Law and Psychology Commons^™

Legal Representation Of Parents In Child Dependency Cases In Virginia, Eric J. Reynolds

University of Richmond Law Review

Virginia’s current system of providing court-appointed legal counsel for parents involved in child dependency cases is unsustainable and inadequate, requiring swift and dramatic action from the state government. Inadequate legal representation for parents often leads to poor outcomes for children and a lack of protections for the parents’ due process rights. While attempts to improve the system have been made in recent years, they are often quickly dismissed. The largest hindrances in the current system, this Article suggests, is that court-appointed attorneys for parents are typically underpaid, undertrained, and consequently unable to meaningfully advocate for their client. Due to the …

Foreword, The Honorable L. A. Harris Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

“Your writing is so bad you will not be considered for Law Review and there is some question about your admittance to Law School.”

Life is strange and ironic. In 1974 as a second year law student at the T. C. Williams School of Law at the University of Richmond, I was invited to submit an article to determine if I would be permitted to serve on the Law Review. A member of the Law Review evaluated my article and met with me. In summation he said my writing was so bad that I would not be considered for Law …

Prison Housing Policies For Transgender, Non-Binary, Gender-Non-Conforming, And Intersex People: Restorative Ways To Address The Gender Binary In The United States Prison System, John G. Sims

University of Richmond Law Review

“[I]t was the end of the last quarter of 2019 where I was able to drop the lawsuit against the correctional officer who had sexually harmed me when I knew . . . that the carceral state is not the way for me to find healing . . . . I was not going to seek my transformation and restoration through this system.”

Each year, rhetoric and legislation attacking transgender, non-binary, gender non-conforming and intersex individuals seemingly grows louder. Many political institutions in the United States perpetuate and enable the oppression of these individuals, one of which is the United …

Unshackled: Stories Of Redemption Among Serious Youth Offenders, Julie E. Mcconnell

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

In a series of decisions concerning child defendants, the United States Supreme

Court has embraced the understanding, based on adolescent brain

development, that the legal system must recognize children are different than

adults concerning criminal culpability and sentencing. That recognition, culminating

in Miller v. Alabama and Montgomery v. Louisiana, led to the opportunity

for thousands of individuals across the country, initially sentenced

to death-in-prison sentences when they were minors, to gain a meaningful

opportunity for release. These cases permanently banned mandatory life sentences

for children. In Virginia, the legislature now allows reconsideration

of these cases through hearings before the parole …

Plea Bargaining: A Test Of Dual Discounting Preferences For Non-Monetary Losses, Lauren E. Clatch

Law Faculty Publications

Judgment and decision-making research on discounting suggests that when humans are thinking about gains, they tend to prefer certain and immediate outcomes to uncertain and delayed outcomes. However, discounting has been studied primarily using monetary commodities and, until recently, by testing one feature of the binary forced-choice task at a time: delay, probability, or amount of money received/lost. The present research is the first test of a dual discounting task that combines probability and delay into a single, binary forced-choice task in a non-monetary loss context. The key findings, based on three studies, suggest that delay and probability discounting play …

How Interdisciplinary? Taking Stock Of Decision-Making Research At The Intersection Of Psychology And Law, Lauren E. Clatch

Law Faculty Publications

Contemporary inquiries in psychology and law increasingly cross disciplinary boundaries for inspiration. Our focus is on whether such research is substantive in both directions and whether interdisciplinary psychology-and-law author teams produce more meaningful interdisciplinary work, specifically in decision-making research conducted between 2004 and 2017. We found that interdisciplinary psychology-and-law author teams (a) produce publications that show more cross-disciplinary integration in methods than single-discipline teams,(b) produce publications with more conceptual integration in the introduction and discussion than only law author teams, and (c) elicit more citations than only law or only psychology author teams. When considering a collaborative team approach, we …

Childhood Adverse Events And Adult Physical And Mental Health: A National Study, Lauren E. Clatch

