The Jury Under Fire

The Jury Under Fire
Author: Brian H. Bornstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2017
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0190201347

The Jury Under Fire reviews a number of controversial beliefs about juries that have persisted in recent years as well as the implications of these views for jury reform efforts. Each chapter focuses on a mistaken assumption or myth about jurors or juries, critiques the myth, and then uses social science research findings to suggest appropriate reforms.

The Jury Under Fire

The Jury Under Fire
Author: Brian H. Bornstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2017-01-23
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0190201363

Although the jury is often referred to as one of the bulwarks of the American justice system, it regularly comes under attack. Recent changes to trial procedures, such as reducing jury size, allowing non-unanimous verdicts, and rewriting jury instructions in plain English, were designed to promote greater efficiency and adherence to the law. Other changes, such as capping damages and replacing jurors with judges as arbiters in complex trials, seem designed to restrict the role of laypeople in trial outcomes. Whether these innovations are implemented to facilitate the administration of justice or due to the belief that juries have excessive power and make irrational decisions, they raise a host of questions about their effects on juries' judgments and about justice. Policymakers sometimes make incorrect assumptions about jury behavior, with the result that some reform efforts have had surprising and unintended consequences. The Jury Under Fire reviews a number of controversial beliefs about juries as well as the implications of these views for jury reform. It reviews up-to-date research on both criminal and civil juries that uses a variety of research methodologies: simulations, archival analyses, field studies, and juror interviews. Each chapter focuses on a mistaken assumption or myth about jurors or juries, critiques these myths, and then uses social science research findings to suggest appropriate reforms. Chapters discuss the experience of serving as a juror; jury selection and jury size; and the impact of evidence from eyewitnesses, experts, confessions, and juvenile offenders. The book also covers the process of deciding damages and punishment and the role of emotions in jurors' decision making, and it compares jurors' and judges' decisions. Finally, it reviews a broad range of efforts to reform the jury, including the most promising reforms that have a solid backing in research. Featuring highly visible trials to illustrate key points, The Jury Under Fire will interest researchers in psychology and the law, practicing attorneys, and policymakers, as well as students and trainees in these areas.

John Adams Under Fire

John Adams Under Fire
Author: David Fisher
Publisher: Harlequin
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2020-03-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1488057222

Look for Dan Abrams and David Fisher’s new book, Kennedy’s Avenger: Assassination, Conspiracy, and the Forgotten Trial of Jack Ruby. *NOW A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* “An expert, extremely detailed account of John Adams’ finest hour.”—Kirkus Reviews Honoring the 250th Anniversary of the Boston Massacre The New York Times bestselling author of Lincoln’s Last Trial and host of LivePD Dan Abrams and David Fisher tell the story of a trial that would change history. An eye-opening story of America on the edge of revolution. History remembers John Adams as a Founding Father and our country’s second president. But in the tense years before the American Revolution, he was still just a lawyer, fighting for justice in one of the most explosive murder trials of the era—the Boston Massacre, where five civilians died from shots fired by British soldiers. Drawing on Adams’s own words from the trial transcript, Dan Abrams and David Fisher transport readers to colonial Boston, a city roiling with rebellion, where British military forces and American colonists lived side by side, waiting for the spark that would start a war.

Jury Decision Making

Jury Decision Making
Author: Dennis J. Devine
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2012-08-06
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0814725228

While jury decision making has received considerable attention from social scientists, there have been few efforts to systematically pull together all the pieces of this research. In Jury Decision Making, Dennis J. Devine examines over 50 years of research on juries and offers a "big picture" overview of the field. The volume summarizes existing theories of jury decision making and identifies what we have learned about jury behavior, including the effects of specific courtroom practices, the nature of the trial, the characteristics of the participants, and the evidence itself. Making use of those foundations, Devine offers a new integrated theory of jury decision making that addresses both individual jurors and juries as a whole and discusses its ramifications for the courts. Providing a unique combination of broad scope, extensive coverage of the empirical research conducted over the last half century, and theory advancement, this accessible and engaging volume offers "one-stop shopping" for scholars, students, legal professionals, and those who simply wish to better understand how well the jury system works.

Toyota Under Fire: Lessons for Turning Crisis into Opportunity

Toyota Under Fire: Lessons for Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Author: Jeffrey K. Liker
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2011-03-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0071763074

