By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: What is the greatest problem facing Americans? Is it climate change? Class division? Race relations? The sluggish economic recovery? The growing threat of terrorism? The risk of another Middle Eastern war? No, it’s none of those. According to a current Gallup poll tracing the last four months, the biggest challenge […]
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: When the facts supporting one’s beliefs are challenged, one common recourse is to reframe those beliefs in a way that is more resistant to factual refutation. Calling this the “flight from facts,” a new article in Scientific American shares an example: An anti-vaccine believer first notes the purported connection between vaccines and autism,
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: After traveling to Syria in the midst of a brutal war, 26-year-old Kayla Jean Mueller was captured by ISIS six months ago. The terror group now claims she was killed in a Jordanian airstrike while Americans hold out a little hope that she might be alive. As much as we understand
Expect Injustice from a ‘Just World’ Belief System Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: It’s normal to vaccinate your kids, at least for most of us it is. The exceptions to the rule have recently brought back a disease the U.S. “eliminated” in 2000. In the first month of this year, measles visited Disneyland, and then infected hundreds of people so far in fourteen
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The trial of James Holmes, the Aurora movie theater shooter, is about to get underway in nearby Centennial, Colorado. Assuming the judge holds firm in his “No more delays” stance, jury selection begins on January 20th, with opening statements set for later this Spring. Overlapping the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev,
Pay Attention to Media Trials Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Everyone who has ever served on a jury or watched a mock jury deliberate knows that emotions play a role. What you might not know, however, is that emotions also carry a bias. They’re filtered and used selectively, owing to the fact that, in a particular legal context, some emotional
Expect Filtered Emotions in Deliberations: A Capital Case Study Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: You join a research study, and after being randomly assigned to one of two groups, you hear a message focused on how common stereotypes are (the other group hears instead how rare stereotypes are). Then you, along with the other group, are asked to rate women and men in general on a number
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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
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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 »