Law and Psychology Commons^™

Excusing Murder? Conservative Jurors’ Acceptance Of The Gay Panic Defense, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Jessica Salerno, Bette L. Bottoms, B. L. Harrington, Dave Kemner

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

We conducted a simulated trial study to investigate the effectiveness of a “gay-panic” provocation defense as a function of jurors’ political orientation. Mock jurors read about a murder case in which a male defendant claimed a victim provoked the killing by starting a fight, which either included or did not include the male victim making an unwanted sexual advance that triggered a state of panic in the defendant. Conservative jurors were significantly less punitive when the defendant claimed to have acted out of gay panic as compared to when this element was not part of the defense. In contrast, liberal …

All Together Now: Using Principles Of Group Dynamics To Train Better Jurors, Sara Gordon

Scholarly Works

We ask juries to make important decisions that have a profound impact on people’s lives. We leave these decisions in the hands of groups of laypeople because we hope that the diverse range of experiences and knowledge in the group will lead to more thoughtful and informed decisionmaking. Studies suggest that diverse groups of jurors have different perspectives on evidence, engage in more thorough debate, and more closely evaluate facts. At the same time, there are a variety of problems associated with group decisionmaking, from the loss of individual motivation in group settings, to the vulnerability of groups to various …

Effects Of Jurors’ Gender And Attitudes Toward Intellectual Disability On Judgments For Disabled Juvenile Defendants, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Bette L. Bottoms

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Because many juvenile offenders are intellectually disabled and have their cases tried by jurors in adult criminal court, it is important to understand factors that influence jurors’ judgments in such cases. Using a mock trial methodology, we explored the relations among jurors’ gender, attitudes toward intellectual disability, and judgments in a criminal case involving an intellectually disabled 15-year-old girl accused of murder. Men mock jurors’ judgments were not influenced by their preexisting biases, but women's were: the more women favored special treatment for disabled offenders, the less likely they were to suspect the disabled juvenile was guilty and the less …

Procedural Due Process In Modern Problem-Solving Courts: An Application Of The Asymmetric Immune Knowledge Hypothesis, Leah C. Georges

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Problem-solving courts, such as drug and mental health courts, function under the model of therapeutic jurisprudence—the idea that legal policies and procedures should help and not harm clients, within the confines of the law (Winick & Wexler, 2002). Although it would seem that the lack of procedural due process in most problem-solving courts is in direct opposition to the best interests of a client, it is possible that observers find this more of a problem than do the court clients themselves. This two-experiment study applied Igou’s (2008) AIK hypothesis to problem-solving courts’ practice of sanctioning in the absence of due …

Women As Expert Witnesses: A Review Of The Literature, Tess M. S. Neal

University of Nebraska Public Policy Center: Publications

This review of women’s participation in the legal system as expert witnesses examines the empirical literature on the perceived credibility and persuasiveness of women compared with men experts. The effects of expert gender are complex and sometimes depend on the circumstances of the case. Some studies find no differences, some find favorable effects for women and others for men, and still others find that expert gender interacts with other circumstances of the case. The findings are interpreted through social role theory and the role incongruity theory of prejudice. Future directions for research are identified and implications are considered for attorneys …

Promoting The Study Of Wrongful Convictions In Criminal Justice Curricula, Jessica S. Henry

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Criminal justice education promotes interdisciplinary learning, critical thinking skills, and ethical decision making. A course on wrongful convictions falls squarely within that paradigm, as it draws upon criminology, criminal justice, law, psychology, and forensic science to examine basic assumptions about the criminal justice system and the actors within it. In a wrongful convictions course, students learn to think critically about the criminal justice system, and what happens when it fails to function as it should. Students identify practice and policy reforms that improve the accuracy and reliability of the system. This article first considers the broad objectives of criminal justice …

Development And Initial Findings Of An Implementation Process Measure For Child Welfare System Change, Mary I. Armstrong, Julie S. Mccrae, Michelle Graef, Tammy Richards, David Lambert, Charlotte Lyn Bright, Cathy Sowell

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

This article describes a new measure designed to examine the process of implementation of child welfare systems change. The measure was developed to document the status of the interventions and strategies that are being implemented and the drivers that are being installed to achieve sustainable changes in systems. The measure was used in a Children’s Bureau-supported national effort to assess the ongoing implementation of 24 systems-change projects in child welfare jurisdictions across the country. The article describes the process for measure development, method of administration and data collection, and quantitative and qualitative findings.

