Juror Judgments in Civil Cases: Hindsight Effects on Judgments of Liability for Punitive Damages

An experiment was conducted to investigate whether hindsight bias influences an important class of legal decisions—civil jurors' judgments of liability for punitive damages. Jury-eligible citizens were shown a videotaped summary of the circumstances surrounding an environmental damage lawsuit. Some subjects were presented a foresight perspective and asked to judge whether or not a railroad should comply with an order to stop operations on a section of track that had been declared hazardous. Other subjects were asked to judge whether the railroad was liable for punitive damages after an accident occurred. Three independent variables were manipulated: temporal perspective with one third of the subjects assessing risks in foresight and two thirds assessing risks in hindsight; subject role with one half of the subjects asked to assume the role of a juror rendering a verdict and one half the role of a citizen whose personal opinion was solicited; and, in the hindsight conditions only, the amount of damage ($240,000 vs. $24,000,000) caused by the accident. Almost all measures of participants' judgments and thoughts about the case showed dramatic foresight–hindsight differences. The participants' role had an effect on some measures; for example, participants in the juror role exhibited slightly smaller hindsight effects when judging liability than did those in the citizen role. The magnitude of the damage caused by the accident had no effects on any measures.     

Juror Judgments in Civil Cases: Effects of Plaintiff's Requests and Plaintiff's Identity on Punitive Damage Awards

Two experiments were conducted to study the manner in which civil jurors assess punitive damage awards. Jury-eligible citizens were shown a videotaped summary of an environmental damage lawsuit and told that the defendant had already paid compensatory damages. They were asked to judge liability for punitive damages and, if damages were to be assessed, to assign a dollar award. Three independent variables were manipulated in the case materials: the dollar amounts that were explicitly requested by the plaintiffs in their closing arguments to the jury, the geographical location of the defendant corporation, and the location of the lead plaintiff. Consistent with prior findings of anchor effects on judgments, we found that the plaintiffs requested award values had a dramatic effect on awards: the higher the request, the higher the awards. We also found that local plaintiffs were awarded more than were geographically remote plaintiffs, while the location of the defendant company did not have reliable effects on the awards. The implications of these results for procedures in civil trials and for theories of juror decision making are discussed.     

Suicide by Cop Among Officer-Involved Shooting Cases

Abstract: The frequency and characteristics of suicide by cop cases (SBC) among a large (n = 707) nonrandom sample of North American officer-involved shootings (OIS) were investigated. “Suicide by cop” is when a subject engages in behavior which poses an apparent risk of serious injury or death, with the intent to precipitate the use of deadly force by law enforcement against the subject. Thirty-six percent of the OIS in this sample were found to be SBC with high interrater agreement (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.93) for category classification. SBC cases were more likely to result in the death or injury of the subjects than regular OIS cases. Most SBC cases were spontaneous, but had clear verbal and behavioral indicators that occurred prior to, and during the event. Findings confirm the trend detected in earlier research that there was a growing incidence of SBC among OIS. SBC individuals had a high likelihood of possessing a weapon (80%), which was a firearm 60% of the time. Half of those with a firearm discharged it at the police during the encounter. Nineteen percent simulated weapon possession to accomplish their suicidal intent. Other findings highlight the histories and commonalities in this high risk group.     

Desire for Smart Growth: A Survey of Residential Preferences in the Salt Lake Region of Utah

As an alternative to sprawling development, smart growth combines proximity to work, proximity to shopping and other destinations, neighborhood housing mix, shared and paid parking, complete street designs, and proximity to public transit. This article uses a stated-choice experiment to determine residents' attitudes toward these various aspects of smart growth in the Salt Lake region of Utah. Utah is a conservative state, where attitudes toward auto-oriented suburbia may be more positive than in other parts of the United States. So, one might wonder whether changing national attitudes toward smart growth, documented in several surveys, apply to residents of the Salt Lake region. In this stated-choice experiment, respondents were asked to choose between pairs of housing scenarios with different attributes and different prices. Mixed logit (random parameters logit) was used to relate individuals' choices to attributes, prices, and sociodemographic characteristics of respondents. The results show that, generally, respondents have positive attitudes toward most aspects of smart growth but still express preferences for single-family neighborhoods with free parking in their own driveways or garages. Different life cycle cohorts have different preferences. Proximity to work is more important for childless young adults. Young families with children place higher value on living in a neighborhood with only single-family homes and transit access. Retired empty nesters favor a mix of housing types over single-family housing on one-acre-plus lots. The results suggest that while residents of the Salt Lake region like suburban neighborhoods with primarily single-family houses, they would also like to have improved accessibility to amenities in the suburbs.     

The faces of death: regional differentiation in cause-specific mortality in the past

In mortality research, much attention has been paid to the strong geographical differentials in mortality levels and in modern mortality decline, as the analysis of this geographical differentiation might hold the key to explaining the determinants of mortality change. The use of historical cause-specific mortality data has proved a challenging, although very insightful, means to this end. The four contributions to this special issue focus on cause-specific mortality in the past, both to reassess older data using new insights and to challenge existing insights by using new data and methods. These papers, of which earlier versions were presented during the thirty-eighth Social Science History Association (SSHA) Meeting in Chicago, 21–24 November 2013, explore mortality at different stages of the life course, ranging from early infancy to old age. Moreover, each paper revolves around a different group of causes of death. Although the papers are in many ways rather different, together they demonstrate how different data, theoretical frameworks and methodologies can push the boundaries of research into the trends and determinants of historical mortality patterns.     

Sisters in Terrorism? Exploding Stereotypes

New Terrorism is increasingly deploying women in the field as combatants. Female suicide bombers have proven to be highly effective, precisely because of the persistence of gender stereotypes in target societies. Women terrorists convey a powerful message of political seriousness, heighten the sense of intimidation and threat, and attract greater mass media attention—all key strategic objectives of New Terrorism. Gender stereotypes are also at work in explanations for women's recourse to terrorist activism. Such stereotypes simplify complex motivations and either overvalue or undervalue women's agency. The net result of this stereotyping is that women end up worse off individually and collectively, domestically and internationally. The lives of women in geopolitical hotspots have become more precarious, and the valorization of women terrorists undermines the quest for women's emancipation in fundamentalist cultures. In Western democracies, paternalistic outrage at women's subordination under fundamentalist regimes may have initially served as a dubious justification for military and other interventions, but the involvement of women in terrorist activism now risks reinforcing an even more dangerous “clash of civilizations” thinking. One effect is to undermine the demands for greater gender equality in Western democracies as well as indirectly support the war on women political agenda domestically.