Supporting the Message,Not the Messenger: The Correlates of Attitudes towards Black Lives Matter

American Journal of Criminal Justice - Since the Black Lives Matter movement’s rise to prominence, there has been significant opposition from both media and political figures who believe that...     

Jurors'Evaluations of Expert Testimony: Judging the Messenger and the Message

Jurors are laypersons with no specific expert knowledge, yet they are routinely placed in situations in which they need to critically evaluate complex expert testimony. This paper examines jurors'reactions to experts who testify in civil trials and the factors jurors identify as important to expert credibility. Based on in-depth qualitative analyses of interviews with 55 jurors in 7 civil trials, we develop a comprehensive model of the key factors jurors incorporate into the process of evaluating expert witnesses and their testimony. Contrary to the frequent criticism that jurors primarily evaluate expert evidence in terms of its subjective characteristics, the results of our study indicate that jurors consider both the messenger and the message in the course of evaluating the expert's credibility.     

The Public as a Limit to Technology Transfer: The Influence of Knowledge and Beliefs in Attitudes towards Biotechnology in the UK

Transferring knowledge on new biotechnology applications in the European Union is restricted by limited public support. Explanations for this limited support lead us to examine the influence of knowledge and beliefs in shifting attitudes towards the uncertain consequences of unknown technologies. In addition, this paper looks at the role of perceptions of uncertainty as well as information channels. We denote as “knowledgeable” those attitudes that are held by informed individuals and as “rational irrational” those attitudes purely reflecting political and moral beliefs. The empirical analysis employs data from a UK sample of the 1999 Eurobarometer Survey 52.1. Results suggest that improving knowledge systematically raises individual support for clinical biotech applications such as animal cloning, while attitudes towards market-oriented biotech such as GM food remain systematically unaltered. When controlling for knowledge, significant factors within information channels were gender, perceptions of risk and, in certain applications, religiosity. Findings also support the hypothesis that knowledge driven attitudes arise from those applications where knowledge is shifted by perceived experience and thus perceived information costs are small. An erratum to this article is available at .     

修复、矫治与分控:社区矫正机能三重性辩证及其展开

社区矫正机能存在矫正理论一元化与实践需求多元化的脱节而亟需辩证更新。传统的教育矫正论有发生学合理性,但效果不彰,并引发公正性危机而引起理论批判。经反思后形成恢复性司法与被害保护需求下的正义修复以及处遇规制化影响下的规范矫治和风险管理推动下的分流监控相结合的复合机能论,该理论对我国社区矫正问题形成借鉴。机能辩证关系中,修复与矫治存在应报与防范的互补,而分控有风险管理的独立意义。在广义的风险语境下,三机能各具特色应当兼顾;而在机能竞争时,根据风险紧迫性形成分控、矫治、修复的先后择序。制度展开中,复合机能对社区矫正关键机制起决定作用,因此,风险评估具有外控内矫的双重目标;禁止令需考虑防范、改善与被害保护的择一或复合标准;中间刑的借鉴基于机能导向,应保证多元方案与动态适用。     

Legal Needs of The Poor: Problems,Priorities and Attitudes*

The Legal Services Corporation is faced with the problem of allocating limited resources in order to meet the legal needs of the poor. It is forced into the dilemma of setting priorities, creating workable regulations to meet an ambiguously defined and elusive concept of legal need. Recently enacted regulations require annual reports by legal services programs that are based, in part, on the assessment of eligible clients' needs as expressed by their attitudes. These regulations are premised on unarticulated implicit assumptions relating attitudes, problems experienced, and legal need. This study examines these assumptions in an analysis of perceived problems, help seeking behavior, attitudes toward the allocation of legal services resources, and how these have changed over time for the eligible client population of one legal service program in California.     

Steering, Supporting, Enabling: The Role of Law in Local Government Reforms

Reforms in local government often follow decisions that are taken by central governments. To initiate these changes, law is the most important mechanism. This article analyzes the different regulative strategies legislators can apply in this context. Since local governments have a variety of options at hand to resist orders for change, a strict steering approach is not necessarily the most promising mechanism. Contrariwise, to play a purely enabling role might not be a satisfactory option for central governments that want to express their commitment to a multilevel reform agenda.     

关于法治的理念、态度与方法--评陈金钊著《法治与法律方法》

近世以来,对法律不确定性的认识引发了对传统法治理论和法律方法论的广泛怀疑.在这种学术背景下,<法治与法律方法>对法治与法律方法问题进行了重新研究,以阐明维护法治的态度,指出法律理念、态度与方法对于法治的意义.虽然在此理论建构中可能还存在一些需要进一步研究的问题,但在当下中国的法学语境中,<法治与法律方法>从理论和实践两个层面对法治做出了富有成效的诠释.     

审判职能、说服责任与“案结事了”

本文从司法审判的特点、说服责任的性质与和谐价值的实现等方面,探讨了它们与案结事了的关系。在法治社会,法院的角色是根据证据裁判原则解决社会争端,诉讼各方必须履行说服责任,才能使法院判决具有可接受性,使争端得到终局性解决。法院作为国家审判机关,不应以调解优先,而应以增强证据意识、完善证据制度来实现案结事了。在刑事诉讼中,只有强化公诉人的说服责任,达到使事实认定者确信无疑的证明标准,才能减少冤假错案,实现案结事了。在民事诉讼中,应当遵循体现和谐价值的不能采纳用以证明过错或责任的证据规则,才能避免善有恶报、案结事坏的恶果。     

The Denial of Visitation Rights: A Preliminary Look at its Incidence, Correlates, Antecedents and Consequences

