Supreme court

About: Supreme court is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 41858 publications have been published within this topic receiving 306787 citations. The topic is also known as: court of last resort & highest court of appeal.

Sexual predator commitment laws: lessons for law and the behavioral sciences.

Abstract: Sex offender commitment laws use a mental health commitment model to lock up the “most dangerous” sex offenders after their prison sentences expire. In Kansas v. Hendricks, the United States Supreme Court rejected the major constitutional challenges to these laws. The Hendricks case clarifies important ambiguities about the use of civil commitment to enforce “police power” interests, as opposed to “parens patriae” interests. Hendricks also clarifies the role of “treatment” in justifying civil commitment. While there remain some important legal issues to be resolved, the future direction of sex offender commitment schemes will turn most significantly on policy decisions. The behavioral sciences can play an important role in shaping these decisions. The most significant questions concern whether expensive commitment programs are the most effective use of scarce treatment and supervision dollars. Additional research should be directed to improving dynamic predictors of recidivism, operationalizing “inability to control” standards, judging the “social meaning” of commitment laws, and assessing the potential treatment disincentives of these laws. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Living in Denial: The Application of Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

Abstract: Are human rights norms applicable to occupied territories in general, and to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in particular? The article examines the controversy that had arisen between Israel and the UN treaty monitoring bodies in relation to this question and critically analyzes Israel's three objections to such applicability: 1) the mutual exclusivity of humanitarian regime and human rights regime in occupied territories, the former being thus the only applicable law; 2) a restrictive interpretation of the jurisdictional provisions treaties; and 3) the lack of effective control in some of the territories. The article posits that the universal object and purpose of human rights treaties, which inform the proper interpretation of their jurisdictional clauses, require their applicability in all territories subject to the effective control of the state parties, as well as to other extra-territorial exercises of government power directly affecting individuals. Consequently, international human rights law and international humanitarian law apply in occupied territories in parallel and not to the exclusion of one another. This position is confirmed by extensive practice of the international human rights monitoring bodies, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and by some decisions of the Israeli Supreme Court. In conclusion, the paper posits that Israel's refusal to apply the six principal human rights treaties to which it is party to the Occupied Territories is incompatible with its international law obligations and proceeds to propose modalities for the co-application of both human rights and humanitarian law in occupied territories.

Crime, Culpability, and the Adolescent Brain

Abstract: This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether capital crimes by teenagers under 18 should get the death sentence; the case for leniency is based in part on brain studies.

The Law of the Commonwealth and Chief Justice Shaw

Abstract: During his thirty years as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, from 1830 to 1860, Lemuel Shaw wrote approximately 2,200 opinions, probably setting a record. His writings covered the entire domain of jurisprudence, excepting admiralty, and no other state judge through his opinions alone had so great an influence on the course of American law. Through a critical study of Shaw's opinions, noted historian Leonard Levy reveals what Shaw's generation thought about the relation of the individual to the state, and of states to the nation, and how his peers perceived rights, duties, and liabilities, the roles of government, and the character of law itself. Each chapter stands as a selected aspect of American legal history--some cover the response of the law to a great social issue such as fugitive slavery or trade unionism, others attempt to show how and why changes in American industrial life necessitated accommodations in the law, and still others are concerned with the growth of legal doctrines of great consequence such as police power. Overall, the opinions of Justice Shaw illuminate how liberty and order were comparatively valued, which interests were deemed important enough to secure in legal moorings, and where the points of social tension, growth, and power were rooted.

The influence of prior record evidence on juror decision making

Abstract: Several researchers have investigated the impact of evidence of prior convictions on jurors' decision making. Very little is known about a related issue, the impact of prioracquittal evidence introduced by the prosecution on jurors' decisions. The Supreme Court recently held (Dowling v. U.S., 1990) that the admission of prior acquittal evidence does not unfairly prejudice the defendant. We conducted a simulation study to examine the effects of prior record evidence (prior convictions, prior acquittals, and no prior record) on jurors' decisions. We also manipulated the presence of judicial instructions on the limited use jurors can make of extrinsic acts evidence. Mock jurors were more likely to convict the defendant when they had evidence of a prior conviction than when they had evidence of a prior acquittal or no record evidence. This effect was mediated by attributions about criminal propensity. Judge's limiting instructions were ineffective in guiding jurors' use of prior record evidence.