Law and Psychology Commons^™

Secret Shoals Of The Shadow Docket, Andrew J. Wistrich

Nevada Law Journal

The Supreme Court has recently been utilizing the informal procedures of its shadow docket more extensively than before. Many have criticized this trend, arguing that it diminishes transparency and undercuts the Supreme Court’s legitimacy. This Article asks whether by expanding its use of the shadow docket, the Supreme Court is squandering some of its institutional advantages, thereby compromising the quality of its rulings. Research in the fields of cognitive psychology and behavioral economics suggest that it is. The informality and pace of the shadow docket risks enabling intuition, cognitive illusions, and biases to secretly play a larger role than they …

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 …

The Effect Of Information On Blame Attributed To Four Entities In A Police Shooting, Pauline Meyer

Student Theses and Dissertations

Police shootings continue to negatively impact the public perception of police. When it comes to attributing blame in a police shooting, both internal and external factors affect how much blame a person places on the entities involved. One hundred and twenty Arkansas State undergraduate students enrolled in a psychology or criminology course were randomly assigned to one of the three type of information groups: the episodic, thematic-pattern of violence (TPV), or the thematic-police reform (TPR) group, and then read about the Stephon Clark shooting in 2018. Participants attributed blame scores to the four entities involved: Stephon Clark, the police chief, …

Addressing The Toll Of Truth Telling, Inga N. Laurent

Brooklyn Law Review

Across the United States, there are mounting and renewed calls for applying restorative justice principles to deeply entrenched societal ills based on reconciliation, namely in the form of truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs). Amid our great mobilization, we would be wise to pause, contemplating lessons from lived experiences. Since the 1970s, approximately thirty-five national truth commissions have taken place. In South Africa, Canada, Sierra Leone, and many processes, TRCs have proven adept at cataloguing approved instances of victim and survivors’ (VS) stories and elaborately contextualizing conflict through a new historical lens. Despite the transformative potential of TRCs, they are still …

An Archival Exploration Of Lineup Fairness In Eyewitness Research, Phoebe Kane

Student Theses

In this study, we were interested in investigating if the Betaface facial analysis program reliably predicts eyewitness lineup choosing behavior. If face analysis programs are as good or better than human judgements, using them could be a reliably more efficient, reproducible, and equitable basis for choosing fillers and evaluating lineup fairness. We collected 27 datasets from eyewitness researchers and analyzed them to produce Betaface similarity values, which measured the similarity between all the photos in each array. We compared these Betaface data to the identification data from the original studies. Our analysis of the arrays via Betaface yielded data with …

[2023 Honorable Mention] Coerced Removal Of Indigenous Children: The Past And Present Native Child Welfare In The United States, Mad Bolander, Emily Greaves, Amada Villa Nueva Lobato

Ethnic Studies Research Paper Award

Our podcast attempts to convey indigenous healing efforts since the time of BIA schools in the United States. With the ICWA ruled unconstitutional, we ask what have the lived experiences been of native children who were forcibly removed from their families and tribes? And what does this mean for children who might now be taken away from their families again without the protection of the ICWA?

Rigid And Non-Rigid Images: Effects On Prospective Person Memory In Missing Persons Cases, Lauren Terry

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Every day in the United States, people are reported missing with the hopes that a recovery will be made using missing person alerts and the help of the public. This paradigm for finding missing persons hinges on the prospective memory of the individuals that see the missing person alert. Prospective person memory (PPM) is a form of event-based prospective memory wherein the “event” is a sighting of the missing person, and the associated action is reporting the sighting to authorities (Lampinen et al., 2009). PPM may be improved through increased facial recognition abilities. Previous research has indicated an increase in …

Even Lawyers Do Not Like Legalese, Eric H. Martinez, Francis Mollica, Edward Gibson

Faculty Scholarship

Significance

Lineups, Showups, And Simultaneous Showups: A Replication And Extension Of The Red Box Study, Lana Dranow

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

The reliability of eyewitness identification procedures and the following testimony in a court of law has been highly contested in recent decades. There are two main types of identification procedures most commonly used by law enforcement officers in the United States: lineups and showups. Prior research has indicated that lineups consistently yield the most accurate identifications due to the presence of fillers (plausible alternatives to a suspect) alongside the suspect when compared to showups. This is commonly attributed to two main theories- filler siphoning theory and diagnostic feature detection theory. In a study conducted by Colloff and Wixted (2020), researchers …