Law Faculty Publications

Prior research has established the negative effects of childhood adverse events on adult health. Despite this, few researchers have accounted for the impact of potentially confounding factors, including adulthood adverse events. The current study used data obtained from a uniquely generalizable sample (N = 34,653) to investigate the predictive effects of reported experience of any childhood adverse event, count of childhood adverse event types, and severity of childhood adverse events on quality of adult physical and mental health. A hierarchical linear regression analysis indicated that, for adult physical health, there was a significant main effect for experience of adulthood adverse …

Involuntarily Committed Patients As Prisoners, Matt Lamkin, Carl Elliott

University of Richmond Law Review

Part I relates several stories of involuntarily committed patients who were recruited into studies posing serious risks. Part II draws on these cases to argue that the involuntary commitment of these patients leaves them vulnerable to unethical treatment by researchers. Their inherently coercive circumstances present an overwhelming obstacle to voluntary consent, and their captive status makes them attractive targets for research that could be performed using less vulnerable subjects.

Part III argues that most research on this patient population is improper under generally applicable principles of informed consent and fair subject selection. However, existing protections have proved insufficient to prevent …

I Share, Therefore It's Mine, Donald J. Kochan

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Shining A Light On The Shadow-Of-Trial Model: A Bridge Between Discounting And Plea Bargaining, Lauren E. Clatch

Law Faculty Publications

Phillip Bivens, accused of raping and killing a woman in Mississippi in 1979, was confronted with this choice: take the bargain of life in prison, or go to trial and face the death penalty. After three decades in prison, Bivens was exonerated in 2010 by DNA tests conducted by the Innocence Project in New Orleans. Why would Bivens, who was factually innocent, plead guilty to a crime he did not commit and forgo his constitutional right to a trial? How can this be explained? Bivens’s choice may be deemed rational because his choice was between life, albeit life in prison, …

Subtly Selling The System: Where Psychological Influence Tactics Lurk In Judicial Writing, Anne E. Mullins

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

And Death Shall Have No Dominion: How To Achieve The Categorical Exemption Of Mentally Retarded Defendants From Execution, J. Amy Dillard

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Something Judicious This Way Comes...The Use Of Foreshadowing As A Persuasive Device In Judicial Narrative, Michael J. Higdon

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Our Founding Feelings: Emotion, Commitment, And Imagination In Constitutional Culture, Doni Gewirtzman

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Efforts To Improve The Illinois Capital Punishment System: Worth The Cost?, Thomas P. Sullivan

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Race, Trust, Altruism, And Reciprocity, George W. Dent Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sell V. United States: Involuntary Administration Of Antipsychotic Medication To Criminal Defendants, Brandy M. Rapp

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

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.

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.

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 …

Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy: Broadening The Scope Of Child Abuse, Michael T. Flannery

University of Richmond Law Review

In July 1989, five-month-old Ryan Stallings spent two weeks in a hospital after suffering abdominal pains. Ryan was subsequently placed in a foster home when police suspected that he ingested antifreeze while in the care of his mother, twenty-four-year-old Patricia Stallings. Police became suspicious of Patricia because Ryan could not walk and thus was unlikely to ingest antifreeze accidentally. Patricia was allowed to visit Ryan once every week while he remained in foster care under the supervision of the Missouri Division of Family Services. Shortly after her visit on August 31, 1989, Ryan was readmitted to the hospital with symptoms …

The Psychotherapist-Patient Privilege In Child Placement: A Relevancy Analysis, Thomas F. Guernsey

Law Faculty Publications

In any child placement decision, the predominant consideration is the welfare of the child. Accordingly, the most widely used test in determining child custody is clearly the "best interests of the child" standard. Despite its relatively old vintage, the standard continues to represent a nebulous concept that courts have rarely been able to define with precision. Because of its open-ended nature, the best interests of the child standard makes relevant a wide range of evidence pertaining to the fitness of the parents and the environment in which the child will be raised. it is in determining these facts that child …

Law And Anarchy, Sidney Hook

University of Richmond Law Review

I wish to consider certain views and attitudes about law and government that seem widely held today, that encourage contempt for law and at least indirectly bear on current political behavior.