The authors examined Swedish judges', lay judges', and police officers' beliefs about factors that may complicate or facilitate children's reports of sexual abuse. Participants (N = 562) rated potential complicating and facilitating factors and freely reported which criteria they considered important when assessing the reliability of child witnesses. The groups had similar opinions regarding wh...

Embryo donation was one of the infertility treatment methods introduced to the Iranian legal system in 2003 (Act of Embryo Donation) and its by-law passed in 2005 after numerous discussions. Embryo donation is a new legal issue in Iran. No similar act has been previously legislated in the legal system; however, on the other hand, the importance of the judicial procedure in its execution cannot ...

The role of remorse in judicial decisions in the criminal justice system has been addressed in scholarship and remains controversial. The purpose of this qualitative research was to examine the views of sitting criminal judges on remorse, its assessment, and its relevance in their decision-making. After approval of the study design by the institutional review board, 23 judges were interviewed i...

Humans use facial comparisons to identify their relatives and adjust their behavior accordingly. However, the mechanisms underlying the assessment of facial similarities are poorly known. Here, we investigate the role of exposure to particular faces for the detection of facial similarities by asking judges to detect parent-child pairs using faces from different origins. In a first phase, French...

The Group is representative of the world’s geographic regions and differing legal systems, eg. civil law and common law. It contains an immense wealth of experience, energy and enthusiasm. What was notable at the Nairobi planning meeting of judges was the spirit of cooperation and the acknowledged need for urgency in order to maintain the momentum generated by the Johannesburg Global Forum. The...

In Is Originalism Our Law?, William Baude has made a good kind of argument in favor of originalism. Rather than contending that originalism is the only coherent theory for interpreting a constitution, he makes the more modest claim that it happens to be the way that American judges interpret our Constitution.1 If he is right—if originalism is our law—then judges deciding constitutional cases ou...

Through their power to sentence, trial judges exercise enormous authority in the criminal justice system. In 39 American states, these judges stand periodically for reelection. Do elections degrade their impartiality? We develop a dynamic theory of sentencing and electoral control. Judges discount the future value of retaining office relative to implementing preferred sentences. Voters are larg...

This study describes the reported observations of protective services workers who varied in the accuracy with which they could discriminate abusive from nonabusive mother-child interactions. Participants viewed videotapes of two abusive and two nonabusive dyads. They noted behaviors that suggested an abusive history and behaviors that suggested a nonabusive history for each dyad. Comparisons of...

In Indiana v. Edwards, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a higher standard may be required for pro se competence (PSC) than for competence to stand trial (CST). However, the Court refrained from elaborating a specific standard. The trial judge is in the best position to make more fine-tuned mental capacity decisions. This pilot study surveyed trial judges' opinions about PSC to help forensic eva...