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The Prosecutor’s Duty of Silence
Get PDFProsecutors enjoy broad opportunities to communicate with the public outside the courtroom. Justice Holmes’s famous dictum -- “The theory of our system is that conclusions to be reached in a case will be induced only by evidence and argument in open court, and not by any outside influence, whether of private talk or public print” – is just that – a “theory.” The reality is otherwise. Prosecutors, and defense lawyers too, engage in extrajudicial speech frequently, and often irresponsibly. But in contrast to other lawyers, prosecutors have a higher “special” duty to serve justice rather than a private client. And public statements by prosecutors can do far more damage to the system of justice and persons accused of crimes than statements by defense lawyers. Prosecutors enjoy the limelight and media exposure, and to the personal and political the advantages they get from favorable publicity both to the cases they are prosecuting and to their own professional careers. Prosecutors engage in public commentary about their law enforcement activities, specific cases they are investigating and prosecuting, law enforcement policies and priorities that inform their work, and public alerts about safety. Prosecutor speech is ubiquitous, carefully orchestrated, and often hard-hitting. With the collaboration of the media, prosecutors hold press conferences and issue press releases, give briefings and interviews with reporters, post Internet and Twitter comments, appear as TV “experts,” speak in public forums, and write books about their exploits. They use the notorious “perp walk” as a form of communication, and leak confidential information.
As Justice Holmes intimated, a prosecutor’s public statements are potentially dangerous. Given a prosecutor’s high standing with the public as a “Champion of Justice” sworn to uphold the law and punish wrongdoers, a prosecutor possesses a unique ability to shape public opinion about fighting crime and specific individuals who may be under investigation and prosecution. And with the ability of the media to saturate the public with pervasive, repetitive, and inflammatory news coverage about a case, prosecutors are well aware that their public statements can prejudice future jurors in that case and thereby inflict prejudice to persons suspected or charged with wrongdoing. Indeed, a prosecutor’s public statements can destroy a person’s reputation, prejudice his right to a fair trial, and undermine the public’s respect for way the criminal law is administered. And most tragically, a prosecutor’s public statements can contribute to the conviction of innocent persons
The Elimination of Child “Custody” Litigation: Using Business Branding Techniques to Transform Social Behavior
Get PDFThis article discusses how rebranding principles, already being used to alter social behavior in other non-consumer contexts, could be utilized to accomplish the legislative goal to reduce litigation as well as diminish animosity in custody cases. Part II of this article discusses the impetus for a transformation in the way parents view custody disputes. Part III discusses basic branding principles and how companies establish a brand and can successfully change their branding. Part IV explores the evolution of the current custody brand, identifies eight states that have eliminated “custody” and, in some cases, “visitation” from their vernacular, and discusses, in detail, changes to Florida’s custody statutes as part of the rebranding of custody litigation. Part V examines Florida’s experience with statutory revisions by considering appellate cases and practitioner commentary since the amendments to the state’s custody statutes went into effect to identify areas that demonstrate a failure at successful rebranding. Lastly, Part VI analyzes the implications for a successful attempt to rebrand “custody” and suggests that capitalizing on the psychological and emotional responses to rebranding could aid in achieving the universal goal to reduce the animosity associated with custody litigation
Memory for Concept Pairs as a Function of Bimodality Type, Educational Background, and Culture
No full textGiven previous research establishing the impact of presentation modality on college student recall and memory performance (Velayo, 1993), the purpose of this study was to investigate memory for concept pairs, and implications of presentation bimodality (Audio-Visual, Audio-Textual, or Visual-Textual), memory strategy utilized, and educational background on recall performance. Additionally, participant cultural identification was examined related to learning strategy utilized on the recall task, and response style on four-dimensional measures of individualism and collectivism. The sample consisted of 176 participants of college age and older, that completed the concept pairs presentation phase. It was hypothesized that participants assigned to the Visual-Textual and Audio-Visual bimodalities would perform better than those assigned to the Audio-Textual condition. Additionally, subjects with more educational experience were hypothesized to perform better than participants with less formal educational training. Exploratory questions were posed examining the relationship between the following variables: (a) learning strategy utilized and performance, (b) cultural background and strategy used, and (c) strategy utilized and response style on dimensions of cultural orientation. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three Internet-based bimodality presentations of concepts pairs, and asked to recall from a list of five multiple-choice options, the correlated concept. Significant differences were not found in performance across the three bimodality presentations. Memory strategy utilized was shown to significantly impact performance, with more elaborative strategies being found to be more effective for learning. Participants who completed a minimum of some graduate level coursework, were found to perform significantly better than participants who never attended college, and were more likely to achieve a perfect score during the testing phase. Due to the composition of the sample, significant findings related to culture and strategy selection, and strategy utilized and responses on the collectivism and individualism measure were not found. Implications for education and school psychology are presented
Maternal Shape Flow Movements in Mother-Infant Interactions with Babies in Distress: Micro-Analysis Utilization of the Kestenberg Movement Profile (KMP)
