Law and Psychology Commons^™

Feeling At Home: Learning, Law, Cognitive Science, And Narrative, Lea B. Vaughn

Articles

What is the "how and why" of law's affinity for narrative? In order to explain why the use of stories is such an effective teaching and presentation strategy in the law, this paper will consider theories and accounts from cognitive as well as evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and, briefly, cultural anthropology. This account seeks to address "how" narrative helps us learn and use the law as well as "why" we are so compelled to use stories in teaching and in practice.

Brain science, simplified here, suggests that the first task is to grab someone's attention. Emotionally charged events are more likely …

A Social Psychology Model Of The Perceived Legitimacy Of International Criminal Courts: Implications For The Success Of Transitional Justice Mechanisms, 45 Vand. J. Transnat'l L. 405 (2012), Stuart K. Ford

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

There is a large body of literature arguing that positive perceived legitimacy is a critical factor in the success of international criminal courts, and that courts can be engineered in such a way that they will be positively perceived by adjusting factors such as their institutional structure and outreach efforts. But in many situations the perceived legitimacy of international criminal courts has almost nothing to do with these factors. This Article takes the latest research in social psychology and applies it to survey data about perceptions of international criminal courts in order to understand how affected populations form attitudes about …

Behaviorally Informed Regulation, Michael S. Barr, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir

Book Chapters

Policy makers typically approach human behavior from the perspective of the rational agent model, which relics on normativc, a priori analyses. The model assumes people make insightful, well-planned, highly controlled, and calculated decisions guided by considerations of personal utility. This perspective is promoted in the social sciences and in professional schools and has come to dominate much of the formulation and conduct of policy. An alternative view, developed mostly through empirical behavioral research, and the one we will articulate here, provides a substantially difierent perspective on individual behavior and its policy and regulatory implications. According to the empirical perspective, behavior …

Theorizing Mental Health Courts, E. Lea Johnston

UF Law Faculty Publications

To date, no scholarly article has analyzed the theoretical basis of mental health courts, which currently exist in forty-three states. This Article examines the two utilitarian justifications proposed by mental health court advocates—therapeutic jurisprudence and therapeutic rehabilitation—and finds both insufficient. Therapeutic jurisprudence is inadequate to justify mental health courts because of its inability, by definition, to resolve significant normative conflict. In essence, mental health courts express values fundamentally at odds with those underlying the traditional criminal justice system. Furthermore, the sufficiency of rehabilitation, as this concept appears to be defined by mental health court advocates, depends on the validity of …

Discussion On The Paper By Neumann, Evett And Skerrett, Michael J. Saks, Ashley M. Votruba

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Neumann, Evett, and Skerrett have made a major contribution to the art and science of fingerprint identification. This is an important—perhaps historic—step forward in the intellectual history of fingerprint identification and perhaps other fields of pattern matching forensic science. Their work deals ingeniously with the elusive problem of placing forensic identification on an empirically sound, quantitative foundation.

The Question Of Courage, William I. Miller

Articles

Courage is first among virtues in heroic epic and in cultures of honor. Men cared to be known for their courage. It not only took courage to fight well, but the issue often being fought over was who had more of it. Courage was competitive. Men were ranked according to the degree of courage they possessed. Arguments arose as to what counted as truly courageous, what the perfect form of the virtue was, and what were lesser though still worthy semblances of it. Not only philosophers theorized about courage: warriors, politicians and spectators did so as well. The stakes were …

Child Welfare Cases Involving Mental Illness: Reflections On The Role And Responsibilities Of The Lawyer-Guardian Ad Litem, Frank E. Vandervort

Articles

Child welfare cases involving mental illness suffered either by a child or his parent can be among the most difficult and perplexing that a child’s lawyerguardian ad litem (L-GAL) will handle. They may present daunting problems of accessing necessary and appropriate services as well as questions about whether and when such mental health problems can be resolved or how best to manage them. They also require the L-GAL to carefully consider crucially important questions—rarely with all the information one would like to have and too often with information that comes late in the case, is fragmented or glaringly incomplete. This …

The Past And Future Of Deinstitutionalization Litigation, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Articles

