The Tort Remedy in Search and Seizure Cases: A Case Study in Juror Decision Making

Civil suits for damage awards against police officers alleged to have engaged in illegal searches have long been suggested as an alternative to the exclusionary rule as a remedy for police misconduct. A review of empirical literature on the incidence and outcomes of such suits suggests that defendant officers often prevail and that the awards do not seem large enough to produce the punishment and deterrence effect often claimed by proponents of the tort remedy. Using an experimental technique involving simulated trials and adults called for jury service as subjects, we examine the effects of two procedural aspects of such suits on juror awards. The extent of municipal liability and the substitution of the U.S. government as plaintiff do not appear to affect the incidence or size of compensatory or punitive damage awards. Denying jurors information about the outcome of the search does appear likely to increase damage awards. The article both explores factors affecting juror decision-making in these cases and illustrates the utility and limitations of the experimental method for testing suggested policy innovations.     

Leadership Style, Regime Type, and Foreign Policy Crisis Behavior: A Contingent Monadic Peace?

While a substantial body of theory suggests that democracies should behave peacefully toward all states (monadically), most empirical evidence indicates they are only pacific in their relations with fellow democracies (dyadically). A new theoretical synthesis suggests that the missing link between democratic constraints and pacific monadic behavior is leaders' perceptions of, and responses to, these constraints. Research on political leadership indicates that, contrary to conventional wisdom, leaders respond in systematically different ways to domestic constraints: "constraint respecters" internalize constraints in their environments, while "constraint challengers" view such constraints as obstacles to be surmounted. An analysis of 154 foreign policy crises provides strong support for this contingent monadic thesis: democracies led by constraint respecters stand out as extraordinarily pacific in their crisis responses, while democracies led by constraint challengers and autocracies led by both types of leaders are demonstrably more aggressive.     

A SECOND CALL FOR CLINICAL HUMILITY AND JUDICIAL VIGILANCE:

Offering commentary on "Empirical and Ethical Problems with Custody Recommendations: A Call for Clinical Humility and Judicial Vigilance," we express our agreement with Tippins and Wittmann. We opine that professional activity stimulates inquiry and it is through inquiry that our knowledge base will be expanded and our skills will be improved. In the interim, we should be mindful of our limitations, and actively articulate the ways in which the incompleteness of our knowledge base and the deficiencies of our assessment tools limit the confidence that can be placed in the recommendations that we offer.     

The Fusion of Powers and the Crisis of Canadian Federalism

The crisis in Canadian federalism has not emerged suddenly,but has been building for many years. It is our contention thatCanada's political and constitutional problems can only be alleviatedby reform of the parliamentary system. The fusion of executiveand legislative powers inherent in the parliamentary systemrequires strict party discipline to sustain a government, arequirement intensifying the difficulties posed by Canada'sparticular combination of enormous geographic size and ethnicand regional differentiation. The fusion of powers is not onlya major obstacle to the formation of a national consensus andconciliatory parties. It contributes also to the absence oftrust and the lack of a common national desire to form adequatebargaining mechanisms to resolve differences. The particularCanadian intergovernmental relationships and several of theconditions responsible for them are shown to be idiosyncratic,only partly related to the federal structure, and of great importanceto an understanding of the country's current situation.