News & Events

Faculty News 2001

  • 12.03.01
    The Boston Globe
    In the midst of all the attention to the aftermath of September 11, another national tragedy almost occurred in New Bedford, Mass., Doriane Coleman reminded readers in an op-ed piece entitled "Columbine (almost) revisited." Three teenaged boys who had allegedly conspired to replicate the 1999 events at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., were arrested before doing any harm. But Coleman, who teaches children and the law at Duke Law School, wrote "to focus principally on averting such tragedies at this stage of the game is to miss the mark by a wide margin. The boys who killed in Columbine and who might have killed in New Bedford were deeply troubled long before they imagined and took action ... Indeed, among child development experts, there is little doubt that their underlying dysfunction is precisely what made them capable of such thoughts and acts. ... As we come together as a society in the aftermath of the recent terrorism, and as we begin to contemplate the ways in which we might become better citizens of the world, we must not forget that this new community we are forming offers previously unimaginable possibilities not only for our adult souls and bipartisanship in government. It also offers the possibility to revisit how we raise our children. This, in turn, provides the opportunity for us to cure the Columbine epidemic and truly to secure the nation's future."
  • 10.14.01
    The Washington Post Possible new role for grand juries in counterterrorism ... In tearing down the wall between federal grand juries and intelligence agencies, a proposal by Attorney General John Ashcroft would make it lawful for the CIA and the U.S. military to tap into the investigative might of the federal grand jury. The proposal would also remove the supervisory control of a federal judge, who under the current structure is the only person who can allow grand jury information to be shared. Duke University Law Professor Sara Sun Beale, a former Justice Department official who is an authority on federal criminal law and the grand jury, said a key question is whether routine sharing of grand jury evidence with the CIA will gradually convert the grand jury into an engine of political intelligence-gathering. "The grand jury was created to investigate criminal wrongdoing," Beale said. "It was given extensive authority to clear the innocent and discover evidence against the guilty." Historically, she said, judicial supervision and secrecy rules were integral parts of an official proceeding that can compel secret testimony and incarcerate uncooperative witnesses. "Now that we know the information that comes out at the end of the pipeline could be shared with intelligence agencies, how will the grand jury be used?" she asked.
  • 10.13.01
    The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)
    Execution dates set for three murderers ... Even though a new law in North Carolina gives death-row inmates the right to ask by Jan. 31, 2002 for a hearing to review any evidence of mental retardation, the N.C. Department of Correction scheduled three inmates’ executions for November and December 2001. Duke University Law School Professor James Coleman said that setting execution dates for those who probably would file for hearings under the new law was "slimy. The legislature obviously thought people on death row needed time to [ask for the hearing under the new law]. Basically, these dates cut off the time that these defendants would have."
  • 08.21.01
    The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.)
    Midway Airlines declares bankruptcy ... Midway Airlines' decision to not pay wages for its final pay period could hurt the airline's chances for recovery, said Steven Schwarcz, a Duke University law professor and founder of Duke's interdisciplinary Global Capital Markets Center. Current employees might not trust that the airline is going to treat them well in the future, he said. "It depends on the company. I've known companies that have made sure they paid the employees bacause they wanted to keep all of them and it was so important they wanted to make them feel [secure]," Schwarcz said. "Midway obviously made a decision."
  • 08.17.01
    The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)
    Penalties loom for Marine Corps officers in Osprey case ... Eight Marine Corps officers accused of altering the Osprey's maintenance records to hide the aircraft's deficiencies were due to receive penalties. Legal and military experts, including Scott Silliman, Executive Director of Duke Law School's Center on Law, Ethics, and National Security, said the investigation shows the Marine Corps can mete out discipline regardless of rank. Silliman, who spent 25 years as an Air Force lawyer, said that all military services understand that officers cannot be exempt from discipline. "The Marine Corps is fighting, fighting to get [the Osprey] funded, and the only way they can do that is to show the American people and Congress that they will not tolerate any dereliction in that program," Silliman said.
