By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: As our team was conducting a recent social media analysis on a jury pool, one particular potential juror stood out. He was, as he proudly proclaimed in his public online messages, a “flat-earther.” And this belief of his, that we live on a flat plane rather than on a globe,
See the Threads of Conspiracy Thinking Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The U.S. midterm elections are now in the rearview mirror, with the ballots counted and the races — most of them at least — settled. But with a mixed result, it is no surprise that we’re hearing complaints from both sides about possible corruption, with liberals focusing on online misinformation,
Expect that Jurors Might Think the System is Rigged Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: How do humans assess large sets of evidence? We start by simplifying and internally summarizing. One of the main ways we do that is to boil the information down to a limited number categories, usually two. For example, let’s say you’re trying to assess the health effects of a glass
Understand the Binary Bias Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Experts have a tough job translating sometimes technical detail to lay audiences and working closely with a party to the litigation while still maintaining the role of “teacher” rather than “advocate.” Some excellent and wide-ranging advice on how to thread that needle comes in the form of a couple of
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: A newly-published study about the effects of voir dire in capital cases suggests that social scientists and the courts may need to reconsider a long-held tenet. For at least the past 35 years, the belief has been that jurors exposed to the process of jury selection in capital cases, known as
Voir Dire: Account for Both Presumptions and Expectations Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: It is almost election time again. But the normally low-turnout midterm may not be in the cards this time around, owing to the outrage on both sides of the political spectrum. And some believe that it’s a shame that we have these levels of moral outrage: It diminishes our civility
Consider the Upside of Outrage Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: I think it is now possible to divide the #MeToo movement, so far, into two phases: Pre-Kavanaugh and Post-Kavanaugh. The cultural phenomenon of women stepping up to hold sexual harassers and abusers accountable has hit a roadblock. If the charges against Harvey Weinstein was the movement’s Battle of Austerlitz, then
React to the #MeToo and #HimToo Scripts Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: It is one of those factors of advocacy that is understood at a basic level, but not practiced at an effective level: Structure. Whenever you are verbally presenting — opening statement, closing argument, oral argument, CLE’s — organize your content into clear and discrete main points. Litigators know that, of
Make It Chunky: Eight Best Practices for a Structure that Sticks Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Jurors and judges sometimes need to understand testimony regarding probability. For a criminal jury, maybe that probability relates to the chances of a false-positive on DNA identification. In a products case, maybe it concerns a failure rate. In an employment discrimination class action, it may relate to differing hiring percentages. And
Explaining Probability? Use Frequencies Rather Than Percentages Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court just heard oral arguments seeking to overturn a drug-possession conviction in the case of Commonwealth v. Quinton Williams. The Defense had appealed based on the judge’s dismissal of one potential juror who shared a belief that the criminal justice system is unfair towards young black men. The juror reported
Distinguish Between Bias and Belief Read More »