Evidence

Through a Scanner Darkly: Functional Neuroimaging as Evidence of a Criminal Defendant’s Past Mental States

Teneille Brown & Emily Murphy

As with phrenology and the polygraph, society is again confronted with a device that the media claims to be capable of reading our minds. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (“fMRI”), along with other types of functional brain imaging technologies, is currently being introduced at various stages of criminal trials as evidence… Read More »

Can Bad Science Be Good Evidence: Neuroscience, Lie-Detection, and Beyond

Frederick Schauer - University of Virginia Law School

The possibility of using functional magnetic resonance imaging— fMRI, or “brain scans”—to detect deception in legal settings has generated great controversy and, indeed, widespread resistance.  Although neuroscience-based lie-detection appears to hold out the promise of improvements to existing methods of detecting deception, most academic neuroscientists have balked, insisting that the… Read More »

Blind Expertise

Christopher T. Robertson - Harvard Law School

Litigants, attorneys, judges, and jurors are thought to be the main players in the civil litigation system. However, expert witnesses are also required in the vast majority of civil trials. The expert witnesses are the ones who, for instance, tell the factfinder whether a mistake has been made in medical… Read More »

Crossing Over: Why Attorneys (and Judges) Should Not be Able to Cross-Examine Witnesses Regarding Their Immigration Statuses for Impeachment Purposes

Colin Miller - The John Marshall Law School

You are sitting in an empty bar (in a town you’ve never before visited), drinking a Bacardi with a soft-spoken acquaintance you barely know.  After an hour, a third individual walks into the tavern and sits by himself, and you ask your acquaintance who the new man is.  “Be careful… Read More »

Welcome to Legal Workshop

New York University & Stanford University

Below is a brief introduction to the Legal Workshop project. We hope you enjoy getting to know us, and we welcome your feedback.
 
Mission:
The Legal Workshop website provides a single online forum for cutting-edge legal scholarship from the top law journals in the country.
The Legal Workshop features… Read More »