Law and Psychology Commons^™

The Sec, The Supreme Court, And The Administrative State, Paul G. Mahoney

Seattle University Law Review

Pritchard and Thompson have given those of us who study the SEC and the securities laws much food for thought. Their methodological focus is on the internal dynamics of the Court’s deliberations, on which they have done detailed and valuable work. The Court did not, however, operate in a vacuum. Intellectual trends in economics and law over the past century can also help us understand the SEC’s fortunes in the federal courts and make predictions about its future.

Three Stories: A Comment On Pritchard & Thompson’S A History Of Securities Laws In The Supreme Court, Harwell Wells

Seattle University Law Review

Adam Pritchard and Robert Thompson’s A History of Securities Laws in the Supreme Court should stand for decades as the definitive work on the Federal securities laws’ career in the Supreme Court across the twentieth century.1 Like all good histories, it both tells a story and makes an argument. The story recounts how the Court dealt with the major securities laws, as well the agency charged with enforcing them, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the rules it promulgated, from the 1930s into the twenty-first century. But the book does not just string together a series of events, “one …

The Sffa V. Harvard Trojan Horse Admissions Lawsuit, Kimberly West-Faulcon

Seattle University Law Review

Affirmative-action-hostile admissions lawsuits are modern Trojan horses. The SFFA v. Harvard/UNC case—Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, et. al., decided jointly—is the most effective Trojan horse admissions lawsuit to date. Constructed to have the distractingly appealing exterior façade of a lawsuit seeking greater fairness in college admissions, the SFFA v. Harvard/UNC case is best understood as a deception-driven battle tactic used by forces waging a multi-decade war against the major legislative victories of America’s Civil Rights Movement, specifically Title VI and Title VII …

Feeding The Good Fire: Paths To Facilitate Native-Led Fire Management On Federal Lands, Kevin Burdet

Seattle University Law Review

In 2003, nearly twenty Native American reservations were devastated by wildfires that originated on adjacent federal lands. The San Pasqual Reservation’s entire 1,400 acres were burned along with over a third of its homes, and seventy-five percent of the Rincon Reservation was burned, taking twenty homes with it. These devastating fires, along with others in 2002, brought about the Tribal Forest Protection Act of 2004 (TFPA), which offered hope for Tribes to propose projects on bordering or adjacent federal lands and protect reservation lands in the process. Unfortunately, twenty years later, the TFPA has had a marginal effect in enabling …

Defeat Fascism, Transform Democracy: Mapping Academic Resources, Reframing The Fundamentals, And Organizing For Collective Actions, Francisco Valdes

Seattle University Law Review

The information we gathered during 2021–2023 shows that critical faculty and other academic resources are present throughout most of U.S. legal academia. Counting only full-time faculty, our limited research identified 778 contacts in 200 schools equating to nearly four contacts on average per school. But no organized critical “core” had coalesced within legal academia or, more broadly, throughout higher education expressly dedicated to defending and advancing critical knowledge and its production up to now. And yet, as the 2021–2022 formation of the Critical (Legal) Collective (“CLC”) outlined below demonstrates, many academics sense or acknowledge the need for greater cohesion among …

A Hard Pill To Swallow: The Abysmal Mental Health Standards Of Detained Immigrant Children In The United States, Rama Bankesly

Seattle University Law Review

After setting foot into the U.S., unaccompanied children must learn to navigate academic and legal systems while receiving little support and carrying the heavy burden of effects of trauma on their mental health. They need access to mental health care from qualified professionals, but as this Comment will explain, they systematically fail to receive care, as can be seen in cases like Doe v. Shenandoah Valley Juv. Ctr. Comm’n. In Shenandoah, an unaccompanied child arrived in the U.S. and was placed in a facility that failed to provide remotely adequate mental health care and in fact was subjected …

I Hope The Final Judgment’S Fair: Alternative Jurisprudences, Legal Decision-Making, And Justice, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

At the core of any legal decision is an assumption that the decision will be “fair,” yet this is an elusive term. A close study of cases involving criminal defendants with mental disabilities shows that many (perhaps most) of the decisions involving this cohort are not “fair” in the contexts of due process and justice. If legal decisions reflect principles such as procedural justice, restorative justice, and therapeutic jurisprudence, the chances of such fairness will be significantly enhanced. This chapter explains why this goal of fairness, in the context of these cases, can never be met absent a consideration of …

Students For Fair Admissions: Affirming Affirmative Action And Shapeshifting Towards Cognitive Diversity?, Steven A. Ramirez

Seattle University Law Review

The Roberts Court holds a well-earned reputation for overturning Supreme Court precedent regardless of the long-standing nature of the case. The Roberts Court knows how to overrule precedent. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), the Court’s majority opinion never intimates that it overrules Grutter v. Bollinger, the Court’s leading opinion permitting race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Instead, the Roberts Court applied Grutter as authoritative to hold certain affirmative action programs entailing racial preferences violative of the Constitution. These programs did not provide an end point, nor did they require assessment, review, periodic expiration, or revision for greater …

Masculine Vs. Feminine Women: Verdict, Blame, And Punishment Outcomes In The Legal System, Alaina Helmerichs

