Law Commons^™

7. Expert Testimony On The Suggestibility Of Children: Does It Fit?, Thomas D. Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

Trends. Predecisional Distortion: An Example Of Psychology Distorting Justice?, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This Trends article discusses the concept of ‘Predecisional Distortion’ in the context of how juries make decisions.

Regret Theory - Explanation, Evaluation And Implications For The Law, Grant B. Gelberg

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note discusses regret theory, which offers an alternative explanation of rational behavior in risky or uncertain situations. Unlike traditional law and economics, which is based on expected utility theory, regret theory posits that individuals either rejoice or experience regret after making a decision, and that the anticipation of these feelings influences choices ex ante. In recent years, studies have shown the robustness of regret theory, particularly when individuals compare action to inaction, in disparate feedback environments, and when decisional agency is altered. These, and other factors, influence regret theory's impact on litigant behavior, as well as on the …

6. Child Witnesses And The Oath., Thomas D. Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

In Light Of Reason And Experience: Against A Crime Fraud Exception To The Psychotherapist-Patient Privilege, Catherine Thompson Dobrowitsky

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues against the adoption of a crime fraud exception to the federal psychotherapist-patient privilege. Part I argues that the restrictive legal elements of the privilege adequately exclude fraudulent or criminal statements from protection. Part II addresses the needed distinction between the dangerous patient exception and the crime fraud exception to the psychotherapist-patient privilege and concludes that the adoption of a crime fraud exception would threaten a limited dangerous patient exception. Part III contends that the policies underlying the attorney-client and psychotherapist-patient privileges must be distinguished and do not merit a shared crime fraud exception. This Note concludes that …

4. Interviewing Children In And Out Of Court: Current Research And Practice Implications., Karen J. Saywitz, Gail S. Goodman, Thomas D. Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

Unbuckling The Chemical Straitjacket: The Legal Significance Of Recent Advances In The Pharmacological Treatment Of Psychosis, Douglas Mossman Md

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Antipsychotic medications figure prominently in the rapidly-growing field of mental disability law. Although the properties of antipsychotic medications are medical matters, legal scholars, judges, and practicing attorneys often need to understand what these drugs do. Yet the legal database - the principal or sole information source cited and consulted by legal thinkers - is often a source of confusion or misinformation about the actions of antipsychotic drugs and the scientific basis for prescribing them. The potential for misunderstanding antipsychotic treatment has increased since the arrival of "novel" or "aytpical" antipsychotic drugs, which cause fewer side effects than drugs that were …

An Overview: International Human Rights And Mental Disability Law, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Dangerous Patients: An Exception To The Federal Psychotherapist-Patient Privilege, Huston Combs

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Logician Versus The Linguist- An Empirical Tale Of Functional Discrimination In The Legal Academy, Andrea Kayne Kaufman

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This paper, focusing exclusively on gender, asks whether male and female law students express different preferences for logic-based learning models. A wide variety of educational theories and other theories have been used to conceptualize different learning preferences among law students but until now, none has focused on logical intelligence compared with the other intelligences. Using Harvard educational psychologist Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences, this paper describes an empirical study establishing that male and female law students express differences in preferring logical intelligence over the other intelligences. This paper introduces the concept of "functional discrimination," addressing the ways in which …

Theorizing The Connections Among Systems Of Subordination, Nancy Levit

Nancy Levit

Theorizing the Connections Among Systems of Subordination introduces a symposium that addresses issues on the leading edge of identity theory, race theory, and critical social theory. It explains the concepts of anti-essentialism, intersectionality, multiple consciousness, multi-dimensionality, and post-intersectionality. It investigates the ways specific types of oppression - such as racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia - support and feed off of one another. It explores the dynamics of subordination that make different forms of subordination connected to each other - the mechanisms by which subordinating systems buttress each other. Where one sees sexism, one frequently can find racism; where classism exists, …

Teoría General De La Prueba Judicial, Edward Ivan Cueva

Edward Ivan Cueva

No abstract provided.

Children Of Color With Mental Health Problems: Stuck In All The Wrong Places, Susan P. Leviton

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mens Rea, Paul H. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

Mens Rea, or “guilty mind,” marks a central distinguishing feature of criminal law. An injury caused without mens rea might be grounds for civil liability but typically not for criminal. Criminal liability requires not only causing a prohibited harm or evil -- the “actus reus” of an offense -- but also a particular state of mind with regard to causing that harm or evil. For a phrase so central to criminal law, “mens rea” suffers from a surprising degree of confusion in its meaning. One source of confusion arises from the two distinct ways in which the phrase is used, …

The Signaling Model Of Social Norms: Further Thoughts, Eric A. Posner

University of Richmond Law Review

One of the most notable trends in legal scholarship is the explosion of writing on social norms. Just a few years ago one might have argued that the scholarship was marginal, of interest to only a handful of law professors, but expressions of skepticism about the value of this scholarship have become rare. At the same time, it would be wrong to say that "law and social norms" ("LSN") is a movement or school within legal scholarship: the writings about this topic are too diverse, and there is little of that sense of forward movement that is characteristic of more …

Predicting Defection, Elmer J. Shaefer

University of Richmond Law Review

Eric Posner's cooperation theory of social norms develops from rational choice theory an austere and powerful explanation of why people comply with social norms. He illustrates his theory with subtle analysis of a number of legal issues. The book will help anyone influenced by law and economics to incorporate into her thinking the work in sociology, psychology, and ethics that bears on human behavior. Most readers will find applications for Posner's theory.

