Your Trial Message

Author name: ken.brodabahm

Know Your Cognitive Biases

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: There is a central fiction of our jury trial system, and voir dire in particular. That fiction is that bias is the exception, not the rule. When we treat bias as the aberration, affecting a relatively small handful in any jury pool, we fail to appreciate the ubiquity of these habits and shortcuts

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Safely Handle the “Safety Rule” Question

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Don’t you think that, when faced with a choice between a safer option and a riskier option, one should take the safer option? Well, on face that seems pretty reasonable. Who wouldn’t want the safer option, after all? The problem is that if you take that literally, then you’ve probably never climbed into

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Don’t Expect Cause Challenges to Do the Work of Peremptories

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The peremptory challenge right now shares one problem with the two leading presidential contenders: high negatives. In the recent Foster v. Chatman case, the United States Supreme Court overturned a murder conviction due to the prosecutor’s use of peremptory strikes to eliminate African-Americans from the jury based on seemingly flimsy excuses such

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Don’t Assume Looking Up Means Lying (But Do Assume Jurors Might Think That)

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: There is quiet in the courtroom after the key witness on the stand is asked the critical question. As the jury, judge, and counsel wait for the answer, the witness pauses, looks up toward the ceiling, then looks back down, and answers.

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