The Court of Public Opinion: Lay Perceptions of Polygraph Testing

We sampled a total of 411 participants and randomly assigned them one of three brief trial vignettes that contained either no-polygraph evidence, evidence of a passed polygraph test, or evidence of a failed polygraph test. Participants rendered guilt judgments and answered a series of questions concerning the trial in particular, and polygraph tests in general. Similar to previous studies on the impact of polygraph evidence on jurors' guilt judgments, this sample of jury-eligible adults indicated that they did not find polygraph test evidence to be persuasive. Moreover, it mattered little to participants whether the results indicated the defendant passed a polygraph test, or that he failed a polygraph test. However, when our findings are compared to those of previous surveys involving experts in the field of psychophysiology, they differ in a number of important respects. The implications for decisions regarding admissibility (e.g., U.S. v. Alexander, 1975 and U.S. v. Scheffer, 1998) are discussed.     

The Influence of Public Sentiment on Supreme Court Opinion Clarity

We examine whether public opinion leads Supreme Court justices to alter the content of their opinions. We argue that when justices anticipate public opposition to their decisions, they write clearer opinions. We develop a novel measure of opinion clarity based on multifaceted textual readability scores, which we validate using human raters. We examine an aggregate time series analysis of the influence of public mood on opinion clarity and an individual‐level sample of Supreme Court cases paired with issue‐specific public opinion polls. The empirical results from both models show that justices write clearer opinions when their rulings contradict popular sentiment. These results suggest public opinion influences the Court, and suggest that future scholarship should analyze how public opinion influences the written content of decision makers’ policies.     

Public Opinion of Teen,Classroom, and Formal Court Styles

The present research examined the views of a community sample regarding teen court, classroom court, and formal/traditional court. Participants read vignettes of teen offenders who had committed crimes of high or low severity and were given relatively severe or mild sentences through one of the three courts. Results revealed stronger support for teen court than the other courts, a general preference for harsh sentences, and a preference for match between crime and punishment. The results of this study indicate that teen courts are seen as providing an appropriate means to sentence juvenile offenders and are likely to receive public support for their continued operation.     

The Court of Public Opinion and the Practice of Restorative Ordeals in Pre-Modern India

According to their standardized treatment within the Indian legal tradition (Dharmaśāstra), ordeals (Sanskrit: divya) are supposed to occur, under certain circumstances, when one person formally accused another of some crime in a court of law. While not disputing the general accuracy of this standardized treatment of ordeals, this article argues for the widespread practice in pre-modern India of another—hitherto unrecognized—type of ordeal that fails to fit this basic scenario, for such ordeals would occur when someone was widely believed to have committed some wrongdoing, but was not forced to stand trial in a formal judicial court. In order to prove his innocence and, thereby, mitigate the damage caused by his suspected guilt, such an individual could—and sometimes did—arrange for himself to undergo an ordeal at his own expense and independently of any formal plaint. After establishing the practice of ordeals of this sort in pre-modern India, this article then examines some possible explanations for their development.     

Opinion Construction in the Roberts Court

The Supreme Court's main output is the decision on the merits. Little is known, however, about how such decisions are constructed. This article is one of the first to look at the way Supreme Court opinions are constructed by examining the impact of the core linguistic resources at the Court's disposal. It does so in a novel manner by measuring the Court's reliance on wording from parties’ merits filings, amicus briefs, and lower‐court opinions between the 2005 and 2014 terms. To accomplish this goal, the article compares language in over 13,000 documents in the Court's docket during this period with their respective majority opinions. The article then looks at the relative impact of parties’ briefs and filings, amicus curiae briefs, and lower‐court opinions on the Court's majority opinion language. This article provides both macro– and microlevel analyses by locating the relative effects of these linguistic resources on the Court's overall opinion language as well as by breaking these findings down by individual justice. In the aggregate, this article finds that, of the three resources analyzed, the Court tends to use language from parties’ merits briefs most frequently, then wording from lower‐court opinions, and the least from amicus briefs, but that differences in case level factors shift the relative utility of each of these three resources.     

