Adversary Procedures Research Articles

Right to State Appointed Counsel in Criminal Case: The Constitutional Requirements and the Issue of Its Implementation in Sidama Zone and Hawassa City Courts

To preserve cherished principles of democracy in adversary criminal procedures, many democratic states provide for right to hired or state appointed counsel to strike balance between law ignorant defendant and law expert prosecutor. The FDRE constitution also provides for right of indigents to state appointed counsel without further details about its implementation, which resulted in varied practices in determining indigence, nature of eligible cases and time of representation. This study, therefore, was conducted with the view of investigating status of its implementation, the constitutional requirements and how such requirements, including the time of representation are treated by courts. To this effect, the research has adopted mixed approach with interview and analysis of dead files as major data collection tools from selected courts. Combined results show courts apply flexible criteria to determine indigence, but with limited cases of and no pretrial state appointed representation, thereby high likelihood for miscarriage of justice.

The effects of clinical and scientific expert testimony on juror decision making in capital sentencing.

The Supreme Court and many state courts have assumed that jurors are capable of differentiating less accurate clinical opinion expert testimony from expert testimony based on more sound scientific footing and of appropriately weighing these two types of testimony in their decisions. Persuasion and jury decision-making research, however, both suggest that this assumption is dubious. The authors investigated whether mock jurors are more influenced by clinical opinion expert testimony or actuarial expert testimony. Results suggested that jurors are more influenced by clinical opinion expert testimony than by actuarial expert testimony and that this preference for clinical opinion expert testimony remains even after the presentation of adversary procedures. Limited empirical evidence was found for the notion that various types of adversary procedures will have a differential impact on the influence of expert testimony on juror decisions.

Context effects on procedural justice: Effects of interrelatedness, trust, and penalty on procedural preferences

The relationship of context to procedural preferences was studied by examining the effects of interrelatedness, trust, and penalty on preferences for adversary and inquisitorial hearing procedures. Subjects imagined themselves members of different communities and were led to believe that they had been accused of committing an offense of which they knew they were innocent. Interrelatedness, trust, and penalty interacted to affect subjects' ratings of both hearing procedures. Subjects in highly trusting settings (i) preferred the inquisitorial procedure more than those in nontrusting settings and (ii) preferred the adversary procedure less than their nontrusting counterparts. A “penalty effect” was also found. As penalty increased, subjects increased in their preference for the adversary procedure and decreased in their preference for the inquisitorial procedure, but only in noninterrelated communities. The implications for prior research and for the role of interrelatedness in procedural choice are discussed.

Helping Patients to Handle Their Medicines

To the Editor.— Twenty-five years ago, I made a house call and, in the patient's kitchen, I found a list of her medications taped to the front of the refrigerator; a pill was to be taken every hour of the day. Horrified at this, I began drawing up charts in the office to help patients with their pills, their tablets, and their medicines. I found it so successful that I had blank forms printed up that can be used for patients taking medications one, two, three, or four times per day (Figure). Many articles on patient compliance seem to be almost adversary procedures. The use of this form, rather, is to be an aid to the patient in working his way through a maze of medicines with the partnership support of his physician. Whenever a patient is taking more than two medications, I make out a form, telling him to

Procedural Justice in Family Court:

Recent proposals for nonadversary procedures in resolution of custody disputes have relied on untested assumptions about psychological harms of adversary procedures and the contributions which mental health professionals might make in required mediation. There is, in fact, reason to believe that adversary proceedings may result in more sense of control over the process and a strong belief in its fairness. It is likely that these benefits are applicable at least to older children as well as to disputing parents. Adversary procedures may also result in quicker, more lasting resolutions of conflict. Evaluation studies are needed to test effects of various procedures more definitively.

Impact of a Collective Bargaining Contract

Some five hundred institutions of higher education in the United States currently have unionized faculties. Driving forces for collective bargaining include the impact of inflation on salaries, erosion of faculty control of institutions, desire for additional security in a time of declining enrollments and movement toward collective bargaining in other segments of education. Discussed are the particular reasons for development of a faculty collective bargaining posture at the University of Massachusetts, details of the negotiation process and the resulting contract, early trends in implementation, and some of the initial impacts of faculty unionization. Some of the major impacts within the first year of implementation of faculty collective bargaining at the University of Massachusetts are salary leveling and capping, substantive shifts in the governance of the institution, loss of flexibility, and a strong movement from collegial relationships to adversary procedures.

The origins of U.S. safety standards for microwave radiation.

An analysis is made of the scientific research and values influencing the policy decisions that led to the adoption of the 1966 U.S. standard for exposure to microwave radiation. This analysis is used as a tool for understanding the problems faced by those who set standards. An effort is made to unravel the complex motivations that lay behind the adoption of the microwave standard. Based on the past record, it is suggested that standard setting remain distinct from basic scientific research and that adversary procedures be used only as a last resort in seeking consensus over a proposed standard.

Adversary pretrial procedures and testimonial evidence: Effects of lawyer's role and Machiavellianism.

Adversary pretrial procedures and testimonial evidence: Effects of lawyer's role and Machiavellianism.

The due process rights of minors "voluntarily admitted" to mental institutions.

Last year in Bartley v. Kremens, a case now pending before the Supreme Court, a Pennsylvania three-judge court required that all children, before admission by their parents to state mental hospitals, receive a full-blown due process hearing as protection against parental abuse. The following article takes a critical look at the Bartley court's belief that traditional adversary procedures, essentially modeled after the criminal system, can provide a panacea for children in the mental health area. In outlining a proposal to protect the legal rights of juveniles and at the same time ensure prompt and efficient attention to serious mental problems, the article recognizes that interdisciplinary cooperation is mandatory and that decisionmaking must be shared by the medical and the legal professions.