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Articles 1 - 9 of 9

Full-Text Articles in Law

Reconciling Experimental Incoherence With Real-World Coherence In Punitive Damages, Theodore Eisenberg, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Martin T. Wells Dec 2014

Reconciling Experimental Incoherence With Real-World Coherence In Punitive Damages, Theodore Eisenberg, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Martin T. Wells

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Experimental evidence generated in controlled laboratory studies suggests that the legal system in general, and punitive damages awards in particular, should display an incoherent pattern. According to the prediction, inexperienced decisionmakers, such as juries, should fail to convert their qualitative judgments of defendants' conduct into consistent, meaningful dollar amounts. This Article tests this prediction and finds modest support for the thesis that experience across different types of cases will lead to greater consistency in awards. Despite this support, numerous studies of damage awards in real cases detect a generally sensible pattern of damage awards. This Article tries to reconcile the …


Is Evolutionary Analysis Of Law Science Or Storytelling?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski Dec 2014

Is Evolutionary Analysis Of Law Science Or Storytelling?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

In recent years, some legal scholars have argued that legal scholarship could benefit from a greater reliance on theories of human behavior that arise from biological evolution. These scholars contend that reliance on biological evolution would successfully combine the rigor of economics with the scientific aspects of psychology. Complex legal systems, however, are uniquely human. Law has always been the product of cognitive processes that are unique to humans and that developed as a response to an environment that no longer exists. Consequently, the evolutionary development of the cognitive mechanisms upon which law depends cannot be rigorously modeled or studied …


Juries: Arbiters Or Arbitrary?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski Dec 2014

Juries: Arbiters Or Arbitrary?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

No abstract provided.


Protecting Endangered Species Without Regulating Private Landowners: The Case Of Endangered Plants, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski Dec 2014

Protecting Endangered Species Without Regulating Private Landowners: The Case Of Endangered Plants, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

No abstract provided.


A Positive Psychological Theory Of Judging In Hindsight, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski Dec 2014

A Positive Psychological Theory Of Judging In Hindsight, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

No abstract provided.


Heuristics And Biases In The Court: Ignorance Or Adaptation?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski Dec 2014

Heuristics And Biases In The Court: Ignorance Or Adaptation?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

No abstract provided.


Does Unconscious Racial Bias Affect Trial Judges?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Sheri Johnson, Andrew J. Wistrich, Chris Guthrie Dec 2014

Does Unconscious Racial Bias Affect Trial Judges?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Sheri Johnson, Andrew J. Wistrich, Chris Guthrie

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Race matters in the criminal justice system. Black defendants appear to fare worse than similarly situated white defendants. Why? Implicit bias is one possibility. Researchers, using a well-known measure called the implicit association test, have found that most white Americans harbor implicit bias toward Black Americans. Do judges, who are professionally committed to egalitarian norms, hold these same implicit biases? And if so, do these biases account for racially disparate outcomes in the criminal justice system? We explored these two research questions in a multi-part study involving a large sample of trial judges drawn from around the country. Our results …


"They Saw A Protest": Cognitive Illiberalism And The Speech-Conduct Distinction, Dan M. Kahan, David A. Hoffman, Donald Braman, Danieli Evans, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski Dec 2014

"They Saw A Protest": Cognitive Illiberalism And The Speech-Conduct Distinction, Dan M. Kahan, David A. Hoffman, Donald Braman, Danieli Evans, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

“Cultural cognition” refers to the unconscious influence of individuals’ group commitments on their perceptions of legally consequential facts. We conducted an experiment to assess the impact of cultural cognition on perceptions of facts relevant to distinguishing constitutionally protected “speech” from unprotected “conduct.” Study subjects viewed a video of a political demonstration. Half the subjects believed that the demonstrators were protesting abortion outside of an abortion clinic, and the other half that the demonstrators were protesting the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy outside a campus recruitment facility. Subjects of opposing cultural outlooks who were assigned to the same experimental condition …


The Uncertain Psychological Case For Paternalism, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski Dec 2014

The Uncertain Psychological Case For Paternalism, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

No abstract provided.