In Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, there is a climactic confrontation between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, in which Vader corners Luke and tells him, “Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.” Luke shouts back that Obi-Wan told him Vader killed his father. Then, Vader pauses. A long, deliberate silence. This silence
As much as I wish to resist it, the pull toward artificial intelligence becomes stronger every day. And as experiments proceed with LLMs (large language models) it may be easier to have AI ‘converse’ with humans, respond to the humans’ concerns, and ultimately change the humans’ beliefs. A recent series of experiments tested this –
“When I was looking out of the airplane’s window that I took when I first left home to college, I had tears in my eyes.” This was the first sentence in a short story I wrote in college. Picture it: someone sitting by the window, quiet, eyes filled with tears as the plane moves forward.
If I were a true believer in the power of unanswered rhetorical questions the rest of this column would be blank. Or maybe not; because maybe the power of the question comes when it follows compelling information that guides the audience to the desired response. So – let me provide the information and then see
A big chunk of our community just returned from Stetson’s Educating Advocacy Teachers (EATS) conference. If you have never been, you should go. I feel sad when I leave the conference but there is also another feeling I easily find within me. I leave feeling inspired. And because I left EATS feeling inspired, I decided
A new publication from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, NACDL – THE BIAS BOOK – UNPACKING BIAS IN THE CRIMINAL LEGAL SYSTEM – had a curious segment on “proxemics.” Written by Texas practitioner Mimi Coffey, it had a provocative title – “Unjust Courtroom Practices: Always Seating The Prosecution Closest To The Jury.” Coffey
BY GRANT ROST As a torts professor, I get regular emails from a listserv that compiles and summarizes new torts cases from around the country. In a recent blast, I discovered a case from Idaho that combined two of my favorite subjects: torts and cognitive biases. In this case, a plaintiff reported to an emergency
I often claim, in Evidence lectures, that Rule 105 is the most powerful of the rules. Why? It justifies admission of almost any piece of proof, no matter how much collateral damage it carries, because “[t]he presumption that jurors follow limiting instructions,” Samia v. United States, 599 U.S. 635, 646 (2024), is an article of
It is late in the afternoon, on the fourth day of a five-day jury trial, and my soon-to-be-disbarred opposing counsel settles in for his mid-trial, afternoon, nap. I make my obligatory “do you see this guy?” eye contact with the judge. The judge sees. With a slight nod and a shrug, the decision is made
BY GRANT ROST I don’t read much fiction. However, this past year I’ve probably read more fiction than I have in 30 years. Sometimes life encourages escapism. Sometimes it practically mandates it. I just finished my most recent escape. I tore through the books of Cixin Liu’s Three Body Problem trilogy. Perhaps Netflix will send