新闻舆论权与司法权的冲突简论

新闻舆论权作为一种社会权利与作为国家权力的司法权都有其存在的必然性内因,两者在运行过程中更是体现出无可避免的冲突性;围绕其冲突的内因与冲突的解决方案,本文作出了相关的阐述。     

论舆论市场中的公共新闻——兼论公共新闻对我国新闻改革的借鉴意义

公共新闻(或称公民新闻)在美国的兴起,引起国内学者的关注.公共新闻活动与以往最大的不同之处是同城媒介联合行动,共同设置话题,直接介入公共事务,试图解决公众关注的公共问题.公共新闻活动是对此前所有新闻学、传播学、舆论学和社会学理论的巨大冲击.它的实践和理论对于我国新闻媒介的改革具有现实借鉴意义.本文从公共新闻与舆论市场、与媒介议程设置、与我国媒介改革诸方面对公共新闻实践和理论的影响和可借鉴之处作了理论上的探讨,并从国家民族利益角度提出了应对策略.     

A Court as the Process of Signification: Legal Semiotics of the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons in 1996 was a landmark case because, for the first time in history, the legal aspect of nuclear weapons was addressed. The decision has evoked controversies regarding the Court’s conclusion, the legal status of international humanitarian law in relation to nuclear weapons, and a newly introduced concept of state survival. While much legal scholarship discusses and criticizes the legal significance of the opinion, there has not been enough scholarship examining the Court’s specific choice of words and concepts that sustain its wider ideological and political position in the opinion. The paper argues that the Court’s vague and controversial logic is attributed to its confrontation with two international orders/codes: the legal order (or international law) and the political order (or state practice). The paper engages in legal semiotics as methodology to decode legal text and discover a deep structure that sustains networks of codes, according to which text is interpreted. Through the semiotic examination of three sets of key concepts (1) “permitted” and “prohibited,” (2) “threat of use” and “possession of the weapon,” and (3) “state survival,” the paper shows the ICJ’s confrontation with two orders/codes and eventual prioritization of the political order over the international legal order. The analysis of the opinion based on legal semiotics indicates an intimate and inseparable relationship between state practice and international law, which must be disentangled for the sake of the rule of law.     

公诉人庭审询问技巧研讨

庭审询问对于查明案件真实、保障被告人的诉讼权利、提升庭审的效率、维护程序正义具有非常重要的作用。为了充分发挥其功能,庭审询问必须遵循特定的规则,如诱导性规则、禁止重复发问规则等,还要讲究询问的技巧,技巧的运用具备相当重要的作用,因为无论什么样的规则,均需要通过相应的询问技巧才能得到展示。通过探讨庭审询问的基本理念、规则的基础上,基于对庭审询问实践的总结,提炼出符合庭审询问规律的询问技巧。     

Public Opinion at the Turn of the Century

The horizon is an arbitrary, subjective concept. It is determined, moment by moment, by the position of the observer and where he stands above sea level. What one can see depends on the means available and one's experience at observation. The same can be said of a time horizon, especially when we face, as we do now, the biggest break accessible to the naked eye, the turn of a century. (The two or three generations encompassed by a century can be retained in living memory, whereas the turn of the millennium occurring at the same time can only be an object of chronological speculation.) Measures of human or social action, the succession of generations, political errors, or peaks of popularity are undoubtedly real. Every period of time, whether measured in years or months, has its own pace and structure, its own "time." Such a measurement as a century seems quite artificial, imposed from without and bearing no relation to reality. But any social process that takes place in the real world relies on the attention, imagination, and will of people. One function of these processes is to structure time, not only time filled with actual deeds and plans but "empty" time as well. A "century" is structured by imagination, expectations, and so on—not so much practical as ideological (social or mythological) in nature. In human (public, mass) perceptions, the very events that are mythologized are the ones declared "historical": the victories, disasters, breakthroughs, intrigues, disappointments, victims, and so on give meaning to the flow of events.     