Two conflicting stories have consumed the academic debate regarding the impact of deinstitutionalization litigation. The first, which has risen almost to the level of conventional wisdom, is that deinstitutionalization was a disaster. The second story challenges the suggestion that deinstitutionalization has uniformly been unsuccessful, as well as the causal link critics seek to draw with the growth of the homeless population. This Article, which embraces the second story, assesses the current wave of deinstitutionalization litigation. It contends that things will be different this time. The particular outcomes of the first wave of deinstitutionalization litigation, this Article contends, resulted from the …

Personal Environmental Information: The Promise And Perils Of The Emerging Capacity To Identify Individual Environmental Harms, Katrina Fischer Kuh

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article begins from the premise that successful regulation of environmentally significant individual behaviors could achieve meaningful environmental benefits and argues that (1) technology is increasingly making information about individual environmental behaviors and associated harms more accessible; (2) better information about environmentally significant individual behaviors could substantially enhance fledgling efforts to regulate those behaviors; and (3) use of technology-enabled personal environmental information in support of regulation will require the resolution of myriad privacy concerns. The Article seeks to generate and inform a discussion about the appropriate balance between access to personal environmental information and privacy by identifying how regulation can …

Juvenile Justice After Graham V. Florida: Keeping Due Process, Autonomy, And Paternalism In Balance, Kristin N. Henning

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Legal disputes involving children invariably evoke a complex matrix of issues such as child and adolescent capacity, individual rights and autonomy, parental authority, and in the criminal justice context-diminished culpability for a minor's actions. While it is difficult to identify a clear and cohesive jurisprudence regarding the balance between children's autonomy and children's vulnerability across Supreme Court cases, a series of cases over the last decade, including Roper v. Simmons, Graham v. Florida, and J.D.B. v. North Carolina, offer a more consistent view of children as vulnerable, malleable, and in need of protection, at least in the …

Building Resilience In Foster Children: The Role Of The Child's Advocate, Frank E. Vandervort, James Henry, Mark A. Sloane

Articles

This Article provides an introduction to, and brief overview of trauma, its impact upon foster children, and steps children's advocates" can take to lessen or ameliorate the impact of trauma upon their clients. This Article begins in Part 11 by defining relevant terms. Part III addresses the prevalence of trauma among children entering the child welfare system. Part IV considers the neurodevelopmental (i.e., the developing brain) impact of trauma on children and will explore how that trauma may manifest emotionally and behaviorally. With this foundation in place, Part V discusses the need for a comprehensive trauma assessment including a thorough …

The Adam Walsh Child Protection And Safety Act: Legal And Psychological Aspects Of The New Civil Commitment Law For Federal Civil Commitment Law For Federal Sex Offenders , John Fabian

Cleveland State Law Review

The Adam Walsh Act (AWA) became law on July 27, 2006, and is the most expansive and punitive sex offender law ever initiated by the federal government. One aspect of the statute, and the topic of this article, is the civil commitment of federal sex offenders. The AWA civil commitment law has its roots in prior U.S. Supreme Court cases including Kansas v. Hendricks and Kansas v. Crane. While the federal commitment statute is similar to traditional state commitment laws, the AWA does not provide for a finding of "likely" to commit sex offenses. Rather, the statute defines a "sexually …

Convicting Lennie: Mental Retardation, Wrongful Convictions, And The Right To A Fair Trial, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Susan E. Millor

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Alternative Justifications For Academic Support Iii: An Empirical Analysis Of The Impact Of Academic Support On Perceived Autonomy Support And Humanizing Law Schools, Louis N. Schulze Jr., Adam A. Ding

Faculty Publications

This article details the findings of a two-year empirical study on the impact of a law school academic support program (ASP) on law students. The hypothesis of the study was that as students' participation in a well-resourced, open-access ASP increases, students' perception of "autonomy support" and "humanizing" grows as well. The study concludes, based upon statistically significant data, that law school ASPs impact students in positive ways and therefore are worth the investment. This article is the third in a series designed to show that law school academic support measures positively impact students' well-being and lead to a more robust …

The Law And Economics Of Fluctuating Criminal Tendencies And Incapacitation, Murat C. Mungan

Faculty Scholarship

Economic analyses of criminal law are frequently and heavily criticized for being unable to explain many criminal law rules and doctrines that people find intuitively just. Existing economic models cannot properly explain, for instance, why criminal law distinguishes between (i) repeat offenders and first-time offenders, (ii) murder and voluntary manslaughter, and (iii) remorseful and non-remorseful offenders.

