The Dutch parliamentary election of May 1986

After a rather uneventful election campaign, the results of the May 1986 Dutch parliamentary election were a surprise to virtually all involved. Since the introduction of regular opinion polling in the 1960s, no election has taken place when the polls were ‘wrong’. However, in 1986 last minute shifts that were stronger than had ever occurred in the Netherlands produced results that differed significantly from the predictions based upon the polls published immediately prior to the election.     

DEPENDENCY COURT MEDIATION

This article discusses the roles and levels of participation of the various participants in juvenile and dependency court mediation, and also examines potential gains and losses associated with participation for family members and the social worker.     

An experimental investigation of procedural issues in complex tort trials

An investigation of the impact of innovations in civil trial procedure manipulated trial structure (unitary vs. separated trial issues), order of decisions (liability or causation first), and number of decisions made (one to four) in a simulated toxic tort trial. Juries gave verdicts and damage awards. Recordings were made of the juries' deliberations. The results showed significantly more verdicts in favor of the plaintiffs in unitary trials (causation, liability, and damages heard together) as opposed to separated trials. However, average damage awards were higher in the separated than in the unitary trial conditions. Juries assigned more responsibility to the defendant in the unitary trial. Juries also used the totality of the evidence to decide all issues, especially general causation, which contained the most ambiguous testimony. The performance of these simulated juries in complex litigation was discussed in terms of group and individual cognitive factors.     

A concept in search of a definition: The effects of reasonable doubt instructions on certainty of guilt standards and jury verdicts

Eighty (6-person) juries heard 1 of the 5 reasonable doubt instructions in a trial that either had strong evidence for guilt or favored acquittal. None of the instructions produced acceptable criteria of self-reported reasonable doubt, although instructions that informed juries to be firmly convinced (FC) elicited the highest standards of proof. The FC instructions yielded verdicts that tended to correspond with the evidence in both versions of the trial. FC juries focused proportionately more on the evidence and less on non-probative issues than juries given other instructions. Juries had lower self-reported standards of proof when the trial evidence was weak for conviction as opposed to when it was strong. The discussion addresses the surprisingly low self-reported standards of proof.