The Jury Under Fire

The Jury Under Fire PDF Author: Brian H. Bornstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190201347
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Jury Under Fire reviews a number of controversial beliefs about juries that have persisted in recent years as well as the implications of these views for jury reform efforts. Each chapter focuses on a mistaken assumption or myth about jurors or juries, critiques the myth, and then uses social science research findings to suggest appropriate reforms.

The Jury Under Fire

The Jury Under Fire PDF Author: Brian H. Bornstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190201363
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Get Book Here

Book Description
Although the jury is often referred to as one of the bulwarks of the American justice system, it regularly comes under attack. Recent changes to trial procedures, such as reducing jury size, allowing non-unanimous verdicts, and rewriting jury instructions in plain English, were designed to promote greater efficiency and adherence to the law. Other changes, such as capping damages and replacing jurors with judges as arbiters in complex trials, seem designed to restrict the role of laypeople in trial outcomes. Whether these innovations are implemented to facilitate the administration of justice or due to the belief that juries have excessive power and make irrational decisions, they raise a host of questions about their effects on juries' judgments and about justice. Policymakers sometimes make incorrect assumptions about jury behavior, with the result that some reform efforts have had surprising and unintended consequences. The Jury Under Fire reviews a number of controversial beliefs about juries as well as the implications of these views for jury reform. It reviews up-to-date research on both criminal and civil juries that uses a variety of research methodologies: simulations, archival analyses, field studies, and juror interviews. Each chapter focuses on a mistaken assumption or myth about jurors or juries, critiques these myths, and then uses social science research findings to suggest appropriate reforms. Chapters discuss the experience of serving as a juror; jury selection and jury size; and the impact of evidence from eyewitnesses, experts, confessions, and juvenile offenders. The book also covers the process of deciding damages and punishment and the role of emotions in jurors' decision making, and it compares jurors' and judges' decisions. Finally, it reviews a broad range of efforts to reform the jury, including the most promising reforms that have a solid backing in research. Featuring highly visible trials to illustrate key points, The Jury Under Fire will interest researchers in psychology and the law, practicing attorneys, and policymakers, as well as students and trainees in these areas.

Under Fire

Under Fire PDF Author: Margaret McLean
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 9780765366412
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 452

Get Book Here

Book Description
After a Boston firefighter is shot and killed while rescuing Amina Diallo, a Senegalese Muslim immigrant, and her 15-year-old son, Diallo is arrested for arson and murder. Attorneys Sarah Lynch and Buddy Clancy face more than racial and religious prejudice in this impossible courtroom battle.

John Adams Under Fire

John Adams Under Fire PDF Author: David Fisher
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1488057222
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Get Book Here

Book Description
Look for Dan Abrams and David Fisher’s new book, Kennedy’s Avenger: Assassination, Conspiracy, and the Forgotten Trial of Jack Ruby. *NOW A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* “An expert, extremely detailed account of John Adams’ finest hour.”—Kirkus Reviews Honoring the 250th Anniversary of the Boston Massacre The New York Times bestselling author of Lincoln’s Last Trial and host of LivePD Dan Abrams and David Fisher tell the story of a trial that would change history. An eye-opening story of America on the edge of revolution. History remembers John Adams as a Founding Father and our country’s second president. But in the tense years before the American Revolution, he was still just a lawyer, fighting for justice in one of the most explosive murder trials of the era—the Boston Massacre, where five civilians died from shots fired by British soldiers. Drawing on Adams’s own words from the trial transcript, Dan Abrams and David Fisher transport readers to colonial Boston, a city roiling with rebellion, where British military forces and American colonists lived side by side, waiting for the spark that would start a war.

Ideas under Fire

Ideas under Fire PDF Author: Jonathan Lavery
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson
ISBN: 1611475430
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 389

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since Aristotle’s famous declaration that the speculative sciences originated with the emergence of a leisure class, it has been accepted as a truism that intellectual activity requires political stability and leisure in order to flourish. Paradoxically, however, some of the most powerful and influential contributions to Western intellectual culture have been produced in conditions that were adverse–indeed hostile–to intellectual activity. Examples include Socrates' stirring defense of the examined life before a hostile Athenian jury, Boethius writing The Consolation of Philosophy under the specter of impending torture and execution, Galileo devising key notions for modern mechanics while under house arrest, and Jean-Paul Sartre drafting portions of Being and Nothingness in his war diaries, to name only a few of the most famous incidents–all extraordinary achievements spawned, developed or completed in adversity. In cases such as these, a philosopher or scientist must manage somehow to remain intellectually creative and focused despite living in conditions that are adverse or hostile to thought. In brief, they are working on ideas under fire. This book is a survey of several momentous cases of philosophers and scientists working under fire. Each chapter of Ideas Under Fire explores a particular case or set of related cases. For each case contributors consider two questions: How did the individual at the center of a particular moment of discovery overcome such formidable obstacles to leisure and conceptually abstract thought? And how did adversity shape their thinking under fire? Each chapter has been written by a specialist on its respective subject, and the book covers every period of Western history. All the chapters are written in an accessible style that is intended to appeal to both specialists and generalists.

