Age differences and conformity in juror decision -making

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate whether older adults conform more than young and middle-aged adults on a juror decision making task. Degree of group pressure, personality characteristics, gender, and social influence processes were also examined.^ Registered voters (208 participants) completed a personality questionnaire. Several weeks later, groups of six participants listened to a robbery case that portrayed the defendant as guilty. Afterwards, participants completed the first of two ballots. On the first, participants rated the defendant's degree of guilt and scored their degree of certainty in this verdict rating. They also indicated in writing which piece of information (a statement of evidence) from the robbery case supported their verdict ratings. Next, participants reviewed photocopies of five contrived first ballots. Then participants completed second ballots, in which they again rated the defendant's degree of guilt and scored their degree of certainty in this verdict rating. Finally, participants rated the importance of the five contrived first ballot verdict ratings (normative social influence) and statements of evidence (informational social influence) in reaching their second ballot verdict ratings.^ The results demonstrated that not only did older adults conform as expected, but all age groups conformed; that is, all age groups changed their verdict ratings. After reviewing the other jurors' contrived first ballots (group pressure), participants rated the defendant as less guilty on their second ballot than on their first. However, only older adults significantly changed their level of certainty in their verdict ratings from first to second ballot compared to young and middle-aged adults. With regard to personality characteristics, only rigidity predicted conformity in young and middle-aged adults but not in older adults. It was also found that females conformed more than males. Finally, all three age groups reported that different social influence processes (normative vs. informational) were important in reaching their second ballot verdict ratings. The results of this research indicate that various factors can influence young, middle-aged, and older adults as they reach verdicts. Knowledge of these factors may help alter stereotypes of older adults in terms of conformity, rigidity, and desirability as jurors. ^

How effective is the motion-to -suppress safeguard? Judges' perceptions of the suggestiveness and fairness of biased lineup procedures

The motion-to-suppress safeguard is designed to prevent false eyewitness identifications from leading to wrongful convictions. This safeguard is effective only if judges are sensitive to factors that influence lineup suggestiveness. The present study assessed judicial sensitivity to foil, instruction, and presentation biases. Judges $(N=99)$ read a description of a hypothetical crime, perpetrator, and identification procedure, followed by a motion to suppress the identification. Judges completed a questionnaire in which they ruled on the motion and rated the lineup's suggestiveness and fairness. Foil bias and instruction bias influenced judges' rulings and lineup evaluations as predicted. Hypotheses concerning presentation bias were not supported. Results suggest a need to standardize and record identification procedures and to further educate judges about psychological research on eyewitness memory. ^

Effect of delay of first interview and repetition of interview on accuracy and confidence of recall of a flashbulb -type memory

Hearing of the news of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a traffic accident, is taken as an analogue for being a percipient but uninvolved witness to a crime, or a witness to another person's sudden confession to some illegal act. This event (known in the literature as a “reception event”) has previously been hypothesized to cause one to form a special type of memory commonly known as a “flashbulb memory” (FB) (Brown and Kulik, 1977). FB's are hypothesized to be especially resilient against forgetting, highly detailed including peripheral details, clear, and inspiring great confidence in the individual for their accuracy. FB's are dependent for their formation upon surprise, emotional valence, and impact, or consequentiality to the witness of the initiating event. FB's are thought to be enhanced by frequent rehearsal. FB's are very important in the context of criminal investigation and litigation in that investigators and jurors usually place great store in witnesses, regardless of their actual accuracy, who claim to have a clear and complete recollection of an event, and who express this confidently. Therefore, the lives, or at least the freedom, of criminal defendants, and the fortunes of civil litigants hang on the testimony of witnesses professing to have FB's. ^ In this study, which includes a large and diverse sample (N = 305), participants were surveyed within 2–4 days after hearing of the fatal accident, and again at intervals of 2 and 4 weeks, 6, 12, and 18 months. Contrary to the FB hypothesis, I found that participants' FB's degraded over time beginning at least as early as two weeks post event. At about 12 months the memory trace stabilized, resisting further degradation. Repeated interviewing did not have any negative affect upon accuracy, contrary to concerns in the literature. Analysis by correlation and regression indicated no effect or predictive power for participant age, emotionality, confidence, or student status, as related to accuracy of recall; nor was participant confidence in accuracy predicted by emotional impact as hypothesized. Results also indicate that, contrary to the notions of investigators and jurors, witnesses become more inaccurate over time regardless of their confidence in their memories, even for highly emotional events. ^

