By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: There is a new documentary in current rotation on HBO and and it’s one that trial lawyers and other legal junkies will want to watch. Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart provides a detailed look at the 1991 trial of the New Hampshire school employee who was tried and convicted for accessory […]
Listen to Jurors, Especially to Juror #13 From Pamela Smart Trial Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: It’s always nice to announce a birth, to welcome something new into the world. In this case, weighing in at 15 letters and 6 syllables, it’s a new word: “prehabilitation!” And it’s a pretty useful word for those wanting to understand, teach, and most importantly, fix oral voir dire. The
Don’t Prehabilitate Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Every juror with a strong and relevant belief or experience is asked it in oral voir dire: “Would you be able to set that aside and base your decision on just the facts?” Attorneys conducting oral voir dire would do well to ask themselves the same question: “Are you able to
Lawyers, Set Aside Your Own Bias in Voir Dire Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: It might sound like the title for a science fiction series, but in banking a “Dark Pool” refers to a fund that allows anonymous investors to trade large blocks of shares. The tactic is the subject of a recent suit by the New York Attorney General against Barclay’s bank, with
Bank on Bias Against Financial Institutions Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: All reasonable people think like you do. They will notice what you notice, perceive it as you do, find it credible, or not, like you would, and they will be persuaded, or not, in the same way that you would. Okay, give it a moment of thought and you wouldn’t
Don’t Fall for False Consensus Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: O.J. Simpson became “more Black” after becoming a suspect in the murder of his ex-wife, and not just on Time Magazine’s infamous tinted cover photo. He also became “more Black” in the sense that the context of criminal charges made his race more saliant to most Americans. We have a
Treat Racism as Situational Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: For jurors in the trial of Cicily McMillan, the outrage came a little bit too late. In one of the last criminal cases emerging from the “Occupy Wall Street” protests, the jury found the protestor guilty of assault for elbowing a police officer when, she claimed, the officer grabbed and
Meter Your Jury’s Moral Outrage Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Research on human decision making is swiftly honing in on one central conclusion: Motivations lead and reasons follow. In other words, what generally comes first is a preference – a desire in the form of what we want to decide. What comes second are the reasons that support that desire.
Know What Motivates Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an Emancipation Proclamation of sorts for campaign money. No longer, based on the 5-4 decision in McCutcheon v. FEC, would individual donors be held to limits on their total donations in any given campaign season. That decision has unleashed another wave of public disgust
Account for Entitlement and Greed Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Imagine this future scenario. Those called for jury duty arrive at the courthouse. First comes security, with purses and wallets scanned on the belt while the citizens step through the metal detector. Then comes the “Neuro-Voir Dire” as candidate jurors step into a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) machine so