Factors affecting testimony about mitigating circumstances and the fixing of punishment

Although trial attorneys typically choose to have defendants testify on their own behalf, there are data from studies using simulated juries which suggest that the presentation of favorable testimony by defendants might be harmful. Data from these studies are suspect, however, because subjects' verdicts had no realworld consequences. In the present study the real-world consequentiality of subjects' verdicts (some vs. none), the presence of mitigating testimony (some vs. none), the source of the mitigating testimony (defendant vs. third party), and the credibility of mitigating testimony (high vs. low) were all manipulated in order to test their effects on the severity of penalities subjects assigned. The results showed that among subjects whose decisions were of no consequence, none of the other manipulated variables produced any reliable differences. On the other hand, among those who thought their decisions were of real consequence, less severe penalties were given when mitigating testimony was presented as opposed to when it was not, and more interestingly, this was true regardless of the testimony's source. The results are seen as underlining the importance of inducing a sense of consequence in simulated jury studies.     

The effect of respondents' just world beliefs and target person's social worth and awareness-of-risk on perceptions of a person with AIDS

The present research examined how individuals' just world beliefs affected their perceptions of a person with AIDS who was depicted as having contracted the HIV virus while either aware or unaware of health risks, and who was defined as either high or low in general social deservingness or worth. Dependent variables included respondents' affective reactions to the person with AIDS, their willingness to allocate resources to him, and their perception of the fairness or the unfairness both of his general plight and that various types of resources be given to him. Results indicated that those who were higher in just world beliefs were more emotionally negative to the other with AIDS, they were less willing to contribute resources to him, and they felt that it was less fair that such resource transfers be required. Similar response patterns were found when the other with AIDS was described as lower in social worth and when he was depicted as having contracted AIDS with full awareness of health risks. Implications of the findings were discussed in terms of how psychological theories of justice might inform health care policy.     

Effects of a new commitment law on involuntary admissions and service utilization patterns

Recently Nebraska changed its commitment law to include many procedural safeguards and require behaviorally manifested dangerousness as a criterion of commitment. An interrupted time-series design was used to determine what effects the new law had on admission characteristics and service utilization patterns of all those committed to Nebraska's three state hospitals. An immediate drop in involuntary admissions was found, but this decline was temporary. Several changes in the demographic characteristics of those committed were also found. Finally, the law apparently caused an increase in the number of those having to be readmitted. These results raise questions about the implementation of the law, the perception of dangerousness, and the need for more effective liaison between state hospitals and community-based treatment facilities.     

Beshada v. Johns-Manville Products Corp.: the function of state of the art evidence in strict products liability

In Beshada v. Johns-Manville Products Corp., the Supreme Court of New Jersey held that a state of the art defense is unavailable in cases brought under a theory of strict liability for failure to warn. The court indicated that asbestos producers may be held liable for their products' harms even if the health hazards of asbestos were unknown and not discoverable when the products were marketed. In a subsequent case, the New Jersey court held that state of the art evidence is relevant to whether a product is defective. This Case Comment examines these different uses of knowledge evidence in the disposition of products liability cases. It contends that manufacturers should not be held liable for unknowable risks. The Comment concludes that the state of the art defense establishes a logical limit on strict liability and promotes efficient resolution of products liability claims.     

Empirical criteria for the determination of suicide manner of death

A 16-item instrument was constructed as a tool to assist medicolegal official in their investigations and certifications of suicidal deaths. The Empirical Criteria for the Determination of Suicide (ECDS)--derived from a combined set of the 22 criterion items of the Operational Criteria for the Determination of Suicide (OCDS) and 33 other items obtained from experts and the professional literature--was constructed and validated by using 126 suicide and accident cases obtained from 70 medical examiner participants. Analysis of the cases confirmed that suicide is a manner of death in which there is evidence of both self-infliction and intention to die. The 16 items retained in the ECDS discriminated suicides from accidents best in relation to self-infliction and intention. In analysis of its concurrent validity, the ECDS instrument predicted 100% of the suicides and 83% of the accidents, thus correctly identifying 92% of all cases.