This monumental and comprehensive volume reviews more than 50 years of empirical research on civil and criminal juries and returns a verdict that strongly supports the jury system.
Annotation Are jury verdicts in business trials influenced less by a corporation's negligence than by sympathy for the plaintiffs, prejudice against business, and a belief in the corporation's "deep pockets"? Many members of the public and corporate executives believe that this is so, and they feel that the jury's decision making presents serious problems for American business competitiveness and its justice system. This book -- the first to provide a systematic account of how juries make decisions in typical business cases -- shows that these assumptions are false or exaggerated.Drawing on interviews with civil jurors, experiments with mock jurors, and public opinion polling, Valerie P. Hans explores how jurors determine whether businesses should be held responsible for an injury. She finds that many civil jurors, rather than being overly sympathetic to plaintiffs who bring civil lawsuits, are actually hostile to them, that there are only occasional instances of anti-business prejudice, and that there is no evidence of the deep-pockets hypothesis. Hans concludes that jurors do treat businesses differently than individuals, but this is because the public has higher expectations of corporations and more rigorous standards for their conduct.
Trial by jury is one of the most important aspects of the U.S. legal system. A reflective look at how juries actually function brings out a number of ethical questions surrounding juror conduct and jury dynamics: Do citizens have a duty to serve as jurors? Might they seek exemptions? Is it acceptable for jurors to engage in after-hours research? Might a juror legitimately seek to "nullify" the outcome to express disapproval of the law? Under what conditions might jurors make a valid choice to hold out against or capitulate to their fellow jurors? Is it acceptable to form alliances? After trial, are there problems with entering into publishing contracts? Unfortunately, questions such as these have received scant attention from scholars. This book revives attention to these and other issues of jury ethics by collecting new and insightful essays along with responses from leading scholars in the field of jury studies. Is it acceptable for jurors to engage in after-hours research? Might a juror legitimately seek to "nullify" the outcome to express disapproval of the law? After trial, are there problems with entering into publishing contracts? Unfortunately, questions such as these have received scant attention from scholars. This book revives attention to these and other issues of jury ethics by collecting new and insightful essays along with responses from leading scholars in the field of jury studies. Contributors: Jeffrey Abramson, B. Michael Dann, Shari Seidman Diamond, Norman J. Finkel, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Valerie P. Hans, Julie E. Howe, Nancy J. King, John Kleinig, James P. Levine, Candace McCoy, G. Thomas Munsterman, Maureen O'Connor, Steven Penrod, Alan W. Scheflin, Neil Vidmar
Tort law regulates most human activities: from driving a car to using consumer products to providing or receiving medical care. Injuries caused by dog bites, slips and falls, fender benders, bridge collapses, adverse reactions to a medication, bar fights, oil spills, and more all implicate the law of torts. The rules and procedures by which tort cases are resolved engage deeply-held intuitions about justice, causation, intentionality, and the obligations that we owe to one another. Tort rules and procedures also generate significant controversy—most visibly in political debates over tort reform. The Psychology of Tort Law explores tort law through the lens of psychological science. Drawing on a wealth of psychological research and their own experiences teaching and researching tort law, Jennifer K. Robbennolt and Valerie P. Hans examine the psychological assumptions that underlie doctrinal rules. They explore how tort law influences the behavior and decision-making of potential plaintiffs and defendants, examining how doctors and patients, drivers, manufacturers and purchasers of products, property owners, and others make decisions against the backdrop of tort law. They show how the judges and jurors who decide tort claims are influenced by psychological phenomena in deciding cases. And they reveal how plaintiffs, defendants, and their attorneys resolve tort disputes in the shadow of tort law. Robbennolt and Hans here shed fascinating light on the tort system, and on the psychological dynamics which undergird its functioning.
This monumental and comprehensive volume reviews more than 50 years of empirical research on civil and criminal juries and returns a verdict that strongly supports the jury system.
This book explores tort law through the lens of psychological science. Drawing on a wealth of psychological research and their own experiences teaching and researching tort law, the authors examine the psychological assumptions that underlie doctrinal rules. They explore how tort law influences the behavior and decision making of potential plaintiffs and defendants, examining how doctors and patients, drivers, manufacturers and purchasers of products, property owners, and others make decisions against the backdrop of tort law. They show how the judges and jurors who decide tort claims are influenced by psychological phenomena in deciding cases. And they reveal how plaintiffs, defendants, and their attorneys resolve tort disputes in the shadow of tort law."--Page 4 of cover.
Trial by jury is one of the most important aspects of the U.S. legal system. A reflective look at how juries actually function brings out a number of ethical questions surrounding juror conduct and jury dynamics: Do citizens have a duty to serve as jurors? Might they seek exemptions? Is it acceptable for jurors to engage in after-hours research? Might a juror legitimately seek to "nullify" the outcome to express disapproval of the law? Under what conditions might jurors make a valid choice to hold out against or capitulate to their fellow jurors? Is it acceptable to form alliances? After trial, are there problems with entering into publishing contracts? Unfortunately, questions such as these have received scant attention from scholars. This book revives attention to these and other issues of jury ethics by collecting new and insightful essays along with responses from leading scholars in the field of jury studies. Is it acceptable for jurors to engage in after-hours research? Might a juror legitimately seek to "nullify" the outcome to express disapproval of the law? After trial, are there problems with entering into publishing contracts? Unfortunately, questions such as these have received scant attention from scholars. This book revives attention to these and other issues of jury ethics by collecting new and insightful essays along with responses from leading scholars in the field of jury studies. Contributors: Jeffrey Abramson, B. Michael Dann, Shari Seidman Diamond, Norman J. Finkel, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Valerie P. Hans, Julie E. Howe, Nancy J. King, John Kleinig, James P. Levine, Candace McCoy, G. Thomas Munsterman, Maureen O'Connor, Steven Penrod, Alan W. Scheflin, Neil Vidmar
Annotation Are jury verdicts in business trials influenced less by a corporation's negligence than by sympathy for the plaintiffs, prejudice against business, and a belief in the corporation's "deep pockets"? Many members of the public and corporate executives believe that this is so, and they feel that the jury's decision making presents serious problems for American business competitiveness and its justice system. This book -- the first to provide a systematic account of how juries make decisions in typical business cases -- shows that these assumptions are false or exaggerated.Drawing on interviews with civil jurors, experiments with mock jurors, and public opinion polling, Valerie P. Hans explores how jurors determine whether businesses should be held responsible for an injury. She finds that many civil jurors, rather than being overly sympathetic to plaintiffs who bring civil lawsuits, are actually hostile to them, that there are only occasional instances of anti-business prejudice, and that there is no evidence of the deep-pockets hypothesis. Hans concludes that jurors do treat businesses differently than individuals, but this is because the public has higher expectations of corporations and more rigorous standards for their conduct.
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