Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Minding Accidents, Teneille R. Brown
Minding Accidents, Teneille R. Brown
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Tort doctrine states that breach is all about conduct. Unlike in the criminal law, where jurors must engage in an amateur form of mindreading to evaluate mens rea, jurors are told that they can assess civil negligence by looking only at how the defendant behaved. But this is false. Foreseeability is at the heart of negligence—appearing as the primary tests for duty, breach, and proximate cause. And yet, we cannot ask whether a defendant should have foreseen a risk without interrogating what he subjectively knew, remembered, perceived, or realized at the time. In fact, the focus on actions in negligence …
Do You See What I See? The Science Behind Utah Rule Of Evidence 617, Louisa Heiny
Do You See What I See? The Science Behind Utah Rule Of Evidence 617, Louisa Heiny
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Eyewitness identifications play a key role in many investigations and are often central to a prosecutor’s case. At the same time, eyewitness identifications can be tainted, accidentally or purposely, thus tainting the justice system as well. There are myriad reasons for this phenomenon, but the primary responsibility lies not with the witness, but rather a system that fails to recognize, and often amplifies, mistakes and assumptions in the identification process.