In this Article, I propose a new and richer economic theory of crime that captures the rationales behind these practices, and potentially behind many other important criminal law principles and doctrines. Unlike an overwhelming majority of previous economic analyses, my theory accounts not only …

Challenges Of "Sameness": Pitfalls And Benefits To Assumed Connections In Lawyering, Carwina Weng, Lynn Barenberg, Alexis Anderson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Individuals are drawn to connect with other people because of shared experiences and personal characteristics. These connections often help people establish rapport, trust, and engagement. Surely these same benefits would apply in the lawyer-client relationship where a lawyer’s ability to find common links with her client would facilitate the lawyering process.

Perhaps that is true, but not necessarily and not without some potential costs. As clinical teachers, we have become increasingly wary that assumptions attributable to sameness can complicate lawyering. Untested assumptions, whatever their source, can impair lawyering judgments. In our collective experience, we have found that assumptions rooted in …

The Role Of Equipoise In Family Law, Deborah Cantrell

Publications

Scholars reviewing family law over the last twenty years have described the field as having undergone a revolution. While true, both scholars and front-line family law advocates have failed to invent a satisfying end to the revolution. This Article takes up that challenge and offers a novel way forward, It identifies two translation challenges that have prevented the revolution from reaching its end. The first challenge is translating reform so that its benefits accrue equally across all kinds of participants--rich and poor, those with lawyers and those without. The second challenge is translating theory into on-the-ground practices useful to family …

Promoting Social Change In Asia And The Pacific: The Need For A Disability Rights Tribunal To Give Life To The Un Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

There is no question that the existence of regional human rights courts and commissions has been an essential element in the enforcement of international human rights in those regions of the world where such tribunals exist. In the specific area of mental disability law, there is now a remarkably robust body of case law from the European Court on Human Rights, some significant and transformative decisions from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and at least one major case from the African Commission onHuman Rights.

In Asia and the Pacific region, however, there is no such body. Many reasons have …

Preventing Sex-Offender Recidivism Through Therapeutic Jurisprudence Approaches And Specialized Community Integration, Heather Cucolo, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

The public’s panic about the fear of recidivism if adjudicated sex offenders are ever to be released to the community has not subsided, despite the growing amount of information and statistically-reliable data signifying a generally low risk of re-offense. The established case law upholding sex offender civil commitment and containment statutes has rejected challenges of unconstitutionality, and continues to be dominated by punitive undertones. We have come to learn that the tools used to assess offenders for risk and civil commitment are often inaccurate and that meaningful treatment for this population is often unavailable and ineffective. Yet, society continues to …

Public Input For City Budgeting Using E-Input, Face-To-Face Discussions, And Random Sample Surveys: The Willingness Of An American Community To Increase Taxes, Alan Tomkins, Rick D. Hoppe, Mitch Herian, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig, Tarik Abdel-Monem, Nancy Shank

Lisa PytlikZillig Publications

Regular public input into a city's budget is frequently associated with municipal budgeting in Brazilian cities, successes in public engagement that have been emulated around the world. American communities are adopting the practice to varying degrees. This paper will report on a five-year old public input program that is taking place in Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital city of a politically conservative state in the U.S. We discuss the processes we use to engage the public about the City's budget. The process includes regular online input as well as face-to-face, deliberative discussions. On occasions, random sample surveys also have been used. …

Judicial Mindsets: The Social Psychology Of Implicit Theories And The Law, Victor D. Quintanilla

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article introduces Dr. Carol Dweck’s seminal and significant line of psychological research on the phenomenon of implicit theories and draws on this research as a lens through which we might better understand judicial decision-making. In particular, the article focuses on the implications of two types of implicit theories – whether people believe that phenomena are static and fixed versus dynamic and malleable. By introducing this research, this article aims to forward a research agenda designed to examine how social, contextual, and situational forces influence judicial behavior.