The differential effects of *American and British trial proceedings on juror decision-making

Seven basic elements differentiate British from American trial procedures: confining attorneys to their tables; dealing with objections outside the presence of the jury; resolving disagreements between attorneys prior to objections being made; presenting the defense opening statement at the close of the prosecution case; the judge directly questions witnesses and has a wider latitude in controlling the evidence; and the judge gives a summation of all the evidence presented to the jury (Fulero & Turner, 1997). The present experiment examined the influence of these different courtroom procedures, judges' non-verbal behavior, and evidence strength on juror decision-making. Using models of persuasion to understand how the varying elements may effect juror decision-making, it was predicted that trials following American courtroom procedures would be more distracting for jurors and as such, they would be more likely to rely on the peripheral cue of the judge's expectations for trial outcome as expressed in his nonverbal behavior. In trials following British procedures jurors should be less distracted and better able to scrutinize the strength of the evidence that in turn should minimize the influence of the judge's nonverbal behavior. Two hundred forty-five participants viewed a mock civil trial in which courtroom procedure, judge's nonverbal behavior, and evidence strength were varied. Analyses suggest that courtroom procedure and evidence strength influenced the direction of participants' verdicts, but that judge's nonverbal behavior did not have a direct impact on verdict preference. Judge's nonverbal behavior appeared to influence other measures related to verdict. Participants were more confident in their verdicts when they agreed with judge's nonverbal behavior and when they viewed British courtroom procedures. Participants were more likely to return estimates of the defendant's liability that reflected judge's nonverbal behavior and a congruency with evidence strength. Participants also recalled more facts in the British conditions than in the American conditions. These findings are interpreted as indicating the importance of the impact of trial procedures and of nonverbal influence. ^

Friedman Economic Policies, Social Exclusion and Crime: Toward a Gendered Left Realist Subcultural Theory.

Left realists contend that people lacking legitimate means of solving the problem of relative deprivation may come into contact with other frustrated disenfranchised people and form subcultures, which in turn, encourage criminal behaviors. Absent from this theory is an attempt to address how, today, subcultural development in North America and elsewhere is heavily shaped simultaneously by the recent destructive consequences of right-wing Friedman or Chicago School economic policies and marginalized men's attempts to live up to the principles of hegemonic masculinity. The purpose of this paper, then, is to offer a new left realist theory that emphasizes the contribution of these two key determinants.

The diversity of interests in environmental governance : a challenge for the rule of law

The function of environmental governance and the principle of the rule of law are both controversial and challenging. To apply the principle of the rule of law to the function of environmental governance is perhaps even more controversial and challenging. A system of environmental governance seeks to bring together the range of competitive and potentially conflicting interests in how the environment and its resources are managed. Increasingly it is the need for economic, social and ecological sustainability that brings these interests – both public and private – together. Then there is the relevance of the principle of the rule of law. Economic, social and ecological sustainability will be achieved – if at all – by a complex series of rules of law that are capable of enforcement so as to ensure compliance with them. To what extent do these rules of law reflect the principle of the rule of law? Is the principle of the rule of law the formally unstated value that is expected to underpin the legal system or is it the normative predicate that directs the legal system both vertically and horizontally? Is sustainability an aspirational value or a normative predicate according to which the environment and its resources are managed? Let us deal sequentially with these issues by reviewing a number of examples that demonstrate the relationship between environmental governance and the rule of law.

