Conduct and its Consequences: Attempts at Debiasing Jury Judgments

Jurors in negligence cases are supposed to judge a defendant by the reasonableness of his or her conduct and not by the consequences of that conduct. But several studies have shown that a cognitive heuristic known as hindsight bias can skew post hoc judgments of some prior behavior. Thus, jurors who must evaluate the actions of a defendant may be influenced inappropriately by the consequences of those actions. A complementary problem arises when jurors must evaluate the injuries incurred by the plaintiff. Here, jurors' knowledge about the defendant's allegedly negligent conduct can proactively influence their assessment of the plaintiff's injuries and determination of damages. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of two procedural techniques intended to reduce or eliminate the impact of hindsight bias in negligence cases—multiple admonitions from a judge about the proper use of evidence—and bifurcation (actually withholding irrelevant evidence from jurors). We presented a re-enacted automobile negligence trial to 355 jury-eligible adults drawn from the community, varied the evidence and instructions that they heard, and measured liability judgments and damage awards from individual jurors both before and after deliberating, and from juries. Results showed that admonitions were generally ineffective in guiding jurors to the proper use of evidence but that bifurcation was relatively more effective. Deliberations had no curative effect on jurors' misapplication of evidence.     

Fear and criminal victimization among elderly public housing residents

The influence of crime among the elderly was investigated in this study. The study suggests that crime prevention programs among the elderly should be implemented with some reservations. Since the risks of criminal victimization are low among the elderly, it may not be possible to reduce those rates much further, even with elaborate security programs for the elderly. On the contrary, raising the salience of crime by placing great emphasis on preventive behavior may well foster social isolation among the elderly.     

Sexual and nonsexual offenders with intellectual and learning disabilities: a comparison of characteristics, referral patterns, and outcome

This article reports an evaluation of a community intellectual disability offender service over the period from 1990 to 2001. Men who committed sex offenses or sexually abusive incidents (n = 106) and men who committed other types of offenses and serious incidents (n = 78) are compared on personal characteristics, referral sources, forensic details, and outcome up to 7 years after referral. The cohorts are older than one would expect from the criminology literature, and, at about 33%, the incidence of mental illness is consistent with some previous studies. A greater proportion of sex offenders had criminal justice involvement and a formal disposal from court. Fire raising was not overly represented as an offense. There was a higher rate of reoffending in the nonsexual cohort, which persisted up to 7 years. Investigating only reoffenders, there was a considerable amount of harm reduction recorded up to 7 years, statistically significant up to 5 years following initial referral.     

"Just say no!": the right to refuse psychotropic medication in long-term care facilities

This article examines the rights of patients, particularly incompetent patients, in long-term care facilities to refuse psychotropic medication. In exploring this topic, the author focuses on the provisions of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 which was part of a Congressional solution to afford greater protection to residents of long-term care facilities. Because the legislation has not lived up to expectations, the author advocates for further legislative action to protect the dwindling bundle of rights of the elderly.     

The GC-MS detection and characterization of reticuline as a marker of opium use

Reticuline (a precursor of opium alkaloids) was detected and characterised as its trimethylsilyl ethers, acetyl esters and methyl ethers by GC-EIMS and GC-CIMS in opium and the urine of opium users after hydrolysis by acid or beta-glucuronidase as coextractive of morphine. Because this compound cannot be detected in heroin and poppy seeds, it is suggested as a differentiating marker between opium and heroin use, opium and poppy seeds use, or opium and "pharmaceutical" codeine use in cases when opiate use has been confirmed by detection of morphine and codeine in the urine. As well as being a constituent of opium, reticuline in the urine of opium users may also result from the metabolic demethylation of the three other benzyltetrahydroisoquinoline opium alkaloids: codamine, laudanosine and laudanine.