Szasz Under Fire

Szasz Under Fire PDF Author: Jeffrey A. Schaler
Publisher: Open Court
ISBN: 0812699327
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 481

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since he published The Myth of Mental Illness in 1961, professor of psychiatry Thomas Szasz has been the scourge of the psychiatric establishment. In dozens of books and articles, he has argued passionately and knowledgeably against compulsory commitment of the mentally ill, against the war on drugs, against the insanity defense in criminal trials, against the "diseasing" of voluntary humanpractices such as addiction and homosexual behavior, against the drugging of schoolchildren with Ritalin, and for the right to suicide. Most controversial of all has been his denial that "mental illness" is a literal disease, treatable by medical practitioners. In Szasz Under Fire, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other leading experts who disagree with Szasz on specific issues explain the reasons, with no holds barred, and Szasz replies cogently and pungently to each of them. Topics debated include the nature of mental illness, the right to suicide, the insanity defense, the use and abuse of drugs, and the responsibilities of psychiatrists and therapists. These exchanges are preceded by Szasz's autobiography and followed by a bibliography of his works.

Forensics Under Fire

Forensics Under Fire PDF Author: Jim Fisher
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813544246
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 341

Get Book Here

Book Description
Television shows like CSI, Forensic Files, and The New Detectives make it look so easy. A crime-scene photographer snaps photographs, a fingerprint technician examines a gun, uniformed officers seal off a house while detectives gather hair and blood samples, placing them carefully into separate evidence containers. In a crime laboratory, a suspect's hands are meticulously examined for gunshot residue. An autopsy is performed in order to determine range and angle of the gunshot and time-of-death evidence. Dozens of tests and analyses are performed and cross-referenced. A conviction is made. Another crime is solved. The credits roll. The American public has become captivated by success stories like this one with their satisfyingly definitive conclusions, all made possible because of the wonders of forensic science. Unfortunately, however, popular television dramas do not represent the way most homicide cases in the United States are actually handled. Crime scenes are not always protected from contamination; physical evidence is often packaged improperly, lost, or left unaccounted for; forensic experts are not always consulted; and mistakes and omissions on the autopsy table frequently cut investigations short or send detectives down the wrong investigative path. In Forensics Under Fire, Jim Fisher makes a compelling case that these and other problems in the practice of forensic science allow offenders to escape justice and can also lead to the imprisonment of innocent people. Bringing together examples from a host of high-profile criminal cases and familiar figures, such as the JonBenet Ramsey case and Dr. Henry Lee who presented physical evidence in the O. J. Simpson trial, along with many lesser known but fascinating stories, Fisher presents daunting evidence that forensic science has a long way to go before it lives up to its potential and the public's expectations.

Cops Under Fire

Cops Under Fire PDF Author: Larry McShane
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1621573990
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 112

Get Book Here

Book Description
America has become increasingly divided and polarized in recent years. With growing racial tension, animosity toward law enforcement professionals, government corruption, and disregard for the constitutional process, there seems to be no easy answer in sight. But Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke knows where we must begin: we must stop blaming others; look at our problems with open eyes; take ownership of our family, community, and country; and turn to God for solutions. Deeply rooted in Sheriff Clarke's personal life story, this book is not a dry recitation of what has gone wrong in America with regard to race. It's about the issues that deeply affect us today both personally and politically and how we can rise above our current troubles to once again be a truly great people in pursuit of liberty and justice for all. Foreword by Sean Hannity.

Police Under Fire

Police Under Fire PDF Author: Aubrey A. Baker
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1524530816
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book is about the war on the police that is taking place in America today. It is about the unfair and false narratives being promulgated against the police by black activists, left-wing liberals, and the lamestream media. It is about racial politics and violence in the black community and how it spills over onto the police. It is about controversial uses of force by the police. It is about injustices being perpetrated against the police by neer do wells. It is also about how to improve the situation overall.

Jacobin Republic Under Fire

Jacobin Republic Under Fire PDF Author: Paul R. Hanson
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271047928
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Get Book Here

Book Description
It is time for a major work of synthetic interpretation, and this is what The Jacobin Republic Under Fire offers.".