Law Commons^™

Plaintiphobia In State Courts Redux? An Empirical Study Of State Court Trials On Appeal, Theodore Eisenberg, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Prior federal and state civil appeals studies show that appeals courts overturn jury verdicts more than bench decisions and that defendants fare better than plaintiffs on appeal. Attitudinal and selection effect hypotheses may help explain an appellate court tilt that favors defendants. This study builds on and extends our prior work on state civil appeals and examines a comprehensive state court civil appeals data set to test leading theories on appellate outcomes as well as to explore the relation between plaintiff success at trial and on appeal. Using data from 40 different states and 141 counties on 8,872 completed civil …

Governing And Deciding Who Governs, Josh Chafetz

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that, "Campaign finance restrictions that pursue other objectives [than eradicating quid pro quo corruption or its appearance], we have explained, impermissibly inject the Government 'into the debate over who should govern.' And those who govern should be the last people to help decide who should govern."

This passage sounds great — after all, who could object to an attempt to purge official self-dealing, especially in the election-law context? And therein lies its insidiousness: this rousing language masks a programmatic attempt by Roberts and his colleagues to distance themselves rhetorically …

Introduction To Juries And Lay Participation: American Perspectives And Global Trends, Nancy S. Marder, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The jury in the United States is fraught with paradoxes. Even though the number of jury trials in the United States continues to decline, jury trials play a prominent role in American culture and continue to occupy headlines in newspapers and top stories on television. Americans might not always agree with the verdict that any given jury renders, but they continue to express their support for the jury system in poll after poll. This Symposium of the Chicago-Kent Law Review presents new theories and research, with a focus on the contemporary American jury. The Introduction begins by connecting discussions at …