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Full-Text Articles in Law
Good Guys, Bad Guys -- And Miranda, Tamar R. Birckhead
Good Guys, Bad Guys -- And Miranda, Tamar R. Birckhead
Tamar R Birckhead
This op-ed argues that we as a society must get beyond our single-minded focus on the Miranda warnings and find a better way to elicit accurate information from suspects while lowering the risk of false confessions.
Seeing The Forest Through The Trees: Thinking Critically About Mental Health Courts, John A. Bozza
Seeing The Forest Through The Trees: Thinking Critically About Mental Health Courts, John A. Bozza
John A Bozza
The almost universal acceptance of the problem-solving court concept by both the courts and the academic community provides a good example of the hazards of the bandwagon effect on the de-velopment of public policy. The proponents of therapeutic juris-prudence have successfully promoted the adoption of these pro-grams by repeating and then having others repeat a mantra of success that grossly belies reality and ignores the compelling is-sues they raise. Not surprisingly, this has led to the develop-ment of an extensive bureaucracy fueled almost entirely by fed-eral money and encouraged by cheerleaders entrenched in the self-serving subculture of therapeutic jurisprudence. Unfortunately, …
Making Sense Of Reasonable Doubt: Understanding Certainty, Doubt And Rule-Based Bias Filtering, Yali Corea-Levy
Making Sense Of Reasonable Doubt: Understanding Certainty, Doubt And Rule-Based Bias Filtering, Yali Corea-Levy
Yali Corea-Levy
The standard of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” is meant to, at least in part, ensure that the government meets the highest practical standard of proof possible before imposing criminal penalties on persons. This article argues that the standard, as currently applied in trial settings, does not succeed in its goal of being the vanguard of prudence and equity. Specifically, it falls short of this high standard because of its vagueness coupled with our cognitive peculiarities, including our tendency to feel certain about facts more easily than we should. This article describes the problem and ultimately suggests a relatively simple …
Psychopathy And Culpability: How Responsible Is The Psychopath For Criminal Wrongdoing?, Reid G. Fontaine Jd, Phd
Psychopathy And Culpability: How Responsible Is The Psychopath For Criminal Wrongdoing?, Reid G. Fontaine Jd, Phd
Reid G. Fontaine
Recent research into the psychological and neurobiological underpinnings of psychopathy has raised the question of whether, or to what degree, psychopaths should be considered morally and criminally responsible for their actions. In this article we review the current empirical literature on psychopathy, focusing particularly on deficits in moral reasoning, and consider several potential conclusions that could be drawn based on this evidence. Our analysis of the empirical evidence on psychopathy suggests that while psychopaths do not meet the criteria for full criminal responsibility, they nonetheless retain some criminal responsibility. We conclude, by introducing the notion of rights as correlative, that …