Jeopardy In The Courtroom

Using case studies ranging from the Salem Witch Hunt to the Little Rascals Day Care case to illustrate their argument, "Jeopardy in the Courtroom" draws from the vast corpus of scientific research to clarify what is most relevant for evaluating and understanding children's statements made in the legal arena. Bringing good sense to a topic that is as timely as it is controversial, Ceci and Bruck provide prevalence and incidence statistics on child abuse, provide theoretical overviews of memory and suggestibility, trace the history of research on suggestibility from the turn of the century to the present, explore the dynamics of structured and therapeutic interviews with children, examine the topic of recovery of repressed memories of early childhood abuse, evaluate the research regarding age differences in the reliability of children's reports, and propose general guidelines for interviewing children in a sensitive and professional manner. /// Written in lively, accessible language by acknowledged experts in the field, this book will be an invaluable guide for expert witnesses and all those who work with child witnesses, including therapists, social workers, law enforcement personnel, and lawyers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved).

The credibility of children's testimony is a highly debated topic in America's courtrooms, universities, and living rooms. Does the ingenuousness of children assure that their testimony will always be truthful? Or are children easily misled by overzealous investigators and therapists into making untrue allegations? Stephen J. Ceci and Maggie Bruck contend that the truth falls somewhere between these extremes. Using case studies ranging from the Salem Witch Hunt to the Little Rascals Day Care case to illustrate their argument, Jeopardy in the Courtroom draws from the vast corpus of scientific research to clarify what is most relevant for evaluating and understanding children's statements made in the legal arena.

Traditionally, criticism of plays from the Yüan Dynasty (1260–1368) has been dominated by the so-called poetic and socialist schools. Double Jeopardy instead rigorously evaluates a group of plays by aesthetic criteria generated from within the works themselves. It examines seven courtroom plays with special attention to language and the manipulation of dramatic characters—undoubtedly the most reliable indicators of the playwright’s strength and craftsmanship in such a stylized art form as Yüan tsa-chü drama. The analytical method adopted in Double Jeopardy is textual explication of the conventions of genre and the individual characteristics of each play. The innovation and creative vitality of each playwright emerges through close scrutiny of selected conventional aspects of courtroom dramas: the functions and placement patterns of lyric, verse, and prose as well as the custom of a single singing role and its implication for the presentation of dramatis personae. Because Yüan drama is driven by conventions, Perng demonstrates a method that can be applied not just to judgment reversal plays but to Yüan dramatic criticism as a whole. In pursuing a method of textual explication, Perng provides a basis on which a larger framework of criticism of Yüan drama may be built.

In the first book-length work on the subject in over a quarter century, George C. Thomas III advances an integrated theory of double jeopardy law, a theory anchored in historical, doctrinal, and philosophical method. Tracing American double jeopardy doctrine back to twelfth-century English law, Thomas develops a jurisprudential account of double jeopardy that recognizes the central role of the legislature in creating criminal law blameworthiness. His theory, based on blameworthiness, allows today's courts to move toward a coherent double jeopardy doctrine.

This volume traces the history of the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. It shows that the constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy has its roots in ancient Jewish and early Greek and Roman law. After recapping the history of the clause the Supreme Court's current interpretation of the clause is explained. This book describes the circumstances in which the premature termination of an individual's trial bars a subsequent trail for the same offense. It also examines when the Clause prohibits the government from imposing multiple punishments for the same offense. The final chapter includes a discussion of bibliographical sources.

A detailed look at the Rehnquist Court's key figures, rulings, and major changes to U.S. constitutional law. Did the Rehnquist Court, which followed the liberal Warren Court and the moderate Burger Court, achieve a conservative counterrevolution? Using quantitative data to supplement detailed opinion analysis, political scientist Thomas R. Hensley argues that continuity not change characterized the Rehnquist Court era. But without a doubt, the Rehnquist Court was frequently a war zone. Fourteen justices served during the Rehnquist era, which began in 1986 during the Reagan administration and ended with Rehnquist's death in September 2005. Presidents Reagan and Bush appointed conservative justices and set in motion an assault on the "ultra-liberal" decisions made by the two previous courts. But President Clinton appointed two moderate Democrats, slowing the conservative juggernaut. The result? One of the most fascinating, contentious, and crucial periods in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court.