BRAIN LESSONS: THE PERSUASIVE POWER OF “UP”

Everyone nowadays seems to think they are a photographer and I’m no different.  I own too much gear.  I have a website.  I watch innumerable YouTube videos about Photoshop.  The great Dorthea Lange once said, “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”  It’s absolutely true.  I see all

BRAIN LESSONS – DO YOU SEE THE DUCK?

Eyewitness error, the product of inadequate perception and/or failed or altered memory, is generally the ‘stuff’ of criminal procedure courses. “The vagaries of eyewitness identification testimony” language dates back to Justice Frankfurter, and courses on wrongful conviction remind students that in the DNA exoneration cases 70% or more involved the mistaken claim of “that’s the

BRAIN LESSONS: THE CONSEQUENCES OF EXCISING EMOTION

Two weeks ago, my wife propped open the door of our (too-long-for-any-reasonable-use) screened porch.  She was shuttling plants in and out every night and got tired of latching and unlatching the porch door.  Well, it’s closed now—for good—because a hummingbird got into the porch.  I can’t seem to forget that little bird and I thought

BRAIN LESSONS: THE SEVEN PERCENT DELUSION

Advice from mock trial judges must be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.  Especially from one who, after expressing surprise over a move by students to use the defendant’s deposition in the plaintiff’s case, opined that “you don’t necessarily have to meet your burden during your case.”  But I was intrigued, if abashed by