No full textMicro-analytic studies of dyadic interactions reveal that mother-infant attunement is a complex and intricate system of self- and inter-regulative processes (Beebe, Jaffe, & Lachmann, 2000; Beebe et al., 2003; Stern, 2002; Trevarthen & Delafield-Butt, 2014; Tronick, 2007). Distress levels of both mother and the baby have an impact on the flow of such interactions (Beebe, 2006; Beebe et al., 2008). This study utilized aggregate and time-series analyses to investigate maternal movement qualities related to the shape flow system of the Kestenberg Movement Profile (KMP, Kestenberg-Amighi, Loman, Lewis, & Sossin, 1999) as they were associated with infant behavioral distress. The process of developing statistically sound adaptation of the KMP observational coding system for use with digital recording/notational software contributed to further expansion of the KMP as a measure of non-verbal communication within the individual profile as well as in the interactional model. Video-recordings of 75 mothers playing with their 12-month-old babies in a face-to-face situation were coded through Noldus Observer XT in 30 frames per second format. Results indicated that infant behavioral distress was likely to be followed by maternal movements in lower face characterized by shrinking and/or unipolar shape flow qualities, likely contributing to soothing facial gestures. In turn, maternal facial gestures characterized by unipolar shape flow qualities had predictive power for infant becoming distressed, suggesting that such maternal movements, when not matched with the infant\u27s readiness to respond, may have a dysregulating effect on the baby. Findings support the view of a dyadic system of interaction within a co-regulation model with the potential for both partners to recognize and respond to each other\u27s affective states in under a second. Implications for further research are discussed
Teaching Substantive Environmental Law and Practice Skills Through Interest Group Role-Playing
Get PDFMost law students take their first introductory course in environmental law during their second year of law school. The traditional first-year curriculum does little to prepare students for the complex statutory and regulatory models for most environmental regulation. Law students at the end of their first year often have had little exposure to statutory interpretation. Further, they often have no exposure to administrative law and regulatory implementation. These students may expect statutes to provide clear statements of rules rather than guidelines for administrative rulemaking. They also tend to view the lawmaking and interpretive process through the traditional lens of congressional legislation and common-law-style judicial interpretation in a bipolar scheme of implementation--where the regulatory agencies and the regulated industries are the only players.
In fact, environmental regulatory programs constantly evolve through a complex interaction of legislative amendment, administrative rulemaking, and judicial interpretation. Influencing these programs are the multipolar interaction of regulated industries, environmental groups, state agencies, and federal regulators. Law students accustomed to the bipolar model of common-law legal development and who expect statutory law to consist of a simple reading of clear statutory texts can find this interest group pluralist model of law development bewildering. One way to help give context to this complex interaction is to place students in the roles of the various advocates and decision-makers in the environmental law processes. Assigning students to adopt the perspective of various distinct players in the regulatory process, such as agency lawyer, industry lawyer, and environmental NGO lawyer, helps make this complex interaction more accessible to students. This also provides an introduction into the skills of statutory interpretation and regulatory implementation.
At Pace Law School, we have had considerable success integrating this approach into an Environmental Law Skills course. This course combines a comprehensive study of the Clean Water Act (CWA) regulatory program with skills-based exercises in administrative rulemaking, judicial review, regulatory permitting, negotiation, and enforcement. The course was added to the curriculum in the 1990s in response to the growing recognition by the legal academy that the traditional case-oriented method of instruction failed to result in law graduates with basic competencies expected of lawyers. The course has been refined over the years to incorporate the Carnegie Report\u27s more recent critiques: the legal education\u27s failure to foster students\u27 development of their professional identities and their understanding of lawyers\u27 role in representing clients. By integrating role-playing, problem solving, and doctrinal instruction, the course seeks to engage students in active learning and professional identity development. The course also seeks to implement recommendations for the improvement of legal instruction contained in Professor Stuckey\u27s influential 2007 report, Best Practices for Legal Education. In particular, the course seeks to “teach doctrine, theory, and practice as part of a unified, coordinated program of instruction” as recommended in that report
International Sales Strategy at Perseus Books Group: Learning from My Experience Intern.
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Zoning Neighborhoods for Resilience: Drivers, Tools and Impacts
Get PDFA new urban design is needed, one that if not climate-determinist, is climate-cognizant. The built environment should be structured and the natural environment must be managed and protected in a way that regards climate forces that if left unchecked will sap the energy, the very existence of the city.7 A new urban design must begin with a statement of clear ends to be achieved, be based upon authoritative scientific, legal and social principles and must be implemented with an understanding of the costs--monetary and socio-political, that are demonstrably justified in the light of the alternatives. The extravagant and pretentious historical course of disasters, irrevocable losses, recovery, new disaster, and more losses is too luxurious to bear in the long-term. In particular, in this paper I explore a long-used tool of urban design--zoning--for resiliency. How it expresses itself on the ground must be left to the planners, architects, and residents; in this article, I strive to lay out the urgency and legal paradigm for use of this tool against increasingly malevolent natural forces.
Part II briefly describes the scientific phenomena and why we should be worried. Part III discusses the particular vulnerabilities of cities to climate change. In Part IV, I discuss the role of urban planning toward resiliency. Part V introduces “resiliency zoning.” Part VI presents ongoing examples of resiliency zoning. Part VII shows the virtues and impacts of this newly configured land use tool. Part VIII proposes a new way of thinking about rights and limits in the Anthropocene era. I conclude with thoughts on going forward with the notions discussed in this paper
Impact investing: Funding social innovation and related actors.
No full textThis article outlines the current state of funding for social impact and in particular the growing field of Impact Investing, its background and definition, and the challenges and potential of this emerging asset class. In addition, this article examines the various actors in the field, the measurement metrics utilized, and presents a model of the interactions within the Impact Investing ecosystem. The emphasis is on three questions: What is the current state of funding for social impact and, in particular, Impact Investing? How is impact identified and measured? What intermediaries and other actors are at play in this field