Final Exam

Substantive Due Process:

based on the premise that the constitution protects the public from unwarranted government intrusion infringing upon their fundamental rights

• can’t have laws that infringe on basic rights

  • rights of parents to send children to private school

  • rights to practice certain religions

• ensuring content of laws

Procedural Due Process:

states government officials need to follow fair procedures

• following the rules

  • did they search the property AFTER receiving a search warrant ordered and signed by a judge

When does a case go to Federal court?

• if your civil rights were violated

  • violations of the U.S Constituition

• if the violation is of a federal law

• if the U.S government is a party to the dispute

State court:

• most crimes and disputes

  • civil cases

  • criminal cases

• offenses would go the Superior court

  • trial court

• each state has different laws

Supreme Court:

highest court in the federal system

• 9 justices meeting in Washington D.C

• appellate jurisdiction through certiorari process

• limited original jurisdiction over some cases

Certiorari process:

a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or administrative agency

What are 3 reasons a case might go to a state court?

• violation of state law

• civil case

• criminal case

Frye Standards:

a legal test to determine whether scientific evidence is admissible

• evidence must be sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the particular field to which it belongs

• introduced in 1923 case concerning polygraphs

What is a disadvantage of the Frye test?

it is too restrictive of novel evidence that had excellent scientific verification

• confused quality with consensus

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993):

two mothers sued Dow Chemicals because their children had birth defects

• Claimed the birth defects were caused by taking Bendectin for morning sickness

• Court didn't permit Plaintiffs' experts

  • failed the Frye standard → didn’t have general acceptance in scientific community

• ruled that general acceptance by an expert witness is not absolute prerequisite to the admissibility of scientific evidence

Daubert Standard:

focuses on methodology and principles, not on the ultimate conclusions generated by the science community

• judge has broad discretion to admit expert and acts as a gatekeeper for admissions of scientific evidence

• applies to Federal and States that have adopted federal standards

What 4 questions are asked to determine if evidence passes the Daubert Standard?

• are the ideas falsifiable?

• methods + ideas been peer reviewed?

• is there general acceptance of the methods?

• is there a known or potential rate of error?

Double Jeopardy:

prohibition on the same sovereign trying defendants twice for the same crime or a similar crime

• does not apply for a case that goes to criminal and civil court

Roe v. Wade (1973):

U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state governments could regulate but not prohibit abortion

• followed the precedents of other cases that had developed the right to privacy in reproductive matters

What was James Gilligan’s hypothesis for the cause of violent behavior?

men seeking out justice

• disrespect viewed as a form of injustice to them

• hyper vigilant to signs of disrespect

• no reserves of self esteem

According to Gilligan’s hypothesis, why do violent men struggle to cope with rejection/ humiliation?

traumatic childhoods leave them with less reserves and lack of self love

• have withdrawn love from themselves and others to protect themselves emotionally

  • pro capital punishment

• soul murder

Soul Murder:

the deliberate traumatization or deprivation by a caregiver to their child, robbing the victim of their identity and the ability to maintain authentic feelings

What percent of abused children grow up to abuse their own children?

about 30%

Widom Cycle of Violence study:

longitudinal study comparing long term outcomes for a group of children with validated maltreatment histories to a matched control group

• 11 years old and younger

• matched control groups

  • age, race, SES, gender

• compared rates of criminal and delinquent records

What were the results of the Widom’s Cycle of Violence study?

those who have been maltreated are more likely

• arrested for delinquency, adult, and violent crimes

• high number of earlier arrests

  • earlier start of crime

  • 5 more arrests

• those with physical abuse or neglected at higher risk

What theory for aggressive behavior was studied by Kenneth Dodge?

biased social information processing

What are the 5 steps of processing social information?

1. encoding relevant cues

2. interpret cues

3. access behavioral responses from LTM

4. evaluate consequence of possible behavior

5. select and enact behavior

According to Dodge, what sorts of attributions are aggressive people more likely to make about other people?

hostile intent

According to Dodge, what causes aggressive people to make attributions of hostile intent toward others?

enduring physical abuse as children

• child physical harm → maladaptive social information processing → aggression

Kenneth Dodge’s study:

longitudinal study of 4 year olds that measured three things

• mother reports of physical harm to child, early life experiences, and other factors

• child social information processing at 5 years

• child aggressive behavior 6 months later

What were the methods of Dodge’s social information processing study?

child presented with cartoon vignettes and told to imagine being the main character

• peer in vignettes does something negative either with intention of being hostile, benign, or ambiguous

• asked to recall vignettes and why peer did it

• ask how they would respond

What were the results of Dodge’s social information processing research?