  • 08.06.01
    The New York Times
    A study's verdict: jury awards are not out of control ... Critics of the civil justice system have argued for years that reform is needed because of runaway punitive damage verdicts by juries. But a comprehensive study of nearly 9,000 trials across the country has found that judges award punitive damages about as often as juries and generally in about the same proportions. By showing that judges and juries generally have similar views of punitive damages, the study -- to be published in March in the Cornell Law Review -- suggested that juries may be far less arbitrary than is widely believed, said Neil Vidmar, an authority on jury issues at Duke Law School who was not involved in the Cornell research but was familiar with it. "It is novel," Vidmar said, "because the conventional wisdom is juries are irresponsible, incompetent and don’t know how to make an assessment."
  • 07.21.01 and 07.29.01
    Reuters News Agency
    Merrill Lynch settles anti-Blodget case ... Merrill Lynch and Co. Inc. paid $400,000 to settle allegations that overly-bullish research by the company’s top Internet analyst, Henry Blodget, caused an investor to lose his shirt. The attorney for the investor has vowed to go after other high-profile Wall Street analysts. James Cox, a professor of corporate and securities law at Duke University, said analysts might be protected because the Blodget award arose from an arbitration proceeding and as such did not establish legal precedent. Still, the case may open the door for disgruntled investors looking for scapegoats and financial redress, he said. "The genie is out of the bottle now," Cox said. "People now know what is going on. This story hasn’t gone away."
  • In a story on the same topic July 29, Cox told the Chicago Tribune that though the Blodget case establishes no legal precedent, its outcome is likely to breed many copycat claims. "It gets the juices flowing for investors who lost money in high-tech stocks, and there are lots of them out there," Cox said.
  • 07.17.01 and 07.21.01
    The News & Observer of Raleigh
    Crunch Time for Bank Deal ... Talking to the News & Observer of Raleigh about SunTrust Banks’ attempt to have the N.C. Business Court in Greensboro invalidate the planned merger of Wachovia and First Union banks, Duke University Law Professor James Cox said it was difficult to predict how the five-year-old court would rule. Because of its short history, the court has little experience handling large corporate mergers. "A ruling (in favor of SunTrust) would be a big, big step away from the body of precedent," said Cox, a professor of corporate and securities law, "But with a court this young, precedent may not matter." The court rejected SunTrust’s argument against the merger, quashing the legal challenge. In a follow-up story July 21, the News & Observer asked Cox for his reaction. "SunTrust was pushing a very big rock up a very big hill," he said.
  • 07.13.01
    CNN Live Today
    Is Banning Deadbeat Dads From Having Kids Constitutional? ... The Wisconsin Supreme Court has banned David Oakley, who owes more than $25,000 in child support for his nine children, from having any more kids during a five-year probationary period. CNN Live Today asked Duke Law Professor Doriane Coleman, to comment on the decision. Coleman said she thought the court's sentence was "entirely appropriate" under the circumstances. " ... the government has, in the past, misused its authority to restrict the right of people to procreate, just as it's misused its authority in other respects," she said. "But that does not mean that in this country we stand for an absolutely unfettered right to procreate." She added: "This is not a case where he is unable to pay something toward the support of his children; it's a case where he has purposely declined to do so in circumstances where he can contribute something."
  • 07.11.01
    USA Today
    'Deadbeat dad told: No more kids. Wis. court backs threat of prison ... In an unprecedented action against "deadbeat dads", the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Jul 10 ruled 4-3 that a man who owed $25,000 in child support could be ordered not to father any more children. If David Oakley, who already has had nine children with four women, fails to abide by the condition, he faces eight years in prison. Dissenting justices emphasized the fundamental right to have children and said the action aganist Oakley was too drastic. Another noted it could lead a woman to have an abortion to protect Oakley from prison. Duke University Law School Dean Katharine Bartlett, a specialist in family law, predicted the courts increasingly will face such dilemmas over child support and privacy rights. "I think the culture is moving in the direction of support for more rigorous measures to enforce child-support orders," Bartlett told USA Today. She said the Oakley case ultimately could influence other disputes over reproductive rights.
  • 07.05.01
    The New York Times
    Lack of Lawyers Hinders Appeals in Capital Cases ... Dozens of inmates on death row lack lawyers for their appeals, in part because private law firms are increasingly unwilling to take on burdensome, expensive and emotionally wrenching capital cases, The New York Times reports. The situation has dire implications, the July 5 story said, because two out of three appealed death sentences are set aside dues to errors by defense lawyers at the time of trial or because of prosecutorial misconduct. Duke University Law Professor James Coleman is quoted, saying that the lack of competent counsel to handle capital cases was a significant factor in the American Bar Association's decision to call for a moratorium on executions. Coleman, who teached criminal law and legal ethics, is past chair of the ABA's Section on Individual Rights and Responsibilities.
