No description available.

Juveniles' right to be competent to stand trial has been increasingly recognized since In re Gault (1967) granted juveniles essential due process rights. One formulation of competence proposes two facets: competence to assist counsel (e.g., understanding the roles of legal actors, the adversarial system,) and decisional competence (Bonnie, 1992). The first goal of this project was to investigate the psychometric properties and relevant correlates of one instrument to assess competence to assist counsel, the Competence Assessment for Standing Trial for Defendants with Mental Retardation (CAST-MR; this study used only the first two scales). Results indicated acceptable internal consistency, although concerns were raised regarding the appropriateness of some items. Scores were related to age and intelligence, as in prior research. No relationship was found with most mental health scale scores, prior legal system involvement, contact with defense counsel, or learning problems. The second goal of the study centered on decisional competence and the role of immaturity; specifically whether age is associated with immature judgment (assessed using the Judgment in Legal Contexts instrument) and if immature judgment predicts decisions made about one's own case. The current study found few significant relationships between age or intelligence and variables coded from the JILC (including authority compliance, risk recognition, risk appraisal, future recognition, resistance to peer influence). Additionally, age and the perceived strength of evidence were not predictive of individuals' decisions to confess, to fully disclose to defense counsel, or to accept a plea bargain. Juveniles who had confessed scored higher on future recognition, those who fully disclosed to their attorney scored lower on authority compliance, and those who would accept a plea bargain scored higher on risk recognition and appraisal. While the results were modest, they suggest that immature performance on a judgment measure may predict individuals' legal decision-making. If a juvenile fails to appreciate the potential consequences of legal decisions, his or her decisional competence may be questioned. Generally, immaturity may need to be recognized as a basis for findings of incompetence if performance on relevant skills is shown to improve with age and immature performance is shown to interfere with competency.

No description available.

The Variable Child concerns the legal decision-making process in unaccompanied child refugee applications, and the role that conceptions of childhood play in the process. I examine when particular types of knowledge are drawn upon by legal actors, as well as the effects of the claim-making practices that create meaning, or truth effects, in legal decision-making. I identify how legal actors exercise discretion by investigating how facts are constructed with different ideas about childrens competence, abilities and knowledge. The Unaccompanied Child Refugee Evidentiary and Procedure Guidelines, which governs legal decisions, has embedded within it various, sometimes competing, conceptions of the child and childhood. These multiple notions create considerable discretionary space for refugee officers to make decisions about individual cases. My examination of legal decisions reveals a strategic use of vulnerable and/or responsible conceptions of childhood. Another strategy used to establish facts in these cases is to exclude the cultural differences of childhood both these practices are accomplished through employing several different knowledge moves. Refugee officers invoke vulnerable and/or responsible constructions of childhood to displace the impact of other/alternative constructions of childhood, namely Chinese ideas of parental relations. This avoids the potential for legal decisions to set standards for similar cases in the future. Childhood studies have documented how different axes of scholarly inquiry produce different understandings, typologies, and knowledges of the child and childhood. What remains understudied is how competing knowledges of the child and childhood are applied, negotiated, and formalized in legal decision-making. My study investigates how power relations constitute particular constructions of childhood, and the consequences these relations have for childrens lives. Unlike examining childhood as contextual, I document how variable understandings of the child and childhood are constituted, institutionalized, and normalized through the law. My study examines the complexities of legal decision-making, a process that is often black-boxed. I also trace which conceptions of childhood are drawn upon to substantiate legal claims, and how a social context for the child and childhood emerges. By examining the relations of law in the context of children, my work contributes to the growing area of childhood studies and socio-legal practices.

No description available.

This cumulative dissertation consists of investigations the brain processes related to legal and moral decision-making as well as a philosophical reflection. The behavioral main finding is that lawyers perceive themselves to be less emotionally involved during legal and moral decision-making than other academics. Regarding brain processes, the major finding is that legal decisions are correlated with stronger activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, suggesting a stronger engagement of rule application. The philosophical part reflects the normative implications of these investigations and comprises a wider discussion of neuroimaging in the context of clinical research.

No description available.