• children physically harmed early in life were more aggressive

  • even when other family and factors considered

  • biased toward attributing hostile intent

  • SIP predicted later aggression

  • defensive processing

• children who had been physically harmed early and did not show biased information processing were NOT aggressive

  • subgroup showed self blame (depressed)

Furman v. Georgia (1972):

the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed three death penalty cases and a deeply divided Court found that the death penalty had been “so wantonly and so freakishly imposed”

• capital punishment as it was being administered in the states constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments

What were the impacts of the Furman v. Georgia (1972) decision?

decision resulted in a national suspension of the death penalty

• State legislatures rewrote their death penalty statutes to meet the Supreme Court’s objections

• new legislation specified which crimes should be subject to the death penalty

• established guidelines for conditions that had to be met before imposing the death penalty

• political developments attempted to reduce racial bias in capital sentencing

Gregg v. Georgia (1976):

the Supreme Court reviewed the death penalty statute that Georgia's legislature passed in response to Furman

• new law specified the offenses subject to the death penalty

• provided for a split, or bifurcated, two-phase trial in capital cases

What was the new procedure created due to the Supreme court case in Gregg v. Georgia (1976)?

• phase 1 → the jury determines guilt or innocence of the capital offense

  • guilt phase

• phase 2 → the jury determines whether to impose the death penalty on the defendant and the evidence is presented separately in each phase

  • mitigating vs aggravating evidence

  • penalty phase

Aggravating factors:

ten factors that juries in capital punishment cases must compare to the evidence presented to delegate death penalty

• multiple murder

• wantonly brutal killing

Mitigating factors:

evidence presented in a capital punishment case by the defense making the crime seem less severe or more understandable, or the defendant more sympathetic

True or False: If the jury finds one or more aggravating factors to be present in the crime, and, in their judgment believe these are not outweighed by the mitigating factors, jurors can impose the death penalty.

True

McCleskey v. Kemp (1978):

Warren McCleskey, an African American, was convicted in of killing a white policeman during a robbery and was sentenced to death

• argued that had he killed a black person he would not have been given the death penalty

• claimed that the sentence was influenced by racial factors based on a well-known statistical analysis of homicide convictions

What did the Court Rule in McCleskey v. Kemp (1978)?

in the Court's view, there was no direct evidence that McCleskey's death sentence resulted from racial discrimination

• general statistics said nothing about McCleskey's particular case

Death Qualified Juries:

selected after jurors unwilling to impose the death penalty have been eliminated

• might be more likely to convict

• classified into five categories based on attitudes toward the death penalty

What awesome challenges during voir dire in capital punishment trials?

Prosecutors of capital cases can challenge prospective jurors for cause during the voir dire if their opposition to the death penalty would prevent them from reviewing evidence impartially or from voting for the death penalty

• said there is bias when questioning/selecting jurors

Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California (1976):

under civil law, obligated therapists to assess the dangerousness of their patients and to take appropriate action

• duty of a mental health professional to take appropriate action including warning a third party when a patient or client threatens harm to an identifiable other

Jury Nullification:

when juries ignore law to acquit (free from charges) the defendant

• juries have power, not right, to acquit for any reason whatsoever

• applied in criminal trials

What are the purposes of jury trials?

• fact-finding

• attribute guilt, innocence, or liability

• express community conscience or condemnation

• protect from government interference

What is smallest jury allowed in criminal cases?

6 jurors

In civil cases, how many jurors must they have?

typically comprised of 12 but many states have them as small as 5 through agreement of both parties

• some states allow verdict to be returned despite the dissent of 1-3 jurors

Why are juries 12% less likely to convict than judges?

juries are harder to persuade because they feel the need to see stronger evidence suggestive of guilt

When do judges instruct juries on the law?

jurors instructed verbally after the close of evidence

True or False: All courts provide juries with written instructions.

