Robert Schopp – författare

Our basic assumption about the law is that it is designed to operate fairly and openly. But with human beings as the ultimate decision makers, how do we prevent discrimination within the legal arena, and how does the law decide whether others have behaved in a discriminatory manner? Social Consciousness in Legal Decision Making examines four controversial areas involving people’s perceptions of others—racial profiling, affirmative action, workplace harassment, and hate speech/hate crime—from the perspectives of psychology, decision theory, and the law. This book's contributing experts raise these critical questions:How valid are legal assumptions about human behavior?What cognitive processes underlie biased behavior?What do personal experience and situational cues contribute to decision making?How do individuals’ perceptions of the law influence their judgment?Can psychology help legislators write more effective laws?In answering them, the book:Compares rational, descriptive, and normative decision-making models in legal contextsProvides important insights into legal decision making by non-specialists (police, administrators, jurors) Clarifies and broadens the role of social science in the courtsPromotes improved dialogue between the field of psychology and law to create a more socially aware jurisprudence.Social Consciousness in Legal Decision Making invites the legal and psychology communities to work together in solving some of our most pressing social problems.

Our basic assumption about the law is that it is designed to operate fairly and openly. But with human beings as the ultimate decision makers, how do we prevent discrimination within the legal arena, and how does the law decide whether others have behaved in a discriminatory manner? Social Consciousness in Legal Decision Making examines four controversial areas involving people’s perceptions of others—racial profiling, affirmative action, workplace harassment, and hate speech/hate crime—from the perspectives of psychology, decision theory, and the law.

This book''s contributing experts raise these critical questions:

How valid are legal assumptions about human behavior?

What cognitive processes underlie biased behavior?

What do personal experience and situational cues contribute to decision making?

How do individuals’ perceptions of the law influence their judgment?

Can psychology help legislators write more effective laws?

In answering them, the book:

Compares rational, descriptive, and normative decision-making models in legal contexts

Provides important insights into legal decision making by non-specialists (police, administrators, jurors)

Clarifies and broadens the role of social science in the courts

Promotes improved dialogue between the field of psychology and law to create a more socially aware jurisprudence.

Social Consciousness in Legal Decision Making invites the legal and psychology communities to work together in solving some of our most pressing social problems.

From Merck to McDonald’s to Firestone, high-profile tort cases inspire high-powered tort reform debate. Simultaneously they fuel public perceptions of spurious claims and outlandish awards, while fostering professional perceptions of an unwieldy legal system. The contributors to Civil Juries and Civil Justice bring order, as well as a much-needed reality check, to the situation. This insightful, multidisciplinary volume provides in-depth case data, empirical findings, and original research, synthesizing a range of seemingly irreconcilable legal and psychological viewpoints. Leading scholars consider the roots of juryphobia, the growth trajectories of damage awards, alternative means of obtaining civil justice, and the role of the social sciences in formulating legal policy while addressing these key questions of the tort reform controversy:What can be learned by studying jury decision-making?What is the relationship between compensatory and punitive damages?Are judges more capable than juries in awarding damages?Where do non-litigation methods such as apologies and mediation fit in?Can physicians help improve the malpractice system?Have reform efforts done more harm than good?Civil Juries and Civil Justice will attract readers across numerous disciplines: forensic psychologists and psychiatrists, attorneys, sociologists, criminologists, political scientists, and policy makers. Because of its research/practice orientation, professors and students in these fields will find it a worthy text for course adoption.

From Merck to McDonald’s to Firestone, high-profile tort cases inspire high-powered tort reform debate. Simultaneously they fuel public perceptions of spurious claims and outlandish awards, while fostering professional perceptions of an unwieldy legal system. The contributors to Civil Juries and Civil Justice bring order, as well as a much-needed reality check, to the situation. This insightful, multidisciplinary volume provides in-depth case data, empirical findings, and original research, synthesizing a range of seemingly irreconcilable legal and psychological viewpoints. Leading scholars consider the roots of juryphobia, the growth trajectories of damage awards, alternative means of obtaining civil justice, and the role of the social sciences in formulating legal policy while addressing these key questions of the tort reform controversy:

What can be learned by studying jury decision-making?

What is the relationship between compensatory and punitive damages?

Are judges more capable than juries in awarding damages?

Where do non-litigation methods such as apologies and mediation fit in?

Can physicians help improve the malpractice system?

Have reform efforts done more harm than good?

Civil Juries and Civil Justice will attract readers across numerous disciplines: forensic psychologists and psychiatrists, attorneys, sociologists, criminologists, political scientists, and policy makers. Because of its research/practice orientation, professors and students in these fields will find it a worthy text for course adoption.