Judicial Overstating, Dan Simon, Nicholas Scurich

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Ostensibly, we are all Legal Realists now. No longer do legal theorists maintain that judicial decision making fits the mechanical and formalist characterizations of yesteryear. Yet, the predominant style of American appellate court opinions seems to adhere to that improbable mode of adjudication: habitually, opinions provide excessively large sets of syllogistic reasons and portray the chosen decision as certain, singularly correct, and as determined inevitably by the legal materials. This article examines two possible explanations for this rhetorical style of Judicial Overstatement. First, we review the psychological research that suggests that judicial overstatement is a product of the cognitive processes …

Minding The Court: Enhancing The Decision-Making Process, Pamela Casey, Kevin Burke, Steve Leben

Faculty Works

A compelling and growing body of research from the fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience provides important insights about how we process information and make decisions. This research has great potential significance for judges, who spend much of their time making decisions of great importance to others. For most judges, this research literature is not part of their judicial education. This article reviews cutting edge research about decision making and discusses its implications for helping judges and those who work with them produce fair processes and just outcomes. It builds on a 2007 American Judges Association paper that encouraged judges …

Ripples Against The Other Shore: The Impact Of Trauma Exposure On The Immigration Process Through Adjudicators, Kate Aschenbrenner

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Judge, He Cast His Robe Aside: Mental Health Courts, Dignity And Due Process, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

One of the most important developments in the past two decades in the way that criminal defendants with mental disabilities are treated in the criminal process has been the creation and the expansion of mental health courts, one kind of “problem-solving court.” There are now over 300 such courts in operation in States, some dealing solely with misdemeanors, some solely with non-violent offenders, and some with no such restrictions. There is a wide range of dispositional alternatives available to judges in these cases, and an even wider range of judicial attitudes. And the entire concept of “mental health courts” is …

Adult Survivors Of Childhood Sexual Abuse And The Statute Of Limitations: The Need For Consistent Application Of The Delayed Discovery Rule, Gregory G. Gordon

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Unreliability Of Testimony From A Witness With Multiple Personality Disorder (Mpd): Why Courts Must Acknowledge The Connection Between Hypnosis And Mpd And Adopt A “Per Se” Rule Of Exclusion For Mpd Testimony, Mark Anthony Miller

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law As A Healing Profession: The "Comprehensive Law Movement" , Susan Daicoff

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article outlines the history, context, importance, and development of ten or so "vectors" of an emerging change in the law comprising the "comprehensive law movement." This is a movement towards law as a positive force in the resolution and administration of legal matters. The vectors include: creative problem solving, therapeutic jurisprudence, preventive law, restorative justice, collaborative law, transformative mediation, and holistic justice. The movement utilizes the insights of procedural justice and other social science-based understanding of the intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics of legal affairs and legal disputes. Developments such as problem solving courts, which include drug treatment courts, unified …

Collaborative Practice's Radical Possibilities For The Legal Profession:"[Two Lawyers And Two Clients] For The Situation" , Robert F. Cochran Jr.

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article will consider the two dramatic changes that collaborative practice [CP] brings to law practice: a change in the mental attitude of lawyers and clients toward the conflict and a change in lawyers' counseling techniques. Part II defines CP and compares it to traditional negotiation-pending-litigation. Part III considers the change in attorney and client mental attitudes wrought by CP, where both lawyers and clients take responsibility for identifying a resolution that will meet the needs of all of the parties. Part IV considers the type of client-counseling that is often generated by CP-lawyers in CP may strongly encourage clients …

American Indian Women And Sexual Assault: Challenges And New Opportunities, Angela R. Gebhardt, Jane D. Woody

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

This article informs social workers about sexual violence against American Indian and Alaskan Native (AI/AN) women and the policy reforms in the 2010 Tribal Law and Order Act (TLOA). It describes the unmet needs of AI/AN survivors, reviews the TLOA reforms on sexual assault in relation to social work and public health principles, discusses the complementary roles for social workers and public health practitioners in reform efforts, and offers guidance for professional participation that emphasizes tribal sovereignty, indigenous capacity, and cultural competence.

Best Outcomes For Indian Children, Loa L. Porter, Patina Park Zink, Angela R. Gebhardt, Mark Ells, Michelle Graef

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families and the Midwest Child Welfare Implementation Center are collaborating with Wisconsin's tribes and county child welfare agencies to improve outcomes for Indian children by systemically implementing the Wisconsin Indian Child Welfare Act (WICWA).This groundbreaking coUaboration wiU increase practitioners' understanding ofthe requirements of WICWA and the need for those requirements, enhance communication and coordination between all stakeholders responsible for the welfare of Indian children in Wisconsin; it is designed to effect the systemic integration of the philosophical underpinnings of WICWA.

In December 2009, Governor James Doyle signed the Wisconsin Indian Child Welfare Act, signaling …

Incitement To Riot In The Age Of Flash Mobs, Margot E. Kaminski

Publications

As people increasingly use social media to organize both protests and robberies, government will try to regulate these calls to action. With an eye to this intensifying dynamic, this Article reviews First Amendment jurisprudence on incitement and applies it to existing statutes on incitement to riot at a common law, state, and federal level. The article suggests that First Amendment jurisprudence has a particularly tortuous relationship with regulating speech directed to crowds. It examines current crowd psychology to suggest which crowd behavior, if any, should as a matter of policy be subject to regulation. It concludes that many existing incitement-to-riot …

Proposal To Reverse The View Of A Confession: From Key Evidence Requiring Corroboration To Corroboration For Key Evidence, Boaz Sangero, Mordechai Halpert

