Law and Psychology Commons^™

I Expected It To Happen/I Knew He'd Lost Control: The Impact Of Ptsd On Criminal Sentencing After The Promulgation Of Dsm-5, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

The adoption by the American Psychiatric Association of DSM-5 significantly changes (and in material ways, expands) the definition of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a change that raises multiple questions that need to be considered carefully by lawyers, mental health professionals, advocates and policy makers.

My thesis is that the expansion of the PTSD criteria in DSM-5 has the potential to make significant changes in legal practice in all aspects of criminal procedure, but none more so than in criminal sentencing. I believe that if courts treat DSM 5 with the same deference with which they have treated earlier versions of …

Taboo Procedural Tradeoffs: Examining How The Public Experiences Tradeoffs Between Procedural Justice And Cost, Victor D. Quintanilla

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Fairness is a foundational concept in American jurisprudence. Yet when evaluating our system of civil procedure, debate surrounds how to reconcile the competing ends of our civil justice system. While scholars agree that our civil justice system must vindicate rights, deter wrongful conduct, respect human dignity, and enhance social welfare and efficiency, scholars disagree on how best to reconcile these ends. Doubtless, the tension between these plural ends poses difficulty when courts, civil rule designers, and legislators balance and weigh the costs and benefits of different civil procedural rules and constitutional safeguards under the Due Process Clause. Notably, courts face …

Learning And Lawyering Across Personality Types, Ian Weinstein

Faculty Scholarship

Personality theory illuminates recurring problems in law school teaching. While the roots of modern personality theory extend back to Hippocrates and the theory of the four humors, contemporary ideas owe much to Carl Jung's magisterial book, Psychological Types. Jung's work gave us the categories of introvert and extrovert, as it explored what has come to be understood as the cognitive bases for our habits of mind. These are powerful ideas but also complex and sometimes obscure. Applying them to law school teaching and learning (and law practice) can be very fruitful, if we pay careful attention to ourselves and colleagues, …

How Improving Decision-Making And Mindfulness Can Improve Legal Ethics And Professionalism, Peter H. Huang

Publications

Lawyers who behave unethically and unprofessionally do so for various reasons, ranging from intention to carelessness. Lawyer misconduct can also result from decision-making flaws. Psychologist Chip Heath and his brother Dan Heath, in their best-selling book, Decisive: How to Make Better Decisions in Life and Work, suggest a process to improve people’s decision-making. They introduce the acronym WRAP as the mnemonic for these decision-making heuristics: (1) Widen your options, (2) Reality-test your assumptions, (3) Attain distance before deciding, and (4) Prepare to be wrong. The WRAP process mitigates these cognitive biases: (1) narrow framing of a decision problem, (2) …

Food Policy And Cognitive Bias, Paul F. Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Zombie Lawyer Apocalypse, Peter H. Huang, Corie Rosen Felder

Publications

This Article uses a popular cultural framework to address the near-epidemic levels of depression, decision-making errors, and professional dissatisfaction that studies have documented are prevalent among law students and lawyers today.

Zombies present an apt metaphor for understanding and contextualizing the ills now common in the American legal and legal education systems. To explore that metaphor and its import, this Article will first establish the contours of the zombie literature and will apply that literature to the existing state of legal education and legal practice, ultimately describing a state that we believe can only be termed "the Zombie Lawyer Apocalypse." …

Dangerous Diagnoses, Risky Assumptions, And The Failed Experiment Of “Sexually Violent Predator” Commitment, Deirdre M. Smith

Oklahoma Law Review

In its 1997 opinion, Kansas v. Hendricks, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law that reflected a new model of civil commitment. The targets of this new commitment law were dubbed “Sexually Violent Predators” (SVPs), and the Court upheld indefinite detention of these individuals on the assumption that there is a psychiatrically distinct class of individuals who, unlike typical recidivists, have a mental condition that impairs their ability to refrain from violent sexual behavior. And, more specifically, the Court assumed that the justice system could reliably identify the true “predators,” those for whom this unusual and extraordinary deprivation of liberty …

Scientizing Culpability: The Implications Of Hall V. Florida And The Possibility Of A “Scientific Stare Decisis”, Christopher Slobogin

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The Supreme Court’s decision in Hall v. Florida held that “clinical definitions” control the meaning of intellectual disability in the death penalty context. In other words, Hall “scientized” the definition of a legal concept. This Article discusses the implications of this unprecedented move. It also introduces the idea of scientific stare decisis—a requirement that groups that are scientifically alike be treated similarly for culpability purposes—as a means of implementing the scientization process.

Hall V. Florida: The Supreme Court’S Guidance In Implementing Atkins, James W. Ellis

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Daryl Atkins Story, Mark E. Olive

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Challenges Of Conveying Intellectual Disabilities To Judge And Jury, Caroline Everington

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The True Legacy Of Atkins And Roper: The Unreliability Principle, Mentally Ill Defendants, And The Death Penalty’S Unraveling, Scott E. Sundby

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

In striking down the death penalty for intellectually disabled and juvenile defendants, Atkins v. Virginia and Roper v. Simmons have been understandably heralded as important holdings under the Court’s Eighth Amendment jurisprudence that has found the death penalty “disproportional” for certain types of defendants and crimes. This Article argues, however, that the cases have a far more revolutionary reach than their conventional understanding. In both cases the Court went one step beyond its usual two-step analysis of assessing whether imposing the death penalty violated “evolving standards of decency.” This extra step looked at why even though intellectual disability and youth …

Does Atkins Make A Difference In Non-Capital Cases? Should It?, Paul Marcus

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

A Tale Of Two (And Possibly Three) Atkins: Intellectual Disability And Capital Punishment Twelve Years After The Supreme Court’S Creation Of A Categorical Bar, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Paul Marcus, Emily Paavola