The Association Between Mental Health Diagnoses And Trial Competency Assessments In Defendants: A Meta-Analysis, Danielle C. Severe

Student Theses

In the realm of trial competency evaluations, there are a variety of methods used to evaluate whether an individual is fit to stand trial. Presently, forensic psychologists conduct trial competency evaluations in order to assess one’s ability to stand trial, but for persons with a mental health diagnosis, the generic competency measures are not the most effective means to assess one’s ability to stand trial, as mental health diagnoses impair cognitive functions that are required in judicial proceedings. Forensic psychologists have opted to utilize other assessment methods such as the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool – Criminal Adjudication [MacCAT-CA] and Fitness …

Relations Between Peer Influence, Perceived Cost Versus Benefits, And Sexual Offending Among Adolescents Aware Of Sex Offender Registration Risk, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Hayley M. D. Cleary, Paige M. Oja

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

A policy's general deterrent effect requires would-be offenders to be aware of the policy, yet many adolescents do not know they could be registered as sex offenders, and even adolescents who do know may still commit registerable sexual offenses. We tested whether peer influences shape the perceived costs/benefits of certain sexual offenses and, subsequently, registration policy's general deterrent potential in a sample of policy-aware adolescents. The more adolescents believed their peers approve of sexting of nude images, the more likely they were to have sexted. For forcible touching, having more positive peer expectations about sex and perceiving forcible touching as …

The Ties That Bind Us: An Empirical, Clinical, And Constitutional Argument Against Terminating Parental Rights, Vivek S. Sankaran, Christopher Church

Articles

This Article explores the unnecessary termination of a child's relationship with their parent from an empirical, clinical, and constitutional lens. Part I explores administrative data related to TPR, which like many child protection metrics, resembles nothing short of a wild west of practices and policies relating to how often and how fast child protection systems terminate parental rights. These data also reveal how TPR can unnecessarily delay legal permanency for children, particularly those children who are living with extended family, and how a State pursuing TPR can drain its own scarce resources, a system perpetually decrying insufficient resources. Part II …

The Exigency And How To Improve And Implement International Humanitarian Legislations More Advantageously In Times Of Both Cyber-Warfare And Cyberspace, Shawn J. Lalman

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This study provides a synopsis of the following topics: the prospective limiters levied on cyber-warfare by present–day international legislation; significant complexities and contentions brought up in the rendering & utilization of International Humanitarian Legislation against cyber-warfare; feasible repercussions of cyber-warfare on humanitarian causes. It is also to be contended and outlined in this research study that non–state actors can be held accountable for breaches of international humanitarian legislation committed using cyber–ordnance if sufficient resources and skill are made available. It details the factors that prosecutors and investigators must take into account when organizing investigations into major breaches of humanitarian legislation …

Take The Motherless Children Off The Street: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome And The Criminal Justice System, Michael L. Perlin, Heather Ellis Cucolo

Articles & Chapters

Remarkably, there has been minimal academic legal literature about the interplay between fetal alcohol syndrome disorder (FASD) and critical aspects of many criminal trials, including issues related to the role of experts, quality of counsel, competency to stand trial, the insanity defense, and sentencing and the death penalty. Nor has there been any literature about the interplay between FASD-related issues and the legal school of thought known as therapeutic jurisprudence.

In this article, the co-authors will first define fetal alcohol syndrome and explain its significance to the criminal justice system. We will then look at the specific role of experts …

Political Polarization: Psychological Explanations And Potential Solutions, Jennifer K. Robbennolt

Nevada Law Journal

Deep disagreement can characterize public and private discussions of controversial policy issues. Differences in approach, understanding of the facts, and perceptions of each other can lead to contentious and unproductive debate, entrenched animosity, and the escalation of conflict. The psychological roots of these patterns are deep. But psychology also offers some lessons about how we might foster more constructive engagement across difference.

Preventing A (Replication) Crisis In The Courtroom, Kaitlin Mccormick-Huhn

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

What A Waste! An Evaluation Of Federal And State Medical And Biohazard Waste Regulations During The Covid-19 Pandemic And Their Impact On Environmental Justice, Samantha Newman

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

The Evolution Of Chapter 11: How Corporate Restructuring Has Evolved And Its Important Role In The Recovery Of A Struggling Economy, Eduardo Cervantes

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Covid-19 Vs. Constitution; Limited Government's Unlimited Response, John A. Losurdo

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The "No License, No Chips" Policy: When A Refusal To Deal Becomes Reasonable, Sheng Tong

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.