Law Commons^™

Information Overload, Multi-Tasking, And The Socially Networked Jury: Why Prosecutors Should Approach The Media Gingerly, Andrew Taslitz

Andrew E. Taslitz

The rise of computer technology, the internet, rapid news dissemination, multi-tasking, and social networking have wrought changes in human psychology that alter how we process news media. More specifically, news coverage of high-profile trials necessarily focuses on emotionally-overwrought, attention-grabbing information disseminated to a public having little ability to process that information critically. The public’s capacity for empathy is likewise reduced, making it harder for trial processes to overcome the unfair prejudice created by the high-profile trial. Market forces magnify these changes. Free speech concerns limit the ability of the law to alter media coverage directly, and the tools available to …

Professional Responsibility Compliance And National Security Attorneys: Adopting The Normative Framework Of Internalized Legal Ethics, Keith A. Petty

Keith A. Petty

In 2010, a Department of Justice report cleared the authors of the infamous “torture memos” of professional misconduct, but was highly critical of their application of ethical norms. This episode underscores the lack of clarity in professional responsibility obligations of government legal advisors. While methods such as identifying the client and defining the role of the attorney have been used to facilitate adherence to ethical norms, evidence demonstrates that these approaches fail to overcome external pulls from ethical compliance during times of crisis.

This article argues that ethical compliance failures by government legal advisors call for a fundamental reexamination of …