by Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Movies about courtroom trials are enjoyed by lawyers and the general public alike. The genre has earned its place among the classics with titles like: To Kill a Mockingbird, 12 Angry Men, Witness for the Prosecution, Inherit the Wind, and even My Cousin Vinnie. But there is one commonality in all of those movies: […]
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: In voir dire, the whole point is to find out information about the potential juror. When you’re seeking out experiences or attitudes that you might use to warrant a strike or to mount a challenge for cause, you care about what that individual thinks, not about what anyone outside the courtroom
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: On the defense side of the bar, attention has been exploding over plaintiffs’ Reptile approach. If you Google “Reptile” and “Litigation,” you’ll see a profusion of articles. But so far, at least, the strategy of leveraging the perceptions of “safety” and “danger” has been the subject of attention from a subset of defense lawyers:
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Trial is coming up, the witness is told: “Be at the courthouse by 7:30 Monday morning, meet us in the office on Friday, and oh, remember to carefully review your deposition.” The court date might be a relief after a long wait, the meetings with counsel should help to add
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: In the early Sixties as Adolf Eichmann’s Nazi war crimes trial was taking place in Jerusalem, the world was asking, was there something different about those who committed crimes on that scale, or were they just obeying orders? Just a few months later, a social scientist began a series of
By Dr. Broda Bahm: When I give the orientation at the beginning of a mock trial, I’ll typically say something like, “Because this is a shortened version of a trial, you aren’t going to be able to hear everything. We will boil it down, summarize, and avoid some of the details, and we do that
Excluded Evidence: If Jurors Can’t Know “What,” Help Them Understand “Why Not” Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: It is one of those research findings you would expect to be true, like: “Studying improves performance” or “Happier people are more productive.” But it is reassuring to find that research supports the notion that legal professionals are less likely to exhibit bias based on gender. After all, it does
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Well, it has been yet another fascinating week for people like me who are interested in political communication. This week, Congress kicked off hearings dealing with some explosive charges regarding a foreign country’s influence on our election, and possible coordination with a political campaign. On Monday, Adam B. Schiff, who represents California’s
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: In the first of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean movies, the heroine of the story is demanding to be taken back to shore and invoking something called “The Pirate Code” to make her case. The pirate, Captain Barbossa, responds: First, your return to shore was not part of our negotiations nor our
To Address Implicit Bias, Rely on Rules Not Standards Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: I have this theory, and because it is mine, I believe it. That, in a nutshell, is the explanation of a new and unique bias that has recently been demonstrated by social science researchers. The bias is called, “Spontaneous Preference for Own Theories,” or SPOT for short, and the explanation is