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

It is commonly recognized that sentencing disparities exist between men and women who are accused of the same crime—with men often receiving harsher judgements than women. However, research explaining why this disparity exists is incomplete. Research suggests that higher levels of facial masculinity in men is tied to higher levels of criminality (Estrada-Reynolds et al., 2017); however, little research looks at this pattern amongst female defendants. The current study investigated whether the gendered appearance (masculine vs. feminine) of female defendants in different types of cases (child negligence vs. medical malpractice) affects mock jurors’ judgments about verdict, punishment, and internal blame …

Criminal Justice Interventions For Individuals With Mental Health Disabilities: A Systematic Literature Review, Fidelis Azeke, Nassrine Noureddine

Pacific Journal of Health

In the criminal law, with few exceptions, for a finding of guilt, the physical act and the state of mind to commit the offense must be present at the time of the commission of the offense. People with mental disabilities often lack the state of mind required to commit the offense for which they are eventually charged for and or convicted. This paper examines the effectiveness of some past and present criminal justice system interventions that addresses the mental health disabilities of criminal offenders pre-adjudicative proceedings. A systematic review of the literature was used to examine past and present criminal …

Metaresearch, Psychology, And Law: A Case Study On Implicit Bias, Jason M. Chin, Alex O. Holcombe, Kathryn Zeiler, Patrick S. Forscher, Ann Guo

Connecticut Law Review

When can scientific findings from experimental psychology be confidently applied to legal issues? When applications have clear limits, do legal commentators readily acknowledge them? To address these questions, we survey recent findings from an emerging field of research on research (i.e., metaresearch). We find that many aspects of experimental psychology’s research and reporting practices threaten the validity and generalizability of legally relevant research findings, including those relied on by courts and policy-setting bodies. As a case study, we appraise the empirical claims relied on by commentators claiming that measures designed to estimate implicit bias are valid, that implicit bias causes …

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 …

Metaresearch, Psychology, And Law: A Case Study On Implicit Bias, Jason Chin, Alexander Holcombe, Kathryn Zeiler, Patrick Forscher, Ann Guo

Faculty Scholarship

When can scientific findings from experimental psychology be confidently applied to legal issues? And when applications have clear limits, do legal commentators readily acknowledge them? To address these questions, we survey recent findings from an emerging field of research on research (i.e., metaresearch). We find that many aspects of experimental psychology’s research and reporting practices threaten the validity and generalizability of legally relevant research findings, including those relied on by courts and policy-setting bodies. As a case study, we appraise the empirical claims relied on by commentators claiming that implicit bias deeply affects legal proceedings and practices, and that training …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

For The Ones Who Endured So That A Nation Might Live: A Plea To The Mississippi Legislature And Judiciary To Amend Miss. Code. Ann. 9-25-1 And Adopt A Mississippi Statewide Veterans Treatment Court, Hannah Grace Eckel

MC Law Review

Veterans provide an invaluable service to protect and defend the ideals of this nation. Today, there are roughly 18 million veterans living in the United States, and Mississippi is home to over 187,000. While many servicemen successfully integrate back into civilian life, trauma and addiction follow others which often leads to confrontations with the criminal justice system. The traditional Mississippi court system is ineffective for many veterans because the underlying issues that led to their incarceration cannot be treated with mere confinement.

Veterans Treatment Courts (VTCs) address the underlying issues that often lead to criminal activity and offer a veteran …

“Social Workers By Day And Terrorists By Night?” Wounded Healers, Restorative Justice, And Ex-Prisoner Reentry, Allely Albert

Articles

Common to many post-conflict societies, former political prisoners and combatants in Northern Ireland are often portrayed as security threats rather than as potential contributors to societal peacebuilding processes. This distrust limits their ability to contribute to the transitional landscape and additionally hinders desistance processes during their reentry from prison. Drawing from the work of Maruna, LeBel, and others on “wounded healers,” this article critically examines the restorative justice work of ex-prisoners who have become involved in leadership roles within community based restorative justice. It is argued that such practitioner work can help former combatants overcome many of the challenges typically …

Contextual Determinants Of Re-Reporting For Families Receiving Alternative Response: A Survival Analysis In A Midwestern State, Jianchao Lai, Michelle Graef, Todd Franke, Toby Burnham

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

Differential response (DR) has been widely adopted in over 30 states to address shortcomings of the traditional approach to child maltreatment reports in complex family and case circumstances. However, despite continued evaluation efforts, evidence of the effectiveness of DR remains inconclusive. The current study aims to assess the impact of a DR program and potential predictors, including service match and number of family case workers, on maltreatment re-reports in a Midwestern state. The study utilized a randomized control trial and assigned eligible families to either the Alternative Response (AR) track or Traditional Response (TR) track. The enrollment was implemented in …

Neurodiversity And The Legal Profession, Kala Mueller, Stefanie S. Pearlman

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

This article discusses ways to make the legal profession in Nebraska more accessible and inclusive for neurodivergent attorneys, beginning in law school and continuing through licensing, and hiring practices.

Bargaining In The Shadow Of The Truth: How Client Assertion, Perception Of Guilt, And Predictive Inaccuracy Influence Plea Recommendations, Anna D. Vaynman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Over the past few decades, the largely hidden, secretive, and widely used system of plea bargaining has caught the fervent attention of scholars. The Shadow of the Trial model has been central to much of the plea-bargaining literature, despite significant critiques about its oversimplification. The model posits that defendants and their attorneys make plea decisions based largely on the estimated probability of conviction and the severity of the sentence to which the defendant could be exposed at trial.

The model, however, assumes that all actors are rational, equally risk averse, have no competing interests, and possess high predictive accuracy. It …