The issue of visitation denial has inspired considerable debate and legislative activity. This article presents empirical evidence on the scope of the problem and the relationship between visitation and child support payment behaviors. Visitation denial is shown to be a problem, although reported levels of denial fall below both levels of non-contact by absent parents and non-payment of child support noted in previous research. Visitation difficulties appear to become established fairly early on in the separation/divorce process and fail to deviate over time. Although non-payment of child support cases do not always involve a visitation problem, the two phenomena are related with visitation problem cases being more likely to involve non-payment of child support. The data do not permit a deciphering of causal order in cases that involve both types of non-compliance. However, both phenomena appear to stem from conflict patterns between the parents which are detectable at early stages of the divorce process. These findings inspire several recommendations, including interventions with divorcing parents aimed at enhancing their communication skills and reducing levels of anger and hostility and the need to develop mechanisms in which visitation and child support grievances can be jointly aired.     

Fractured Lives,Splintered Knowledge: Making Criminological Sense of the January, 2015 Terrorist Attacks in Paris

Cottee (Br J Criminol 54(6):981–1001, 2014) makes the case that criminology has much to contribute to an understanding of theistic violence. However the ‘hubris of positivism’ (Young in The criminological imagination, Polity, Cambridge, 2011) curtails the criminological imagination and this is particularly evident in the debates that permeate contemporary understandings of religious extremism and radicalisation. Using the terrorist attacks in France 2015 as a touchstone, this paper explores the current state of criminological engagement with these issues. First a synopsis of orthodox current criminological talk about religious extremism and violent crime is considered. Next a critical analysis of the events in Paris based around what is ‘known’ about them is offered in the light of this knowledge. Finally, drawing on the work of Young (2011) the implications of this analysis for criminology are considered resulting in a refinement of the biases identified by Cottee (2014).     

Early Exposure to Violence in the Family of Origin and Positive Attitudes towards Marital Violence: Chinese Immigrant Male Batterers vs. Controls

This study examined self-reported early exposure to violence in the family of origin and positive attitudes towards marital violence as risk factors in court-referred Chinese immigrant male batterers (N = 64) versus controls (N = 62). Early exposure to violence was positively correlated with marital violence, but it alone did not differentiate the batterers from the controls, as both groups were widely exposed to it. While it was significantly correlated with marital violence in the batterer group, it was significantly correlated with depression in the control group. Positive attitudes towards marital violence were not only correlated with marital violence but also sufficient to differentiate the batterers from the controls. It also partially mediated the effect of early exposure to violence on marital violence. These two risk factors together accounted for 21.9% of the variance in marital violence over and above sociodemographic variables and marital dissatisfaction. Research and treatment implications based on these findings were outlined.

Representatives' Attitudes Toward Citizen Protests in Sweden: The Impact of Ideology,Parliamentary Position,and Experiences

What affects political representatives' attitudes toward citizen protests? We test the impact of political representatives' left‐right ideology, parliamentary position, and earlier experience of citizen protests. Using data from a pioneering survey covering all local political representatives in Sweden (n = 9,101, response rate 70%), we examine attitudes toward controversial noninstitutionalized forms of citizen protests. The results show that representatives to the right show considerably lower protest acceptance than those to the left. Representatives in office show significantly lower levels of acceptance than those of the opposition. Finally, the results show that representatives with more protest experience show higher protest acceptance.     

The Coase Theorem, Private Information, and the Benefits of Not Assigning Property Rights

Using a simple bilateral trading example with discrete valuations and costs it is demonstrated that in the presence of private information the efficiency of Coasean bargaining may be strictly enhanced if initially no property rights are assigned.     

In the Michigan Court of Appeals: In the Matter of AMB,a Minor

HOLDING: In the accelerating rush to judgment that occurred here, a series of legal errors and missteps following a preliminary hearing compounded what was already an excruciatingly difficult and complex situation. The record strongly suggests that no one involved in the protective proceeding had ever communicated directly with baby AMB's parents and only the testifying doctor had ever seen AMB, an infant with life-threatening disabilities. Thus, a duly enacted statutory process designed to protect individual rights, to allow the intelligent exercise of these rights, and to assure balanced and considered decision making became, instead, the opposite. There was such a relentless disregard for basic principles of law that in its opinion, the Michigan Court of Appeals attempted to assure that this tragedy is never repeated in that state.     

Protection, Parity, or Promotion: Public Attitudes to Cohabitation and the Purposes of Legal Reform

Cohabitation law reform may be informed by different purposes. Three are considered in this paper: protection of parties at risk when relationships break down, parity of treatment between different forms of partnership, and the promotion of particular family forms. These are considered in relation to the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 in the context of recent evidence about public attitudes towards cohabitation. Public attitudes and the approach adopted in the 2006 Act are juxtaposed, raising questions about the alignment of public attitudes and the direction of law reform on cohabitation.     

审判职能、说服责任与“案结事了”

本文从司法审判的特点、说服责任的性质与和谐价值的实现等方面。探讨了它们与“案结事了”的关系。在法治社会。法院的角色是根据证据裁判原则解决社会争端。诉讼各方必须履行说服责任,才能使法院判决具有可接受性,使争端得到终局性解决。法院作为国家审判机关．不应以调解优先,而应以增强证据意识、完善证据制度来实现案结事了。在刑事诉讼中．只有强化公诉人的说服责任,达到使事实认定者确信无疑的证明标准．才能减少冤假错案,实现案结事了。在民事诉讼中,应当遵循体现和谐价值的“不能采纳用以证明过错或责任的”证据规则．才能避免“善有恶报”、“案结事坏”的恶果。