cheryl Boudreau, Mathew D. Mccubbins
Faculty Scholarship
Many scholars lament the increasing complexity of jury trials and question whether the testimony of competing experts helps unsophisticated jurors to make informed decisions. In this article, we analyze experimentally the effects that the testimony of competing experts has on (1) sophisticated versus unsophisticated subjects' decisions and (2) subjects' deci- sions on difficult versus easy problems. Our results demonstrate that competing expert testimony, by itself, does not help unsophisticated subjects to behave as though they are sophisticated, nor does it help subjects make comparable decisions on difficult and easy problems. When we impose additional institutions (such as penalties for lying …
Nothing But The Truth? Experiments On Adversarial Competition, Expert Testimony, And Decision Making, Cheryl Boudreau, Mathew D. Mccubbins
Nothing But The Truth? Experiments On Adversarial Competition, Expert Testimony, And Decision Making, Cheryl Boudreau, Mathew D. Mccubbins
Faculty Scholarship
Many scholars debate whether a competition between experts in legal, political, or economic contexts elicits truthful information and, in turn, enables people to make informed decisions. Thus, we analyze experimentally the conditions under which competition between experts induces the experts to make truthful statements and enables jurors listening to these statements to improve their decisions. Our results demonstrate that, contrary to game theoretic predictions and contrary to critics of our adversarial legal system, competition induces enough truth telling to allow jurors to improve their decisions. Then, when we impose additional institutions (such as penalties for lying or the threat of …
Specialized Trial Courts: Concentrating Expertise On Fact, Arti K. Rai
Specialized Trial Courts: Concentrating Expertise On Fact, Arti K. Rai
Faculty Scholarship
In the absence of a specialized patent trial court with expertise in fact-finding, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit often reviews de novo the many factual questions that pervade patent law. De novo review of fact by an appellate court is problematic. In the area of patent law, as in other areas of law, there are sound institutional justifications for the conventional division of labor that gives trial courts primary responsibility for questions of law. This Article identifies the problems created by de novo appellate review of fact and argues for the creation of a specialized trial court …