False, not all courts provide juries with written instructions

How do juries deliberate?

deliberate through a evidence-driven or verdict-driven approach

What do they mean by “story model” of jury decision?

referring to stories constructed to make sense of evidence at trial

• useful in describing decision making in rape, murder, and sexual harassment trials

Peremptory challenge:

a defendant's or lawyer's objection to a proposed juror

• made without needing to give a reason

Challenges for cause:

a preliminary challenge for which an attorney states the reason why a prospective juror should not be included on the jury

• can’t deselect based on gender, race, religion

Hung jury:

jury cannot reach a unanimous decision, is usually considered a “failure,” a “waste” of its members’ efforts

Dynamite charge:

when a jury reports to a judge that they cannot reach an agreement, the judge may appeal to their sense of fairness to pressure for a verdict and “blast” the deliberations open again

• critics believe this is does not serve justice

On average, how much of civil and criminal disputes are now resolved outside the courtoom?

around 90-95%

What are some different methods for resolving legal conflicts?

through negotiations such as mediation, arbitration, and trial

Mediation:

a process in which a neutral person (mediator) facilitates communication between the disputants to assist them in reaching a mutually acceptable agreement

Arbitration:

a private dispute resolution procedure where parties agree to submit their dispute to a neutral third party, called an arbitrator, to make a binding decision

What three things make a defendant competent to stand trial?

• capable of understanding the nature and purpose of the criminal proceedings

• comprehend their own status and condition in reference to these proceedings

• able to assist their attorney in conducting a defense or be able to conduct their own defense in a rational manner

What happens after the defendant is found competent to stand trial?

prosecution must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to 12 jurors

• burden of proof

How does one get a verdict of NGI?

a jury must find the defendant guilty and then the defendant must prove they were more likely than not legally insane at the time of the crime

• standard of proof

What two conditions must be met for someone to be considered legally insane?

• at the time of the crime defendant had a mental disease or defect

• the disease or defect rendered them incapable of knowing or understanding the nature and quality of their act

  • OR incapable of knowing or understanding their act was morally or legally wrong

Mens rea doctrine:

principle in criminal law that a crime requires not only a wrongful act but also a culpable state of mind at the time the act was committed

• found guilty if they specific mental state when committing a crime

  • intent

The M’Naghten rule:

a legal standard used to determine whether a defendant can be excused from criminal liability by reason of insanity

• critics argued that mental illness could affect volition as well as cognition meaning a person could know right from wrong but lack adequate self-control because of a mental illness

Malingering:

a concern for insanity cases where someone may try to fake a mental illness

• especially in death penalty cases

• no gold standard to test

  • but there are standardized instruments that can identify fakers at above-chance levels

• rare occurence

Restorative justice:

emphasizes that wrongdoing has created a wound in the victim and in the social order

• greater prominence to the victim

• emphasize healing the breach

• involve offender and community in the process

Retributive justice:

emphasizes punishment for an offense against the state

• criminal act is interpreted as creating an “imbalance” in the social order that will be redressed by punishing the offender

• victim has little role → except as a complaining witness

• prosecutor represents the community

Kent v. United States (1966):

Supreme Court ruled that a case could not be transferred from juvenile to adult court without a hearing

• judges are expected to look at the issues of individual dangerousness, maturity, responsibility, and potential for being rehabilitated

Social Framework Testimony:

a form of expert testimony that provides social science research conclusions to help jurors evaluate unfamiliar phenomena and other evidence in a case

• doesn’t focus on evidence itself but rather social context

• not always admitted

Fell Acres Day School Case (1987):

Cheryl Amirault LeFave was convicted in a jury trial of four counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 and three counts of rape of a child under 16

• Nine children testified against her

• children who had been repeatedly interviewed by police, therapists, and parents gave main testimony

Why was Fell Acres Day School Case (1987) overturned?

Judge said prosecutors in original trial argued that children never lie or make up stories of sexual acts unless it happened

• inconsistent with subsequent research

• expert witnesses also testified in original trial that it was a pattern for children to deny abuse, then disclose, recant, and disclose again

• after having served ten years in prison judge overturned conviction

  • expert testimony cast doubt on the veracity of children’s testimony obtained under the conditions described in the trial

  • experts testified that suggestive techniques could lead children to make inaccurate reports

*was later again overturned saying all this was already looked at in original conviction but defendant still let go*

What are some methods for recovering memory?

therapists who use these techniques have higher proportions of clients who report recovering memories than those who do not use such techniques

• hypnosis

• age regression

• guided imagery

• use of family photos as memory cues

• interpreting physical symptoms as evidence of memories of abuse

Status Offenses:

refer to acts that are offenses only because of the juvenile’s age

• acts would not be crimes if committed by an adult

• run away from home

• drink or smoke

• truant from school

• Status offenders are brought to the attention of the court when someone petitions the court for aid

Orders of Protection:

can direct the alleged abuser to stop abusive conduct, to leave or stay away from the family home, or to have no contact with the victim

• Judges can customize the orders specifying what the alleged offender must do

• easier for a victim to obtain an order of protection in a family court than to wait for a criminal arrest and court appearance