Heuristiken der Urteilsbildung umfassen bottom-up bzw. schemagesteuerte Strategien innerhalb der sozialen Informationsverarbeitung, mit deren Hilfe trotz unsicherer Datenlage hinreichend genaue Urteile gefällt werden können. Die Anker- und Anpassungsheuristik als eine Form solcher Faustregeln beschreibt im Wesentlichen die Wirkung von vorgegebenen Zahlen (den so genannten Ankerwerten) auf numerische Schätzungen. Urteile unter Unsicherheit sind zum Beispiel im Bereich der Rechtsprechung zu beobachten, wobei die Entscheidungsprozesse hier eher normativ auf der Basis der vorliegenden Informationen, d.h. einer datengesteuerten Verarbeitung, erfolgen sollten. <br><br> In einer Serie von drei Experimenten wurde die Ankerheuristik auf den Bereich der Rechtsprechung übertragen. Mit Hilfe der Vignettentechnik wurden <i>N</i> = 229 Rechtsreferendare sowie <i>N</i> = 600 Studierende der Rechtswissenschaften zu ihrem Strafverhalten befragt. Im Mittelpunkt standen drei Zielsetzungen: (1) die Replikation und Erweiterung der Ankereffekts in Bezug auf eine größere Gruppe von Deliktarten; (2) die Analyse individueller Unterschiede in der Ankernutzung unter Berücksichtigung verschiedener Persönlichkeitsvariablen (Need for Cognition und Need for Cognitive Closure) sowie (3) die Anregung zu verstärkter systematischer Informationsverarbeitung durch die Indizierung einer Genauigkeitsmotivation. <br><br> Der Ankereffekt in der juristischen Urteilsfindung konnte für die verschiedenen Deliktgruppen repliziert werden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die wahrgenommene Schwere der geschilderten Taten mit dem Strafmaß korrelierte. Dieser Zusammenhang wurde durch die Einführung von Ankerwerten deutlich reduziert. Entgegen den bisherigen Untersuchungen war zwar auch bei den Rechtsreferendaren ein Ankereffekt zu beobachten, der jedoch geringer ausfiel als bei den Studierenden der Rechtswissenschaften. Im Hinblick auf die Persönlichkeitsmerkmale konnte die Erwartung bestätigt werden, dass ein geringes Kognitionsbedürfnis sowie ein hohes Geschlossenheitsbedürfnis mit höherer Anfälligkeit für die Ankerheuristik einhergehen. Die Erzeugung eines Rechtfertigungsdrucks dagegen veranlasste die Probanden, sich intensiver mit den Materialien zu beschäftigen und eher datengeleitet vorzugehen. Implikationen für die juristische Praxis werden diskutiert. / Decisions are usually based on beliefs about the likelihood that an uncertain event will occur (i.e., the results of an election or the liability of the accused). In estimating the likelihood of those events people often revert to heuristics as a theory-driven processing strategy in order to reduce the effort of the decision-making process. On the one hand heuristics might be quite helpful in controlling information processing; on the other hand they can lead to systematic biases in judgments. Anchoring and adjustment describe a judgmental heuristic, where individuals gauge numerical size by starting from an initial arbitrary or irrelevant value (an anchor) and adjusting it during the subsequent course of judgment to arrive at their final judgment. However, the adjustment of the judgment typically remains insufficient, thus leading to judgments that are biased in the direction of the starting value. <br><br> The concept of judgmental heuristics can be applied to legal decision making. Legal decision-making is normatively defined as data-driven, which means that judgements about the culpability of a defendant need to be corroborated by evidence specific to the case at hand. Individuals involved in this process are required to assess the evidence without being affected by personal feelings and beliefs or by extraneous evidence. <br><br> A series of three experiments tested the impact of anchoring and adjustment on legal decision making. Using the vignette technique, <i>N</i> = 229 junior barristers and <i>N</i> = 600 law students evaluated scenarios describing criminal offences. Apart from replicating the anchoring effect in different samples, the studies explored the impact of individual differences in personality variables (need for cognition and cognitive closure) on the anchoring effect. Further, a strategy to promote data-driven processing by inducing an accuracy motivation was evaluated. <br><br> The results clearly indicate an anchoring effect in legal decision-making. The results showed a strong correlation between the perceived severity of the cases and the recommended sentence. This correlation was significantly reduced when an anchor was introduced. In contrast to previous studies, junior barristers showed a less extreme bias in their judgments compared to law students. In terms of individual differences regarding the readiness to engage in elaborate information processing the results showed a higher susceptibility for the anchoring information when need for cognition was low and need for cognitive closure was high. Introducing an accuracy motivation prompted the participants to engage in more data-driven processing, thus reducing the anchoring effect. The implications for social cognition research and legal practice are discussed.