  • 06.06.01
    The Dallas Morning News
    Judging Juries ... The Dallas Morning News observed in a June 6 article that jury consultants - experts who advise lawyers on which jurors to impanel and which to strike - have become as commonplace in the courtroom as expert witnesses. Duke Law School Professor Neil Vidmar agreed. "The jury expert business has simply exploded," Vidmar, who has written on medical malpractice cases and the American jury and recently published a book, World Jury Systems (2000), told the Morning News. "They used to only pop up in the most extreme criminal cases and everyone made fun of them as pseudo-scientists," said Vidmar, a Ph.D social psychologist. "Now, it's almost legal malpractice for lawyers not to hire them in big cases." Vidmar and others noted that problems arise when jury consultants rely on stereotypes such as race, gender, age, income or some other factor to decide if a juror will be fair and open-minded. "There are jury consultants who strike a juror because he is wearing a light blue or green sport coat instead of the dark blue or dark gray jacket, which they believe signifies strength or authority," Vidmar said. "But it could just be that all the guy's dark blue and gray suits were at the dry cleaner, and he would make a great juror for them."
  • 05.29.01
    U.S. Law Week
    Core Chapters of Agency Restatement Gain ALI Approval ... The work of Duke Law School Professor Deborah DeMott on the American Law Institute's Restatement (Third) of the Law of Agency project is recognized in a lengthy article in United States Law Week. DeMott has served as the ALI's project reporter since 1995. The Institute granted provisional approval of Tentative Draft No. 2 of the restatement on May 17. The vote approved four chapters covering introductory matters, principles of attribution, creation and termination of authority, and ratification. Left unapproved was a single section of the ratification chapter.
  • 05.20.01
    The News & Observer (NC)
    High-Tech Frisk ... Do police officers infringe on privacy rights when they conduct high-tech surveillance, as in the Oregon case where police used thermal imagers to detect heat coming from the powerful lights Danny Lee Kyllo was using to grow marijuana in his home? The U.S. Supreme Court will soon address this issue when it hears the Oregon case. Duke Law School Professors Bob Mosteller and Andrew Taslitz talked with the News & Observer about the implications of the case. "The potential here is for Big Brother Action in which we're followed all of the time," Mosteller told the Raleigh newspaper, while noting that police have to date been fairly conservative in their use of high-tech surveillance. "We think we're protecting ourselves from prying eyes when we go inside and shut the door. Technology threatens the efforts we make to stay private." Taslitz said the Court's decision in the Kyllo case will signal its stance on new technology as it applies to Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. "Technology is advancing faster than our concepts of privacy," Taslitz said. "It's going to get more and more complex as technology develops.
  • 05.17.01
    Time.com
    Why Ashcroft Is Being Cautious Over McVeigh Execution ... Six days before the Timothy McVeigh was scheduled to be executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bomb blast that killed 168 people, the FBI announced that it has discovered more than 3,000 documents that were not turned over to McVeigh’s defense team during the trial. James Coleman, a professor of criminal law and legal ethics at Duke Law School, told Time.com: "Given the nature of this case, I don’t think they had any choice; the government wants to eliminate any lingering question at all as to whether the trial was fair." ...link to the full text of Coleman's interview with Time.com.
  • 04.01.01
    The New York Times
    Harry Potter and the Court Battle Over Creativity ... Legal challenges filed by the famous and little-known alike over the originality of creative works have proliferated steadily over the last 20 years, partly because of the soaring value of intellectual property in a media-saturated culture. One recent example is the case of Camp Hill, Pa., homemaker Nancy Stouffer, who asserts that Harry Potter, the fictional bespectacled boy wizard-in-training of the wildly popular Harry Potter children's book series, was her creation and not that of J.K. Rowling, author of the Potter books. "These cases are more intense and more frequently encountered these days than in the past, driven by the increasing appetite on the part of all kinds of people for intellectual property protection," said David Lange, a professor at Duke University School of Law, told the Times.