The definitive inside account of Toyota's greatest crisis—and lessons you can apply to your own company "Those who write off Toyota in the current climate of second guessing and speculation are making a profound mistake and need to read this book to get the facts. Toyota is a company that will channel the current challenges to push themselves to even more relentless continuous improvement." —Charles Baker, former Chief Engineer and Vice President for R&D, Honda of America "Toyota Under Fire is a superb book and should prove very helpful to American industry's understanding of the problems faced and how any company can prevent similar occurrences in the future." —Norman Bodek, author, founder of Productivity Press, and inductee in 2010 Industry Week Manufacturing Hall of Fame "As a former automotive supplier executive and student of Toyota, I was concerned to see the many negative reports and investigations into the quality and safety of its vehicles. Toyota Under Fire tells the story of how this great company is growing wiser and stronger by living its culture and values." —Michael Fisher, CEO, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center "Just as Toyota has put itself through excruciating soul-searching in order to understand what went wrong, so should we all take advantage of the opportunity for learning presented to us by Toyota's misfortune. In these pages, you will find that the actual circumstances were far more complex, nuanced, and uncertain than you saw reported in the news." —John Y. Shook, Chairman and CEO, Lean Enterprise Institute "The most comprehensive and detailed review to date of the circumstances that led to the crisis, and the events and contexts that caused it to escalate.” —Strategy & Business About the Book For decades, Toyota has been setting standards that are the envy—and goal—of organizations worldwide. Its legendary management principles and business philosophy, first documented by Jeffrey K. Liker in his influential book The Toyota Way, changed the business world's approach to operational excellence. Granted unprecedented access to Toyota's facilities worldwide, Liker, along with Timothy N. Ogden, investigated the inside story of how Toyota faced the challenges of the recession and the recall crisis of 2009–2010. In both cases, the company was caught off guard—and found that a root cause of the challenges it faced was its failure to live up to its own principles. But the fundamentals were still there, and the company has ultimately come out of the most challenging years of its postwar existence even stronger than before. Toyota Under Fire chronicles all the events of the recession and the recall crisis in detail, providing valuable lessons any business leader can use to survive and thrive in a crisis, no matter how large: Crisis response must start by building a strong culture long before the crisis hits. Culture matters far more than decisions made by top executives. Investing in people, even in the depths of a recession, is the surest path to long-term profitability. Because it had founded its culture on such principles, Toyota didn’t need to amass an army of public relations, marketing, and legal experts to "put out the fire"; instead, it redoubled efforts to live up to its founding tenet, going "back to basics." Toyota began solving this crisis more than 70 years ago, when its organizational culture was first established. Apply the lessons of Toyota Under Fire to your company, and you'll meet any future management challenge calmly, responsibly, and effectively—the Toyota Way.

The Body in Question

The Body in Question
Author: Jill Ciment
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2020-05-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 052556537X

*** NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF THE YEAR *** A 52 year-old photographer and a 41 year-old anatomy professor are jurors sequestered during a sensational three-week trial: a toddler murdered by one of his twin sisters. At the court appointed cut-rate motel off the interstate, they fall into an intense, furtive affair, but it is only during deliberations that the lovers learn they are on opposing sides of the case. Suddenly they look at one another through an altogether different lens. After the trial, the photographer returns to her much older husband amidst an ongoing media frenzy over the case. But the judge has received an anonymous letter about the affair, and she is preparing to release the jurors names. From that point on, the photographer’s “one last dalliance before she is too old” takes on profoundly personal and moral consequences, as The Body in Question moves to its affecting, powerful, and surprising conclusion.

Forensics Under Fire

Forensics Under Fire
Author: Jim Fisher
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2008-02-04
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0813544246

Television shows like CSI, Forensic Files, and The New Detectives make it look so easy. A crime-scene photographer snaps photographs, a fingerprint technician examines a gun, uniformed officers seal off a house while detectives gather hair and blood samples, placing them carefully into separate evidence containers. In a crime laboratory, a suspect's hands are meticulously examined for gunshot residue. An autopsy is performed in order to determine range and angle of the gunshot and time-of-death evidence. Dozens of tests and analyses are performed and cross-referenced. A conviction is made. Another crime is solved. The credits roll. The American public has become captivated by success stories like this one with their satisfyingly definitive conclusions, all made possible because of the wonders of forensic science. Unfortunately, however, popular television dramas do not represent the way most homicide cases in the United States are actually handled. Crime scenes are not always protected from contamination; physical evidence is often packaged improperly, lost, or left unaccounted for; forensic experts are not always consulted; and mistakes and omissions on the autopsy table frequently cut investigations short or send detectives down the wrong investigative path. In Forensics Under Fire, Jim Fisher makes a compelling case that these and other problems in the practice of forensic science allow offenders to escape justice and can also lead to the imprisonment of innocent people. Bringing together examples from a host of high-profile criminal cases and familiar figures, such as the JonBenet Ramsey case and Dr. Henry Lee who presented physical evidence in the O. J. Simpson trial, along with many lesser known but fascinating stories, Fisher presents daunting evidence that forensic science has a long way to go before it lives up to its potential and the public's expectations.

American Juries

American Juries
Author: Neil Vidmar
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Total Pages: 428
Release: 2009-09-25
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1615929878

This monumental and comprehensive volume reviews more than 50 years of empirical research on civil and criminal juries and returns a verdict that strongly supports the jury system.