By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: Everyone supports safety. The popular “Reptile” approach to trying plaintiffs’ cases is built on the strength of safety as a core value. It is a common sense attitude to prefers greater security over greater risk. But there is also an extreme version of that attitude – a version that tolerates zero … Voir Dire for “Safetyist” Attitudes Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: Are jurors going to believe someone paid to come into the courtroom and deliver an opinion that supports the side who’s paying? While the jurors’ assent may not be as automatic as the experts and their clients hope it would be, in courtrooms every day and across the country, jurors do follow … Experts, Shoot Back at ‘Hired Gun’ Assumptions Read More »
Historically, Republicans and Democrats have differed in their views about crime. Recently, Republicans and Democrats have changed their views of crime, law enforcement and the seriousness of various offenses. Robert W. McGee and colleagues (2022) explored the relationship between political party affiliation and jurors' attitudes toward a variety of specific criminal offenses. More than 500 jury-eligible, young, educated adults of varying backgrounds, genders, religions, ethnicities and political persuasions were asked to grade how serious they considered 75 specific crimes....
By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: I don’t know if anything has ever in such a short time moved from being a pretty esoteric science topic to being a concern on everyone’s lips… but ChatGPT could probably tell me. With literally billions of uses per month, the artificial intelligence-driven chatbot has captured our attention and created a mix of excitement and dread. It has become a cliche to talk about how dramatic the shift will be as the technology moves toward displacing tasks like writing and customer service. It is also a cliche to talk about how the “jury is still out” on
Computer-generated animations, which recreate or illustrate an alleged sequence of events, are increasingly being used by lawyers to accompany witness testimony. Visual aids such as computer-generated animations are designed not only to depict events, but also to influence jurors' beliefs about those events. Rempel and Burke (2022) examined the effect of visual aids on juror beliefs about a criminal defendant's testimony in a second-degree murder case that was based on a real civil case in Los Angeles County...
A series of recent experiences pertaining to a case on which we were ramping up made me consider the timeline of jury consulting. In the world of business, and especially manufacturing, there is a concept of just in time production. With just in time production, the raw materials for a “thing” arrive at the production facility only when they are needed. Things, often generically called “widgets,” are then assembled with the ingredients which have arrived on time. In the last several years, throughout the economic changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been much discussion about supply chain
By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: It is a jury’s first task: Pick a foreperson, someone who will lead the discussion, help the group walk through the evidence, and work their way to a decision. Who gets picked? The person who is experienced at being a juror? The person who holds a leadership role in their work life? The person who is the most knowledgeable or intelligent? The answer from the research is that it is none of those. What best predicts the emergence of leaders in a small group is talkativeness. In other words, the person who speaks the most, regardless
By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: It’s been a season of some firsts: An ex-President, and the leading candidate for a major party nomination, has been criminally indicted (twice so far), and found civilly liable for defamation (once and counting). Rather than mounting a substantive defense, the candidate and ex-official has used the remaining ‘bully pulpit’ to repeatedly attack both the civil and criminal justice systems as well as those who work within them. To many of us, these daily attacks might seem so exaggerated and so self-serving that they can’t possibly be gaining traction. But they are. After bringing a majority of his
The concept of team work receives considerable attention in many types of situations, from the workplace, to education, to sports. At Magnus, David and I wholeheartedly endorse team work among our employees and including ourselves. Although, in sports terms, I am the “team captain” at Magnus, I cannot perform my job absent help from other team members. This being said, I am always happy to help others when my schedule permits. Does the trash need to be emptied and taken to the outside bin? Do we have case documents that need to be shredded? Does the floor need to be
By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: Trump’s second indictment is now unsealed, this one framing 37 federal felony counts for willfully retaining classified records at his private residence, and for trying to obstruct the efforts of the FBI and others in trying to recover these documents. Predictably, the response from the former President’s supporters has been to focus on what they say are the comparable actions of others. For example, you may have heard about 1,850 boxes of documents that President Biden supposedly has illegally kept in a Chinatown location. Except he doesn’t. The claim stems from Biden’s records from his time