Robert F. Schopp Recent Supreme Court decisions categorically preclude the application of capital punishment to convicted offenders who were below the age of eighteen or mentally 1 retarded at the time they committed the crimes for which they were sentenced. Neither opinion suggests that offenders in these categories cannot be criminally responsible for their offenses, and the Atkins opinion explicitly recognizes that some mentally 2 retarded offenders can qualify as criminally responsible for their offenses. In each case, part of the reasoning in support of the exemption from capital sentences purports to show that capital punishment of these offenders would serve neither the retributive 3 nor the deterrent functions of criminal punishment. Both opinions focus substantial attention on the retributive rationale, contending that these offenders lack sufficient 4 culpability, blameworthiness, or depravity to merit capital punishment. The opinions recognize that a categorical bar for all offenders below a specified age or level of intelligence might exempt some individuals who do not lack culpability sufficient to justify capital sentences. The opinions draw categorical rules, however, to avoid the risk that some individuals who lack sufficient culpability to deserve capital punish- 5 ment will be misidentified as sufficiently culpable to merit capital sentences. The dissenting opinions in each case recognize that offenders in these categories have limitations that render them less culpable on average than unimpaired offenders who commit similar crimes.

Robert F. Schopp Recent Supreme Court decisions categorically preclude the application of capital punishment to convicted offenders who were below the age of eighteen or mentally 1 retarded at the time they committed the crimes for which they were sentenced. Neither opinion suggests that offenders in these categories cannot be criminally responsible for their offenses, and the Atkins opinion explicitly recognizes that some mentally 2 retarded offenders can qualify as criminally responsible for their offenses. In each case, part of the reasoning in support of the exemption from capital sentences purports to show that capital punishment of these offenders would serve neither the retributive 3 nor the deterrent functions of criminal punishment. Both opinions focus substantial attention on the retributive rationale, contending that these offenders lack sufficient 4 culpability, blameworthiness, or depravity to merit capital punishment. The opinions recognize that a categorical bar for all offenders below a specified age or level of intelligence might exempt some individuals who do not lack culpability sufficient to justify capital sentences. The opinions draw categorical rules, however, to avoid the risk that some individuals who lack sufficient culpability to deserve capital punish- 5 ment will be misidentified as sufficiently culpable to merit capital sentences. The dissenting opinions in each case recognize that offenders in these categories have limitations that render them less culpable on average than unimpaired offenders who commit similar crimes.

From Merck to McDonald’s to Firestone, high-profile tort cases inspire high-powered tort reform debate. Simultaneously they fuel public perceptions of spurious claims and outlandish awards, while fostering professional perceptions of an unwieldy legal system. The contributors to Civil Juries and Civil Justice bring order, as well as a much-needed reality check, to the situation. This insightful, multidisciplinary volume provides in-depth case data, empirical findings, and original research, synthesizing a range of seemingly irreconcilable legal and psychological viewpoints. Leading scholars consider the roots of juryphobia, the growth trajectories of damage awards, alternative means of obtaining civil justice, and the role of the social sciences in formulating legal policy while addressing these key questions of the tort reform controversy:What can be learned by studying jury decision-making?What is the relationship between compensatory and punitive damages?Are judges more capable than juries in awarding damages?Where do non-litigation methods such as apologies and mediation fit in?Can physicians help improve the malpractice system?Have reform efforts done more harm than good?Civil Juries and Civil Justice will attract readers across numerous disciplines: forensic psychologists and psychiatrists, attorneys, sociologists, criminologists, political scientists, and policy makers. Because of its research/practice orientation, professors and students in these fields will find it a worthy text for course adoption.

Robert F. Schopp Recent Supreme Court decisions categorically preclude the application of capital punishment to convicted offenders who were below the age of eighteen or mentally 1 retarded at the time they committed the crimes for which they were sentenced. Neither opinion suggests that offenders in these categories cannot be criminally responsible for their offenses, and the Atkins opinion explicitly recognizes that some mentally 2 retarded offenders can qualify as criminally responsible for their offenses. In each case, part of the reasoning in support of the exemption from capital sentences purports to show that capital punishment of these offenders would serve neither the retributive 3 nor the deterrent functions of criminal punishment. Both opinions focus substantial attention on the retributive rationale, contending that these offenders lack sufficient 4 culpability, blameworthiness, or depravity to merit capital punishment. The opinions recognize that a categorical bar for all offenders below a specified age or level of intelligence might exempt some individuals who do not lack culpability sufficient to justify capital sentences. The opinions draw categorical rules, however, to avoid the risk that some individuals who lack sufficient culpability to deserve capital punish- 5 ment will be misidentified as sufficiently culpable to merit capital sentences. The dissenting opinions in each case recognize that offenders in these categories have limitations that render them less culpable on average than unimpaired offenders who commit similar crimes.