  • 03.13.01
    The Washington Post
    When Companies Go Bust, So Do Stockholders; Often, They're Left Out of the Money ... You'd be surprised how many investors think their stocks came with a warranty. I've certainly been surprised by the inquiries I get from shareholders in troubled companies, particularly companies that have filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy law, or that are on the verge of doing so. ... "The economic concept is that the shareholder is the residual risk bearer," said Deborah DeMott, a professor of corporate law at Duke Law School. "If things go well, the shareholder benefits. In exchange for the upside, the shareholders take the risk that what they've invested will be lost if the company fails." ...
  • 03.09.01
    The News & Record (NC)
    Remove politics from redistricting, law professor argues ... An independent panel should draw North Carolina's new congressional districts, says an attorney who has challenged the fairness of those boundaries for almost a decade. "If we don't have something like that we're going to have more gerrymandering," Robinson Everett told the Greensboro Kiwanis Club on Thursday. Politicians contort, or gerrymander, districts to favor certain races, political parties and politicians, he said. Everett, a professor at Duke University Law School, has repeatedly argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that the 12th District is unconstitutionally drawn to include a disproportionate percentage of black voters. The district snakes from Greensboro to Charlotte ...
  • 03.06.01
    The News & Observer (NC) -- Point of View
    A tool for fixing inequality ... As George Bernard Shaw observed: "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul." And, indeed, self-interest has over the years been a reliable predictor of views on most tax policy questions, for most taxpayers. It comes as a bit of a surprise, then, to hear that several of the master capitalists of our era -- George Soros, Warren Buffet and David Rockefeller, for example -- are opposed to the attempt to repeal "the death tax," as critics now call the federal estate and gift taxes. Their families would be spared literally billions of dollars if this part of the Bush tax plan is enacted. But in an altruistic display of public spirit, they point out that the estate and gift taxes serve a useful purpose: They retard the development of a powerful class of ultra-wealthy whose membership is determined by heredity rather than merit. ... Richard Schmalbeck is a professor of the Duke University School of Law.
  • 03.05.01
    Time
    Crime and Punishment: The Supreme Court's death-penalty decision is a red herring ... The Supreme Court of Canada has handed authorities in Washington State a choice worthy of Solomon -- in reverse. If they want to try two young Canadians for murder, they will have to promise not to execute them. Otherwise Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns, who have spent the past six years in a Vancouver jail fighting extradition to the U.S. could very well go free. The court's Feb. 16 decision left death-penalty opponents in both countries overjoyed. "The U.S. is now isolated on the continent," exulted Duke University law professor James Coleman, who notes that Mexico requires similar assurances from the U.S. before it will extradite murder suspects. ...
  • 03.05.01
    The Christian Science Monitor
    How just is U.S. military justice? ... In the high-tech military of the 21st century, the captain of a nuclear-powered U.S. naval vessel can throw a sailor in the brig with nothing but bread and water to sustain him. A soldier on leave who robs a bank can be prosecuted in the Army as well as by the state. An airman who commits a capital offense can be given the death penalty by a jury of just five people. And a Marine Corps captain could be in big trouble for "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman." Is "military justice" an oxymoron? ... "In many ways, it's a lot more progressive than many of the civilian systems," says Robinson Everett, a senior judge of the U.S. Court of Military Appeals and professor of law at Duke University in Durham, N.C. ...
  • 03.03.01
    The News & Record (NC)
    Critics attack Easley over clemency issue ... Ernest Paul McCarver, his life saved at least temporarily by a last minute stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, moved from the shadow of the execution chamber Friday to his old cell off Central Prison's death row. Meanwhile, legal scholars, educators and death penalty opponents sharply criticized Gov. Mike Easley for refusing to grant clemency to McCarver, a man described by psychologists as having the mind of a child. ... "This has to be very significant," said Jim Coleman, Duke University law professor. "I think the court might be about to say that our evolving standard of decency has reached the point that it is cruel and unusual to put to death the mentally retarded." ...
  • 03.01.01
    The News & Record (NC)
    Lawyers ask Easley to halt execution ... Lawyers for Ernest Paul McCarver, who is scheduled to be executed at 2 a.m. Friday, pleaded Wednesday with Gov. Mike Easley to spare McCarver's life - at least until the General Assembly votes on a bill to outlaw executing people with mental retardation in North Carolina. ... In a letter to Easley urging clemency for McCarver, Duke University law professor Jim Coleman said the jury in 1992 sentenced McCarver to death even though it found that McCarver's IQ was "in the lower range of borderline intellectual functioning." Coleman emphasized to Easley that McCarver's jury also determined that he was mentally or emotionally disturbed and that his capacity "to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was impaired at the time of his offense." Coleman told Easley that it is "difficult to rationally reconcile those findings with the jury's unanimous decision to sentence Mr. McCarver to death. Coleman was a member of the legislative study commission that recommended abolishing the death penalty for people with mental retardation. He told Easley that permitting McCarver's execution to be carried out while legislation likely to be enacted is "indefensible." ...