刑事司法领域中的民意之解读

民意是客观存在的。信息时代使得民意关注、评价甚至在一定条件下影响司法活动成为可能。刑事司法领域中的民意是公众在对因为某种原因受到社会各界格外关注的刑事案件认知、判断的基础上,根据法律正义的外在社会价值形成的带有普遍倾向和较多道德成分的观点或意见。民意是与案件处理结果有关（直接或潜在）但被国家排斥在刑事诉讼活动之外的一种重要利益的体现。     

公众意见在裁判结构中的地位

从裁判依据的类型分析,公众意见只能作为一种事实依据,参与个案裁判。在常规案件中,公众意见作为一种准用的辅助性依据,可以通过弱的裁量成为合理化判决结论的说明性事实。在遇有法律漏洞的疑难案件中,与社会性主张相一致的公众意见,如果耦合法律体系中的法律原则或基本权利规范,可以籍由强的裁量充当个案推理的运作性依据,成为非常情形中正当化个案规则创制的立法性事实。在日趋多元化和复杂化的转型中国,法律系统必须在稳定性和灵活性、普遍正义和个案正义之间寻求一种平衡;判断公众意见的个案裁判地位,同样需在辅助性依据或运作性依据、说明性事实或立法性事实之间寻求一种平衡。     

网络公共事件舆论引导问题研究

近年来,网络公共事件连年攀升,"双刃剑"效应愈发突出。一些地方政府和部门在网络公共事件舆论引导工作中存在许多不到位、不适应的问题,必须继续强调和落实政务公开,完善相关机制,加强行业自律,并探索建立网络发言人制度,以进一步提高网络公共事件舆论引导能力。     

Russian Public Opinion in the Aftermath of the Ukraine Crisis

This article discusses changes in public opinion in Russia in 2014. The “anti-Putin minority” (about 20 percent of the population) have merged with the conservative pro-Putin majority and opted for loyalty to the Kremlin leadership. The main reason for this shift is rising uncertainty and insecurity, as well as fear of losing the relative prosperity gained in previous years.     

网络舆论的传播规律研究

随着互联网技术的快速发展和普及,网络在新闻传播和舆论形成中已经无可争议地赢得了主导地位,改变了传统的舆论格局。在网络舆论传播过程中呈现出快速性、冲突性、情绪性、群体性、复杂性等特点,因此,只有分析其传播过程中呈现的规律,才能有计划、有步骤、有针对性地对网络舆论进行引导。     

From the Supervision by Public Opinion to the Press Law——Based on the contemporary media and judicature's relations

新闻自由与司法公正都是民主与法治的基本要求,是人类所追求的价值目标.但必须意识到舆论监督权的过度扩张,往往形成民众的激情与压力,影响到独立、理性的司法裁判和司法公正.如何权衡两者之间的矛盾与冲突成为摆在我们面前的一个时代主题.在借鉴国际规则和国外经验的基础上,结合我国司法与传媒的现状,新闻法治应是当前化解传媒与司法困境的可选择之路.     

网络时代的舆论与司法——以哈贝马斯的公共领域理论为视角

公共领域是一个公民自由讨论公共事务的空间.在网络信息时代,新媒体的出现使承载舆论的公共领域发生了结构性的变化,导致了"公共领域的第三次结构转型".2009年以来,多宗演变成影响性事件的司法案件表明,当下中国的司法恰逢公共领域转型和社会转型的双重变奏,其运作的过程和裁判的结果深受舆论的影响甚至左右.为了在舆论与司法之间培育起健康的关系,必须既保障开放的舆论空间,又保障依司法独立运行,并通过司法的透明化赢得社会公众对司法的信任.