Chimes Of Freedom: International Human Rights And Institutional Mental Disability Law, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Can Law And Economics Be Both Practical And Principled?, David A. Hoffman, Michael P. O'Shea

All Faculty Scholarship

This article describes important recent developments in normative law and economics, and the difficulties they create for the project of efficiency-based legal reform. After long proceeding without a well articulated moral justification for using economic decision procedures to choose legal rules, scholars have lately begun to devote serious attention to developing a philosophically attractive definition of well-being. At the same time, the empirical side of law and economics is also being enriched with an improved understanding of the complexities of individuals' decision-making behavior. That is where the problems begin. Scholars may have better, more plausible conceptions of well-being in hand, …

The Blurry Line Between "Mad" And "Bad": Is "Lack-Of-Control" A Workable Standard For Sexually Violent Predators?, Georgia Smith Hamilton

University of Richmond Law Review

In January 1993, thirty-one-year-old Michael Crane entered a tanning salon in Johnson County, Kansas and exposed himself to the nineteen-year-old female attendant. Thirty minutes later, he entered a nearby video store and waited for all of the customers to leave. Once the store was empty, Crane exposed himself to the twenty-year-old female clerk, threatened to rape her, grabbed her by the back of the neck, and demanded that she perform oral sex on him. He then suddenly and abruptly stopped the attack and ran out ofthe store.

What's Good Is Bad, What's Bad Is Good, You'll Find Out When You Reach The Top, You're On The Bottom: Are The Americans With Disabilities Act (And Olmstead V. L.C.) Anything More Than 'Idiot Wind', Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

Mental Disability law is contaminated by "sanism," an irrational prejudice similar to such other irrational prejudices as racism and sexism. The passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) - a statute that focused specifically on questions of stereotyping and stigma - appeared at first to offer an opportunity too deal frontally with sanist attitudes and, optimally, to restructure the way that citizens with mental disabilities were dealt with by the remainder of society. However, in its first decade, the ADA did not prove to be a panacea for such persons. The Supreme Court's 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C. …

International Environmental Law And Emotional Rational Choice, Peter H. Huang

Publications

This paper considers how emotions can foster compliance by rational actors with international environmental law. Many environmental issues are highly emotionally charged. Both supporters of and opponents to international environmental law often feel very strongly about their positions and views. A psychological game-theoretic model focuses on the disciplinary role that losing face may play in compliance with international environmental law. This model implies that non-compliance, especially by high-profile international actors, should be highly and swiftly publicized upon detection and verification. The model also explains why actors care so much about soft, that is, non-binding international environmental law, such as international …

Crime And Consciousness: Science And Involuntary Acts , Deborah W. Denno

Faculty Scholarship

This Article confronts this clash between legal and scientific perspectives on consciousness by proposing new ways to structure the voluntary act requirement so that it incorporates the insights of modern science on the human mind. Part I examines the criminal law's voluntary act requirement, particularly in the context of the MPC's influential provision, which reflects the law and psychology of the era in which the MPC was originally developed--the 1950s. Part II analyzes the new science of “consciousness,” a term that typically refers to the sum of a person's thoughts, feelings, and sensations, as well as the everyday circumstances and …

Uncontrollable Urges And Irrational People, Stephen J. Morse

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Punitive Damages: How Jurors Fail To Promote Efficiency, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Evidence of corporate risk-cost balancing often leads to inefficient punitive damages awards, suggesting that jurors fail to base their decision making on principles of economic efficiency. In this Article, Professor Viscusi presents the results of two experiments regarding jury behavior and punitive damages. In the first experiment, Professor Viscusi found that mock jurors punish companies for balancing risk against cost, although award levels vary depending on how the economic analysis is presented at trial. The results of the second experiment suggested that mock jurors are unwilling or unable to follow a set of model jury instructions designed to generate efficient …

The Progress Of Passion, Kathryn Abrams

Michigan Law Review

Like an abandoned fortress, the dichotomy between reason and the passions casts a long shadow over the domain of legal thought. Beset by forces from legal realism to feminist epistemology, this dichotomy no longer holds sovereign sway. Yet its structure helps to articulate the boundaries of the legal field; efforts to move in and around it infuse present thinking with the echoes of a conceptually distinct past. Early critics of the dichotomy may unwittingly have prolonged its influence through the frontal character of their attacks. By challenging a strong distinction between emotion and reason, critics kept it, paradoxically, before legal …

Fallen Superheroes And Constitutional Mirages: The Tale Of Brady V. Maryland, Scott E. Sundby

Articles

No abstract provided.

3. Coming To Grips With Children’S Suggestibility., Karen J. Saywitz, Thomas D. Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

5. Support Persons And The Child Witness., Thomas D. Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

6. Applying Suggestibility Research To The Real World: The Case Of Repeated Questions., Thomas D. Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

What Do Family Mediators Do? A Look At Practices And Models, Sherrill W. Hayes

Sherrill W. Hayes

No abstract provided.