Submission to Queensland Law Reform Commission WP 73 Review of Child Protection Mandatory Reporting Laws for the Early Childhood Education and Care Sector

In 2015 the QLRC is conducting an inquiry into whether to extend legislative mandatory reporting duties for physical abuse and sexual abuse to early childhood education and care practitioners. The current legislation does not require these practitioners to report suspected cases of significant harm from physical or sexual absue to child welfare agencies. Based on the literature, and a multidisciplinary analysis, our overall recommendation is that we endorse the extension to selected early childhood education and care practitioners of Queensland’s current mandatory reporting duty in the Child Protection Act 1999 s 13E.

Social Security Programs Throughout the World: Asia and the Pacific, 2006

[Excerpt] This second issue in the current four-volume series of Social Security Programs Throughout the World reports on the countries of Asia and the Pacific. The combined findings of this series, which also includes volumes on Europe, Africa, and the Americas, are published at 6-month intervals over a 2-year period. Each volume highlights features of social security programs in the particular region. This guide serves as an overview of programs in all regions. A few political jurisdictions have been excluded because they have no social security system or have issued no information regarding their social security legislation. In the absence of recent information, national programs reported in previous volumes may also be excluded. In this volume on Asia and the Pacific, the data reported are based on laws and regulations in force in July 2006 or on the last date for which information has been received.1 Information for each country on types of social security programs, types of mandatory systems for retirement income, contribution rates, and demographic and other statistics related to social security is shown in Tables 1­4 at the end of the guide. The country summaries show each system's major features. Separate programs in the public sector and specialized funds for such groups as agricultural workers, collective farmers, or the self-employed have not been described in any detail. Benefit arrangements of private employers or individuals are not described in any detail, even though such arrangements may be mandatory in some countries or available as alternatives to statutory programs. The country summaries also do not refer to international social security agreements that may be in force between two or more countries. Those agreements may modify coverage, contributions, and benefit provisions of national laws summarized in the country write-ups. Since the summary format requires brevity, technical terms have been developed that are concise as well as comparable and are applied to all programs. The terminology may therefore differ from national concepts or usage.

Aging effects on early-stage face perception: An ERP study

We compared early stages of face processing in young and older participants as indexed by ERPs elicited by faces and non-face stimuli presented in upright and inverted orientations. The P1 and N170 components were larger in older than in young participant

Bimanual aiming and overt attention: one law for two hands

Reaching to interact with an object requires a compromise between the speed of the limb movement and the required end-point accuracy. The time it takes one hand to move to a target in a simple aiming task can be predicted reliably from Fitts' law, which states that movement time is a function of a combined measure of amplitude and accuracy constraints (the index of difficulty, ID). It has been assumed previously that Fitts' law is violated in bimanual aiming movements to targets of unequal ID. We present data from two experiments to show that this assumption is incorrect: if the attention demands of a bimanual aiming task are constant then the movements are well described by a Fitts' law relationship. Movement time therefore depends not only on ID but on other task conditions, which is a basic feature of Fitts' law. In a third experiment we show that eye movements are an important determinant of the attention demands in a bimanual aiming task. The results from the third experiment extend the findings of the first two experiments and show that bimanual aiming often relies on the strategic co-ordination of separate actions into a seamless behaviour. A number of the task specific strategies employed by the adult human nervous system were elucidated in the third experiment. The general strategic pattern observed in the hand trajectories was reflected by the pattern of eye movements recorded during the experiment. The results from all three experiments demonstrate that eye movements must be considered as an important constraint in bimanual aiming tasks.

Intersectionality and the Notion of Disability in EU discrimination law

Defining the characteristics targeted by banning discrimination constitutes a central challenge for EU discrimination law, and defining disability is particular-ly challenging due to the dispute around the very concept of disability. From 2006, the Court of Justice has wrestled with this definition in six judgments, five of which were delivered from 2013. Instead of classifying the case law definition as conforming to a medical or social model of disability, this article analyses the case law with a view to illustrate challenges of defining discrimination grounds generally, demanding that a sufficiently precise and non-exclusive definition of each discrimination ground can be achieved by re-focusing EU discrimination law around the nodes of sex, race and disability. The analysis exposes that the ECJ definition of disability neither complies with the UN CRPD nor adequately responds to intersectionality theory, for example because the definition is exclu-sionary in relation to female experience of disability.