Seizing the Opportunities of Fiscal Retrenchment

As both a trust establishment and a public institution, the Smithsonian Institution is a recipient of both public and private sector funding. This article examines the financial crisis within the Institution that resulted from increasing costs, a weakening economy, and eroding federal support. It further shows how the Institution's senior management recognized the permanence of their economic situation, accepted the structural nature of their fiscal plight, and initiated the downsizing and restructuring of a public institution that, until recently, experienced nothing but growth.     

Jurors' knowledge of battered women

An increasing number of psychologists with expertise in the area of battered women are participating in the legal system as expert witnesses and occasionally testify on behalf of a battered woman who has injured or killed her partner. Testimony about the battered woman syndrome has been offered to help the jury understand why the defendant reasonably perceived that she was in danger of harm. One of the requirements of expert testimony is that it be beyond the common understanding of the jury. Many commentators assume that jurors are uninformed or misinformed about battered women and, thus, that expert testimony is necessary to educate them. This study evaluated what jurors know about violent relationships. Approximately 300 jurors read scenarios about spousal violence and answered a questionnaire dealing with circumstances surrounding such abuse. Results suggest that on certain dimensions of spousal violence, jurors are aware of empirical research findings. On other dimensions, jurors are less well-informed and could potentially benefit from the testimony of an expert.     

Assessing the impact of manufacturing extension center

This article summarizes results from the authors' evaluation of the first five years of operation of one of the first MEP centers—the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center. The evaluation utilizes the Performance Benchmarking Service's proprietary database of quantitative measures of performance in 3000 smaller manufacturing plants. The results suggest that while clients are satisfied with MMTC services, nany of the center's projects are less than effective at achieving desired client outcomes and policy objectives. The article considers the implications of this finding both for program operation and future evaluation approaches.     

Impact of hypnotic testimony on the jury

In the past decade, the forensic use of hypnosis to enhance the memories of victims, witnesses, and defendants has sharply increased. A great deal of controversy surrounds this issue. Some commentators argue that testimony derived from hypnosis should not be allowed as evidence because of its inherent unreliability and the unduly powerful impact it may have on a jury. In the present research, we used a jury simulation technique to study the impact that a hypnotically refreshed witness has upon jurors' decision making. A major finding is that jurors view hypnotic testimony with a certain amount of skepticism. In some respects, its impact is comparable to that of testimony based on delayed recall, and rarely does it have the impact of testimony from an immediate report. In addition, jurors' judgments about hypnotically refreshed testimony affected the way they evaluated other evidence at trial: Jurors who learned that a prosecution witness had been hypnotized were less believing ofother prosecution witnesses than were jurors not exposed to hypnotic testimony. The forensic application of these findings is discussed.This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Law and Social Sciences Program. We thank Jane Goodman, Doug Leber, Bonnie Sawnson, Russ Wade, Karen Guest, Jonna Barsanti, Don Kline, Elaine Sullivan, and David Kuykendall for their help at various stages of the project.