An entity theory reflects the mindset that phenomena are fixed and unlikely to …

Partiality And Disclosure In Supreme Court Opinions, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

This Essay begins by identifying the various kinds of partiality the Justices of the Supreme Court can have in the cases they decide. Although there is widespread recognition of the influence these biases might have, for the most part the Justices continue to write opinions as if they (and other judges) were entirely disinterested. This practice is often thought to be justified as a source of judicial legitimacy, but there are a number of reasons to doubt that a pretense of impersonality is actually important for maintaining respect for the Court. Consequently, the possibility has to be considered that the …

From Tiger Mom To Panda Parent, Peter H. Huang

Publications

This response to Yale Law Professor Amy Chua’s book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, complements a much longer and related article that is also in part a response to Chua’s book: Tiger Cub Strikes Back: Memoirs of an Ex-Child Prodigy About Legal Education and Parenting, 1 British Journal of American Legal Studies 297 (2012). This brief essay discusses the cultural differences between Chinese and Western views about education, learning, and parenting. This editorial draws on research in social psychology to analyze the stereotype of Asians and Asian Americans as being competent yet unsociable. Finally, this reflection draws …

Tiger Cub Strikes Back: Memoirs Of An Ex-Child Prodigy About Legal Education And Parenting, Peter H. Huang

Publications

I am a Chinese American who at 14 enrolled at Princeton and at 17 began my applied mathematics Ph.D. at Harvard. I was a first-year law student at the University of Chicago before transferring to Stanford, preferring the latter's pedagogical culture. This Article offers a complementary account to Amy Chua's parenting memoir. The Article discusses how mainstream legal education and tiger parenting are similar and how they can be improved by fostering life-long learning about character strengths, emotions, and ethics. I also recount how a senior professor at the University of Pennsylvania law school claimed to have gamed the U.S. …

Duncan Kennedy's Third Globalization, Criminal Law, And The Spectacle, Aya Gruber

Publications

No abstract provided.

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 …

Property's Morale, Nestor M. Davidson

Michigan Law Review

A foundational argument long invoked to justify stable property rights is that property law must protect settled expectations. Respect for expectations unites otherwise disparate strands of property theory focused on ex ante incentives, individual identity, and community. It also privileges resistance to legal transitions that transgress reliance interests. When changes in law unsettle expectations, such changes are thought to generate disincentives that Frank Michelman famously labeled "demoralization costs." Although rarely approached in these terms, arguments for legal certainty reflect underlying psychological assumptions about how people contemplate property rights when choosing whether and how to work, invest, create, bolster identity, join …

Dangerous Psychopaths: Criminally Responsible But Not Morally Responsible, Subject To Criminal Punishment And To Preventive Detention, Ken Levy

San Diego Law Review

How should we judge psychopaths, both morally and in the criminal justice system? This Article will argue that psychopaths are often not morally responsible for their bad acts simply because they cannot understand, and therefore be guided by, moral reasons.

Scholars and lawyers who endorse the same conclusion automatically tend to infer from this premise that psychopaths should not be held criminally punishable for their criminal acts. These scholars and lawyers are making this assumption (that just criminal punishment requires moral responsibility) on the basis of one of two deeper assumptions: that either criminal punishment directly requires moral responsibility or …

Jurors' Ability To Judge The Reliability Of Confessions And Denials: Effects Of Camera Perspective During Interrogation, Lindsey Nicole Sweeney

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Previous research shows that some proportion of people interrogated confess, regardless of actual guilt. It has also been shown that the camera perspective from which an interrogation is videotaped influences later judgments of voluntariness and guilt, as well as sentencing recommendations. The present research extends the understanding of this phenomenon of false confessions and the camera perspective bias. Ecologically valid videotaped true/false confessions and denials were obtained in Experiment 1. The proportions of guilt participants and participants that confessed to cheating were found to be smaller in Experiment 1 than those in previous research. Participants in Experiment 2 viewed the …

Sorting Guilty Minds, Owen D. Jones, Francis X. Shen, Morris B. Hoffman, Joshua D. Greene, Rene Marois

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Because punishable guilt requires that bad thoughts accompany bad acts, the Model Penal Code (MPC) typically requires that jurors infer the past mental state of a criminal defendant. More specifically, jurors must sort that mental state into one of four specific categories - purposeful, knowing, reckless, or negligent - which in turn defines the nature of the crime and the extent of the punishment. The MPC therefore assumes that ordinary people naturally sort mental states into these four categories with a high degree of accuracy, or at least can reliably do so when properly instructed. It also assumes that ordinary …