  • 02.27.01
    National Public Radio -- Morning Edition
    President Bush and many Republicans in Congress favor repeal of the estate tax, which they refer to as the 'death tax.' It requires payment of inheritance tax on large estates. The rate can be as low as 18 percent or as high as 55 percent of the estate's value. ... Richard Schmalbeck: If the estate's just barely into the taxable range, there are things that you can do using the marital deduction that may get you just below the threshold. So if you're talking about a couple that has maybe a $2 or $2.5 million, they can probably avoid paying any transfer taxes at all if they are careful about what they do and get good advice. ...
  • 02.25.01
    The News & Record (NC)
    Debate swirls as execution date looms; a law to prohibit putting the mentally diabled to death may come too late for Ernest Paul McCarver, scheduled to die Friday ... Psychologists say Ernest Paul McCarver has the mind of a 10- or 12-year-old child, younger even than his "little princess," the 13-year-old daughter he hopes to see Thursday, the day before the state executes him. ... Duke Law professor Jim Coleman, who also was a member of the study commission, said it would be a "travesty of justice and a tragedy to permit this execution to take place just as the legislature is about to carry out the will of the people of North Carolina who do not want to execute the mentally retarded." ...
  • 02.09.01
    The Charlotte Observer
    Charities, Universities Worry Loss of Estate Tax Will Reduce Donations ... Some Carolinas colleges are worrying that President Bush's plan to eliminate the estate tax may cost them in donations. Abolishing the tax would allow the wealthiest Americans to keep more of their money in the family when they die. Currently, the well-to-do often leave their inheritances to charity, to spare their heirs the tax of up to 55 percent on the largest estates. ... "Colleges and cultural institutions are very worried about this -- but they're quietly worried," said Richard Schmalbeck, a tax law professor at Duke University. "They're in a real pickle when it comes to lobbying about this because their benefactors want this change to happen." ...
  • 02.04.01
    The New York Times
    U.S. Decides Not to Prosecute 4 Officers Who Killed Diallo ... Justice Department officials said yesterday that they would not prosecute the four New York City police officers who shot Amadou Diallo to death two years ago, closing the criminal phase of a racially charged case that provoked a citywide debate on aggressive police tactics. ... But legal experts said the standards for winning a federal criminal conviction in a civil rights case were usually more stringent than those faced by state prosecutors. Reckless conduct on the part of the officers is not enough, lawyers said. It must be proved that the officers willfully deprived Mr. Diallo of his 14th Amendment right that guarantees that a person's life should not be taken without due process. ... "In constitutional terms," said William Van Alstyne, a professor at Duke University Law School, "what one is looking for is a case that is not just a murder or brutality case -- there are thousands of those in state courts -- but one with something particular in which the nation as a whole has an interest." ...
  • 01.28.01
    The Washington Post
    Stockholders last in line in bankruptcy ... You'd be surprised how many investors think their stocks came with a warranty. ... The people most likely to receive money in a bankruptcy proceeding are creditors, companies or individuals who have lent money to the troubled firm. The people least likely to get anything are the shareholders. They're not creditors. They're owners. "The economic concept is that the shareholder is the residual risk bearer," said Deborah DeMott, a professor of corporate law at Duke Law School. "If things go well the shareholder benefits. ... In exchange for the upside, the shareholder takes the risk that what they've invested will be lost if the company fails." ...
  • 01.24.01
    The Washington Post
    Spurred by the release of 13 inmates from Illinois' death row, the state Supreme Court has set some of the nation's most rigorous standards of training and experience for defense attorneys, prosecutors and judges handling capital cases. Under rules that take effect in March, the lead lawyer on each side must have at least five years of criminal litigation experience and must have worked on at least two murder trials; prosecutors must let defense attorneys know quickly if they intend to seek the death penalty; and judges who might preside over capital cases must attend training seminars every two years. ... "When Illinois establishes standards like this, I think that it says to other states this is necessary to avoid the kinds of problems that Illinois has had," said Jim Coleman, a law professor at Duke University who studied the death penalty for the American Bar Association. ...