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Psychological Mechanisms Underlying Support For Juvenile Sex Offender Registry Laws: Prototypes, Moral Outrage, And Perceived Threat, Margaret C. Stevenson, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Jessica M. Salerno, Tisha R.A. Wiley, Bette L. Bottoms, Katlyn S. Farum

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

We investigated whether and how a juvenile’s history of experiencing sexual abuse affects public perceptions of juvenile sex offenders in a series of 5 studies. When asked about juvenile sex offenders in an abstract manner (Studies 1 and 2), the more participants (community members and undergraduates) believed that a history of being sexually abused as a child causes later sexually abusive behavior, the less likely they were to support sex offender registration for juveniles. Yet when participants considered specific sexual offenses, a juvenile’s history of sexual abuse was not considered to be a mitigating factor. This was true when participants …

Climate Change Survey Measures: Exploring Perceived Bias And Question Interpretation, Tarik Abdel-Monem, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig, Tonya K. Bernadt, Nicole Wall

Lisa PytlikZillig Publications

Climate change has become an important yet politically divisive topic in recent years. Further complicating the issue are assertions that climate change– related public opinion surveys used by social scientists are biased or otherwise problematic. We conducted a pilot study to explore questions concerning bias and interpretation of climate change surveys. Our study sample was composed of adult residents of Nebraska (n = 115). We augmented our survey findings with cognitive interviews of a subsample of respondents (n = 20). We assessed study participants’ attitudes about climate change, and perceptions of bias and interpretation of survey questions drawn from previously …

The Language Of Mens Rea, Owen D. Jones, Matthew R. Ginther, Francis X. Shen, Richard J. Bonnie, Morris B. Hoffman, Rene Marois, Kenneth W. Simons

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

To be guilty of a crime, generally one must commit a bad act while in a culpable state of mind. But the language used to define, partition, and communicate the variety of culpable mental states (in Latin, mens rea) is crucially important. For depending on the mental state that juries attribute to him, a defendant can be convicted-for the very same act and the very same consequence-of different crimes, each with different sentences.

The influential Model Penal Code ("MPC") of 1962 divided culpable mental states into four now-familiar kinds: purposeful, knowing, reckless, and negligent.' Both before the MPC and since, …

Shame, Rage And Freedom Of Speech: Should The United States Adopt European "Mobbing" Laws?, Brady Coleman

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Corticolimbic Gating Of Emotion-Driven Punishment, Owen D. Jones, Michael T. Treadway, Joshua W. Buckholtz, Justin W. Martin, Katharine Jan, Christopher L. Asplund, Matthew R. Ginther, Rene Marois

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Determining the appropriate punishment for a norm violation requires consideration of both the perpetrator's state of mind (for example, purposeful or blameless) and the strong emotions elicited by the harm caused by their actions. It has been hypothesized that such affective responses serve as a heuristic that determines appropriate punishment. However, an actor's mental state often trumps the effect of emotions, as unintended harms may go unpunished, regardless of their magnitude. Using fMRI, we found that emotionally graphic descriptions of harmful acts amplify punishment severity, boost amygdala activity and strengthen amygdala connectivity with lateral prefrontal regions involved in punishment decision-making. …

The Expanding Use Of Genetic And Psychological Evidence: Finding Coherence In The Criminal Law? , Michael Vitiello

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Surrogate's Court, Broome County, In Re Guardian Of Derek, Barry M. Frankenstein

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

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 …

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

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Do You Believe He Can Fly? Royce White And Reasonable Accommodations Under The Americans With Disabilities Act For Nba Players With Anxiety Disorder And Fear Of Flying, Michael A. Mccann

Pepperdine Law Review

This Article examines the legal ramifications of Royce White, a basketball player with general anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, playing in the NBA. White's conditions cause him to have a fear of flying, thus making it difficult to play in the NBA. This subject is without precedent in sports law and, because of the unique aspects of an NBA playing career, lacks clear analogy to other employment circumstances. This dispute also illuminates broader legal and policy issues in the relationship between employment and mental illness. This Article argues that White would likely fail in a lawsuit against an NBA …

Applying Sex Offender Registry Laws To Juvenile Offenders: Biases Against Adolescents From Stigmatized Groups, Jessica M. Salerno, Margaret Stevenson, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Tisha R.A. Wiley, Bette L. Bottoms, Liana Peter-Hagene

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

The need to protect children from dangerous sex offenders has led to policies that require juvenile sex offenders to register on public online registries. It is important to determine the implications of these laws for the wellbeing of child victims and also for juvenile offenders on these registries. Is the application of these laws—designed for adult offenders—to juveniles appropriate, necessary, and supported by public sentiment? The chapter reviews current sex offender registration policies and psychological research addressing whether the assumptions underlying these laws are supported by research, public sentiment toward these laws, factors that might drive biases against stigmatized youth …

"Half Mental": Resolving The Risks Posed By Dual Competencies In Applied Sport Psychology, Francis X. Baker

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal (1994 - )

No abstract provided.

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 …

Complex Decision-Making And Cognitive Aging Call For Enhanced Protection Of Seniors Contemplating Reverse Mortgages, 46 Ariz. St. L.J. 299 (2014), Debra Pogrund Stark, Jessica M. Choplin, Joseph Mikels, Amber Schonbrun Mcdonnell

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

This article analyzes the factors that affect the effectiveness of the current rules and counseling protocol in enabling seniors to make well-informed decisions on whether to enter into a proposed reverse mortgage in light of the cognitive barriers that consumers in general, and seniors in particular, face. The article then proposes further changes to these rules and the counseling protocol to better enable seniors to determine whether entering into reverse mortgages is in their best interest in light of their specific financial situations and goals. Section I provides an overview of the current status of the law relating to reverse …

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 …