Forensic evidence is prevalent and often critical in criminal prosecutions. Yet, while the criminal court processes prize finality of verdicts, science evolves and often proves that earlier analyses were inadequate or plainly wrong. This article examines the tension between those two concerns by focusing on the 2015 decision of the United States Supreme Court in
This article explores a common phenomenon in criminal cases: jury evaluation of law enforcement. It describes the processes by which litigants seek and offer, and juries assess, evidence pertinent to evaluating law enforcement; assesses the historical development of the phenomenon; and argues that courts (and the justice system more broadly) should accept and accommodate this
This article reviews how cognitive science supports volunteering bad facts and law in legal advocacy.
This offers a bibliography of scholarship on persuasion in legal advocacy.
This article reviews the persuasive value of using the science of priming in legal advocacy.
This article explains the cognitive science showing that a reasonable tone in advocacy is more persuasive than aggression.
This article presents the results of empirical study showing complex and surprising effects of raising plaintiff’s prior conviction in civil trial.
This piece examines some of the advocacy techniques used by then-Associate Justice Rehnquist to advance his preferred understanding of the Fourth Amendment.
This article discusses how Supreme Court oral argument in a particular case influenced both the Court’s resolution of the case and Congress’s later use of it as a vehicle for major law reform.