A presente dissertação observa a decisão judicial referente a questões ecológicas, especialmente no que concerne à possibilidade de alcançar uma efetiva proteção ecológica através das decisões emanadas do Poder Judiciário. Por meio da Teoria dos Sistemas Autopoiéticos de Niklas Luhmann, se examina a decisão como comunicação do sistema jurídico, sendo este um sistema funcionalmente diferenciado delimitado pelo código Direito/Não Direito. Por ser considerado um guia de comportamento, o sistema jurídico atua com a função de estabilizar expectativas, e neste contexto aparece o elemento dogmático da coisa julgada, que busca trazer segurança e certeza para a sociedade. Porém, como se elucida no presente estudo, na contemporaneidade os ideais de segurança e certeza são ofuscados pela nova realidade social, que evidencia riscos e indeterminações advindos da sociedade complexa. Desta forma, aparecem os chamados riscos ecológicos, que são consequência das decisões oriundas especialmente das organizações, como é o caso do Poder Judiciário. Sendo assim, se observa e questiona de que forma pode o sistema jurídico, através de seus programas decisionais, realizar efetivamente a proteção ecológica idealizada pela Constituição Federal brasileira, de 1988. Para responder a tal pergunta, examina-se a proposta de oferecer tratamento diferenciado à coisa julgada, de modo que as decisões judiciais levem em consideração o iminente risco incrustado na sociedade contemporânea. Questiona-se a possibilidade de permitir a mitigação dos efeitos da coisa julgada em questões jurídicas ecológicas, analisando possíveis consequências desta decisão. / Submitted by Marcelo Teixeira (mvteixeira@ucs.br) on 2014-05-28T17:21:43Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Gabrielle Trombini.pdf: 873967 bytes, checksum: 35ace1c9b5a8bcebae1260163a2d7cfa (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-05-28T17:21:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Gabrielle Trombini.pdf: 873967 bytes, checksum: 35ace1c9b5a8bcebae1260163a2d7cfa (MD5) / The present dissertation observes the legal decision referring to ecological questions, especially in what it concerns to the possibility of achieving an effective environmental protection through the decisions issued by the Judiciary. Through the Niklas Luhmann´s Theory of Autopoietic Systems, the decision is examined as communication of the legal system, which is a functionally differentiated system delimited by the Legal/Illegal code. Because of being considered a guide of behavior, the legal system works with the function of stabilizing expectations, and in this context appears the dogmatic element of res judicata, which aims to bring security and certainty to the society. However, as it is elucidated in the present study, in the contemporaneousness the ideals of security and certainty are obscured by the new social reality, which highlights risks and indeterminations deriving from the complex society. In this way, appear the so-called ecological risks, which are the consequence of decisions derived especially from the organizations, such as the Judiciary. Thus, it is observed and questioned how can the legal system, through its deciding programs, perform effectively the ecological protection idealized by the 1988´s Brazilian Federal Constitution. To answer such question, it is examined the proposal to offer differentiated treatment to the res judicata, so that the legal decisions take into account the imminent risk encrusted in the contemporary society. It is questioned about the possibility of allowing the mitigation of res judicata´s effects in ecological legal questions, analyzing possible consequences of this decision.

A presente dissertação observa a decisão judicial referente a questões ecológicas, especialmente no que concerne à possibilidade de alcançar uma efetiva proteção ecológica através das decisões emanadas do Poder Judiciário. Por meio da Teoria dos Sistemas Autopoiéticos de Niklas Luhmann, se examina a decisão como comunicação do sistema jurídico, sendo este um sistema funcionalmente diferenciado delimitado pelo código Direito/Não Direito. Por ser considerado um guia de comportamento, o sistema jurídico atua com a função de estabilizar expectativas, e neste contexto aparece o elemento dogmático da coisa julgada, que busca trazer segurança e certeza para a sociedade. Porém, como se elucida no presente estudo, na contemporaneidade os ideais de segurança e certeza são ofuscados pela nova realidade social, que evidencia riscos e indeterminações advindos da sociedade complexa. Desta forma, aparecem os chamados riscos ecológicos, que são consequência das decisões oriundas especialmente das organizações, como é o caso do Poder Judiciário. Sendo assim, se observa e questiona de que forma pode o sistema jurídico, através de seus programas decisionais, realizar efetivamente a proteção ecológica idealizada pela Constituição Federal brasileira, de 1988. Para responder a tal pergunta, examina-se a proposta de oferecer tratamento diferenciado à coisa julgada, de modo que as decisões judiciais levem em consideração o iminente risco incrustado na sociedade contemporânea. Questiona-se a possibilidade de permitir a mitigação dos efeitos da coisa julgada em questões jurídicas ecológicas, analisando possíveis consequências desta decisão. / The present dissertation observes the legal decision referring to ecological questions, especially in what it concerns to the possibility of achieving an effective environmental protection through the decisions issued by the Judiciary. Through the Niklas Luhmann´s Theory of Autopoietic Systems, the decision is examined as communication of the legal system, which is a functionally differentiated system delimited by the Legal/Illegal code. Because of being considered a guide of behavior, the legal system works with the function of stabilizing expectations, and in this context appears the dogmatic element of res judicata, which aims to bring security and certainty to the society. However, as it is elucidated in the present study, in the contemporaneousness the ideals of security and certainty are obscured by the new social reality, which highlights risks and indeterminations deriving from the complex society. In this way, appear the so-called ecological risks, which are the consequence of decisions derived especially from the organizations, such as the Judiciary. Thus, it is observed and questioned how can the legal system, through its deciding programs, perform effectively the ecological protection idealized by the 1988´s Brazilian Federal Constitution. To answer such question, it is examined the proposal to offer differentiated treatment to the res judicata, so that the legal decisions take into account the imminent risk encrusted in the contemporary society. It is questioned about the possibility of allowing the mitigation of res judicata´s effects in ecological legal questions, analyzing possible consequences of this decision.