Juries and Justice: Saving a System Under Fire PDF Download

Author: Norm Pattis
Publisher: Sutton Hart Press
ISBN: 9780984952533
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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"Ordinary people who check the shocking power of government and corporations"--Cover.

Author: Brian H. Bornstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190201363
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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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.

Author: Brian H. Bornstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190201347
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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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.

Author: Clay S. Conrad
Publisher: Cato Institute
ISBN: 1939709016
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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The Founding Fathers guaranteed trial by jury three times in the Constitution—more than any other right—since juries can serve as the final check on government’s power to enforce unjust, immoral, or oppressive laws. But in America today, how independent c

Author: Drury R. Sherrod
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538109549
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Confronting readers with intellectual and moral dilemmas faced by real jurors, The Jury Crisis explores the near collapse of jury trials in America, examines alternative paths to justice and proposes how to restore trial by jury as the trusted foundation of American democracy.

Author: Norbert Ehrenfreund
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
ISBN: 9780805019513
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
In the American judicial system, jurors hold an awesome responsibility. They have the power to grant millions of dollars in damages, to declare someone guilty or not guilty of a crime, and, in some states, to decide if another human being should live or die. The twelve real-life court cases presented here not only offer students a fascinating inside look at the court system, they give them the opportunity to step into the jury box and experience American justice in action. All the key factors of jury trials are discussed: expert witnesses, the allowance of certain kinds of evidence, claims of diminished capacity, and much more. Each case is followed by a series of interactive questions that test readers’ knowledge of the issues involved. And at the end of each chapter students will find out how the real jury decided—and why. As entertaining as it is educational, You’re the Jury offers a hands-on introduction to a unique aspect of the American legal system. Norbert Ehrenfreund has served as a judge for seventeen years in the Superior Court of California. Lawrence Treat is a founder and former president of the Mystery Writers of America, a three-time Edgar Allan Poe Award winner, and the author of the highly successful Crime and Puzzlement series.

Author: Andrew G. Ferguson
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814729037
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Places the idea of jury duty into perspective, noting its importance as a constitutional responsibility, and describes ways in which the experience may be enriched.

Author: Richard D. Sparkman
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1465385517
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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True Crime/Law/Current Affairs/Political Science and Government Provocation Sparkman use thought-provoking cases to illustrate the failures of a trial system we revere only because we have been told it is the best in the world — a system we have been too arrogant to question. Charley “I won’t leave any witnesses next time.” Charley stated after being sentenced to ten years for the rape of three women. He subsequently pulled just over two years. Dwayne I asked Dwayne when he would stop committing crimes. He smiled his warm smile and replied. “When I’m dead.” Myth America has the greatest and fairest legal system conceived by the mind of man. Truth America has a trial system that cannot control crime and has legal services that are too complex and too expensive. More Truth We have a large legal profession — criminal defense lawyers — who labor to return drunk drivers to our streets, burglars to our homes, and child molesters to our neighborhoods. Revelation It works! We have the highest crime rate in the world with no apparent remedy other than surrendering our rights and building a police state. Solution Scrap our trial system and build a new one, effecting the most fundamental change in American government since 1789. Read Failed Justice, then send it to our leaders.

Author: Amy Bach
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429984279
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
"A groundbreaking book . . . revealing the systemic, everyday problems in our courts that must be addressed if justice is truly to be served."—Doris Kearns Goodwin Attorney and journalist Amy Bach spent eight years investigating the widespread courtroom failures that each day upend lives across America. What she found was an assembly-line approach to justice: a system that rewards mediocre advocacy, bypasses due process, and shortchanges both defendants and victims to keep the court calendar moving. Here is the public defender who pleads most of his clients guilty with scant knowledge about their circumstances; the judge who sets outrageous bail for negligible crimes; the prosecutor who habitually declines to pursue significant cases; the court that works together to achieve a wrongful conviction. Going beyond the usual explanations of bad apples and meager funding, Ordinary Injustice reveals a clubby legal culture of compromise, and shows the tragic consequences that result when communities mistake the rules that lawyers play by for the rule of law. It is time, Bach argues, to institute a new method of checks and balances that will make injustice visible—the first and necessary step to reform.

Author: Jeffrey B. Abramson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674004306
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
This magisterial book explores fascinating cases from American history to show how juries remain the heart of our system of criminal justice - and an essential element of our democracy. No other institution of government rivals the jury in placing power so directly in the hands of citizens. Jeffrey Abramson draws upon his own background as both a lawyer and a political theorist to capture the full democratic drama that is the jury. We, the Jury is a rare work of scholarship that brings the history of the jury alive and shows the origins of many of today's dilemmas surrounding juries and justice.