  • 01.17.01
    Centre Daily Times
    Pennsylvania Doctors Raise Furor over Lax Medical Malpractice Laws ... Medical malpractice crises have occurred before, although mostly on a national level. The catalyst was the same then as it is in Pennsylvania now: the rising cost of malpractice coverage or the difficulty of obtaining that coverage, said Clark Havighurst, a professor of law at Duke University School of Law. The debate in Pennsylvania over medical malpractice seems divided along the same lines as elsewhere: physicians, health-care providers and insurance companies vs. plaintiff attorneys and consumers, Havighurst said. ... With plaintiff attorney's fees contingent upon favorable verdicts, many say they can't afford to take on malpractice claims with potential awards of less than $100,000, said Neil Vidmar, a professor of law at Duke University School of Law. ...
  • 01.12.01
    The Washington Post
    Rivals of Microsoft Corp. have retained Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr to help support the Clinton administration's case that the software giant broke antitrust law and should be split in two to restore competition in the marketplace. ... Separately, American Online has hired Walter Dellinger, a former solicitor general for President Clinton, to work on the case. ... Dellinger, a partner at O'Melveney & Meyers, served as solicitor general in 1996 and 1997 and was a key member of Vice President Gore's legal team that fought for a manual recount of votes in several counties in Florida. He also teaches constitutional law at Duke University Law School. ...
  • 01.10.01
    Investor's Business Daily
    Fireworks over digital music to go off in Washington, D.C. ... You might expect a music-technology conference addressing topics like copyright law and Internet song-swapping to meet in glitzy Hollywood or wired Silicon Valley, not starchy Washington, D.C. But the first Coalition for the Future of Music Policy Conference will be held Wednesday and Thursday on the shores of the Potomac, not the Pacific, in a sign of the growing federal role in the debate over who controls the intellectual property in the Napster age. ... "Both Silicon Valley and La-La Land are turning their attention to Washington because Washington has the ability to significantly mess things up," said James Boyle, a Duke University law professor and critic of the 1998 law, who will speak at the conference on Wednesday. ...
  • 01.10.01
    National Journal's Technology Daily
    Intellectual Property: Panelists say Napster alters copyright, debate ... The explosive growth of Napster and other technologies that permit users to swap digital music files has begun to change the political dynamics governing the quite controversial topic of how copyright law should apply on the Web. But that point was perhaps the only one upon which the different factions in the copyright debate could agree Wednesday at a panel on the state of the digital music industry. ... "The importance of Napster is not the legal arguments but the importance of its" 51 million users, James Boyle, a professor at Duke University Law School, said at the Future of Music Coalition's first annual conference at Georgetown University. "You wouldn't have gotten Sen. Orrin Hatch up here two years ago without" them, he said, referring to the earlier keynote speaker, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. ...
  • 01.07.01
    The Dallas Morning News
    A model for reform; Judge's ideas sparked changes in Arizona's jury system and calls for change in Texas and other states ... Imagine being forced to take a college course you didn't want and knew nothing about. It could take a few days or several weeks - no one knew for sure. There would be several speakers, some using technical language you didn't understand. You couldn't take notes, ask questions or consult your classmates. Then at the end, there'd be a test that required everyone to give the same answers - or no one could go home. That's how recently retired Arizona Judge Michael Dann describes traditional jury service. "It makes no sense. Jury duty is totally foreign to the way we act and think as human beings," he says. So, at Judge Dann's urging, Arizona courts five years ago began a bold experiment in hopes of changing all that. ... "Jurors who have a better understanding of the facts and the law deliver more informed and more accurate verdicts," says Duke University law professor Neil Vidmar, a student of the Arizona project since its inception. ...
  • 01.04.01
    National Public Radio - Morning Edition
    Republicans uneasy about creation of international criminal court ... Among the foreign policy challenges facing President-elect George W. Bush is the controversy over creation of a new International Criminal Court. Over the New Year's weekend, President Clinton signed a treaty setting up a permanent war crimes tribunal, but Republicans say the treaty is flawed beyond repair. Professor Madeline Morris was interviewed. ...link to audio