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Both case law and legal literature have recognized that all, and not just clearly statistical, evidence is probabilistic. Therefore, we have much to learn from the laws of probability with regard to the evaluation of evidence in a criminal trial. The present Article focuses on the confession. First, we review legal and psychological literature and show that the probability of a false confession and, consequently, a wrongful conviction, is far from insignificant. In light of this, we warn against the cognitive illusion, stemming from the fallacy of the transposed conditional, which is liable to mislead the trier of fact in …

Ask And What Shall Ye Receive? A Guide For Using And Interpreting What Jurors Tell Us, Barbara O'Brien, Samuel R. Sommers, Phoebe C. Ellsworth

Articles

We review the extensive body of studies relying on jurors' self-reports in interviews or questionnaires, with a focus on potential threats to validity for researchers seeking to answer particularly provocative questions such as the influence of race in jury decision-making. We then offer a more focused case study comparison of interview and questionnaire data with behavioral data in the domain of race and juror decision-making. Our review suggests that the utility of data obtained from juror interviews and questionnaire responses varies considerably depending on the question under investigation. We close with an evaluation of the types of empirical questions most …

Jurors’ Perceptions Of Juvenile Defendants: The Influence Of Intellectual Disability, Abuse History, And Confession Evidence, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Bette L. Bottoms, Maria C. Vargas

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Understanding jurors’ perceptions of juvenile defendants has become increasingly important as more and more juvenile cases are being tried in adult criminal court rather than family or juvenile court. Intellectual disability and child maltreatment are overrepresented among juvenile delinquents, and juveniles (particularly disabled juveniles) are at heightened risk for falsely confessing to crimes. In two mock trial experiments, we examined the effects of disability, abuse history, and confession evidence on jurors’ perceptions of a juvenile defendant across several different crime scenarios. Abused juveniles were treated more leniently than nonabused juveniles only when the juvenile’s crime was motivated by self-defense against …

Peering Into The Judicial Magic Eight Ball: Arbitrary Decisions In The Area Of Juror Removal, 42 J. Marshall L. Rev. 813 (2009), Kimberly Wise

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Recruiting And Selecting Child Welfare Staff, Michelle Graef, Megan Paul, Tara L. Myers

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

In this chapter, the focus is on recruiting and selecting new staff and on the steps agencies can take to ensure that they are doing the best possible job to attract and hire a high-performing, committed workforce. This chapter reviews a number of strategies for improving recruitment and selection processes and provides case examples from the authors' work with child protection agencies in several states. These projects have been accomplished by a team of researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Center on Children, Families, and the Law (CCFL). Some of the techniques described here will be familiar, whereas others are …

Managing Performance [In Child Welfare Supervision], Megan E. Paul, Michelle Graef, Erika J. Robinson, Kristin Saathoff

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

One of the primary roles of a supervisor is to manage worker performance. Performance management is the "continuous process of identifying, measuring, and developing the performance of individuals and teams and aligning performance with the strategic goals of the organization" (Aguinis, 2007, p. 2). Supervisors must regularly assess current performance levels and take steps to improve performance in a way that is congruent with agency goals. The ultimate goal is to achieve agency objectives through individual and team performance.

To effectively manage performance, supervisors must know what the performance expectations are for workers and clearly communicate these expectations to workers. …

The Clear Initiative And Mental States: 1½ Problems Solved, 41 J. Marshall L. Rev. 701 (2008), Timothy P. O'Neill

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

"I'D Grab At Anything. And I'D Forget." Domestic Violence Victim Testimony After Davis V. Washington, 41 J. Marshall L. Rev. 937 (2008), Nancee Alexa Barth

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

What To Do With Omar Khadr? Putting A Child Soldier On Trial: Questions Of International Law, Juvenile Justice, And Moral Culpability, 41 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1281 (2008), Christopher L. Dore

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Likelihood Of Using Drug Courts: Predictions Using Procedural Justice And The Theory Of Planned Behavior, Evelyn M. Maeder, Richard L. Weiner

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The current research compares two theoretical models borrowed from social psychology (theory of planned behavior and procedural justice) to predict intentions to make use of a drug court. Medicaid-eligible substance users answered a number of questions regarding their intentions to use a drug court in the future, including items from planned behavior and procedural justice scales. When procedural justice was considered alone, only trustworthiness predicted intention to use drug courts. When planned behavior was considered alone, only deliberative attitudes predicted the intention. After combining the two models, deliberative attitudes from the theory of planned behavior were the only significant predictor …

Competent Capital Representation: The Necessity Of Knowing And Heeding What Jurors Tell Us About Mitigation, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Scott E. Sundby

Articles

No abstract provided.

Standing Alone: Conformity, Coercion, And The Protection Of The Holdout Juror, Jason D. Reichelt

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The holdout juror in felony criminal trials is a product of the near-universal decision rule in federal and state courts of a unanimous verdict. In recent years, courts have increasingly inquired into a jury's deliberations when a holdout juror has been identified amid allegations of misconduct. This Article helps bridge the considerable gap between cognitive psychology and legal scholarship, analyzing the thought processes of the holdout juror through the application of empirical evidence and psychological modeling, to conclude that the improved protection of the holdout juror is a necessary and critical component to the preservation of a defendant's right to …