Hidden Killers and Imagined Saints: Why Courts Fail to Identify Unconstitutional Jurors in Death Penalty Cases

What if half of the people in the jury pool for a capital case are unqualified to sit—and the lawyers are not accurately identifying and removing them? And what if the lawyers are actually identifying the wrong people as unqualified and removing them instead? This appears to be the case. The Constitution prohibits jurors who will always (or never) vote to impose the death penalty. As developed in this Article, the existing social science suggests that 5– 30% of potential jurors may be automatic death penalty (ADP) voters and between 2–34% may be automatic life sentence (ALS) voters. Further, lawyers are not accurately identifying them. Researchers have surveyed jurors who sat in capital cases and found that a stunning 14–57% were ADP voters, while 2–7% were ALS voters. Meanwhile, qualified venirepersons are being tossed out. Researchers have found that 60–65% of those classified as ALS could vote for death in some circumstances, and at trial, this would result in the exclusion of life-leaning venirepersons. The high rate of improperly included ADP voters along with the high rate of improperly excluded lifeleaning voters stacks the jury pool against the defendant. This unfair and unreliable process calls into question whether the death penalty is constitutional as applied

Evidence of the Military\u27s Sexual Assault Blind Spot

In response to the American military\u27s perceived inability to handle sexual assault cases, many members of Congress have lost confidence in those who run the military justice system. Critics say that those who run the military justice system are sexist and perceive sexual assault cases differently than the public does. This article is the first to empirically test that assertion. Further, this is the first study to focus on the military population that matters – those who actually run the military justice system. This study finds that this narrow military population endorses two constructs that are associated with the acceptance of inaccurate rape schemas – traditional gender role beliefs and conservatism – to a much higher degree than the general population. Regression models based on these findings predict that in a test rape case, 54% of the general public would find the man guilty while only 41% of this narrow military population would. This suggests that at the macro-level, those who run the military justice system may be honestly committed to resourcing the fight against sexual assault and to finding a solution to the problem. But at the micro-level, when looking at a particular case, they have an unconscious cognitive process that interferes with their ability to accurately solve it

The Tactical Games Model Sport Experience: An Examination of Student Motivation and Game Performance during an Ultimate Frisbee Unit

Students benefit from positive sport experiences in physical education. If designed well, sport provides a social avenue for physical activity and strengthens student achievement in psychomotor (e.g., motor skill), cognitive (e.g., decision-making), and affective (e.g., personal and social responsibility) learning domains. Unfortunately, not all students receive quality sport instruction and many students fail to have positive sport experiences in physical education. The Tactical Games Model (TGM, Griffin, Mitchell, & Oslin, 1997) is an instructional model focused on improving student sport experiences. As a constructivist approach to teaching and learning sport, TGM reshapes sport lessons to allow students to experience small-sided games (Game 1), think critically about games playing (Q & A), practice aspects of playing (Situated Practice), and show improvement in games playing (Game 2). TGM literature includes practitioner reports about involvement (Berkowitz, 1996) and findings that show measures of game performance (e.g., skill execution, decision-making) during a TGM sport unit (Allison & Thorpe, 1997; Turner & Martinek, 1999). Limited data is available to explain how the constructivist nature of TGM influences motivation (Griffin & Patton, 2005; Rink, 2001). The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine motivation using situational interest theory (Chen, Darst, & Pangrazi, 1999; Mitchell, 1993) to interpret participant – learning situation (Game 1, Q & A, Practice, and Game 2) experiences during an eight-day TGM Ultimate Frisbee unit. The researcher acted as teacher-researcher and participants were 15 fifth graders (assigned to heterogeneous teams) and Mia, the regular physical education teacher and participant-observer. Data were collected using surveys, learning situation questionnaires, interviews, and systematic observations using the Game Performance Assessment Instrument (GPAI, Oslin, Mitchell, & Griffin, 1998). Data analysis incorporated open and axial coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), theoretical comparisons (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), and concept mapping (Rossman & Rallis, 2003). Findings show that participants‟: (a) participated in daily lessons regardless of gender, goal orientation, skill/effort level, and personal interest in Ultimate, (b) were excited to play games (Game 1, Game 2) because they wanted to move, liked Ultimate, and/or wanted to assess skills/playing, (c) required challenging conditions, positive competition, and/or individual/team success in order to have a positive participant-games playing experience, (d) entered Q & A and Practice expecting to learn something new, (e) stayed interested in Q & A if they received answers, learned facts/rules, and/or felt the discussion helped team, (f) remained involved in Practice if team worked well, task was fun, and/or they learned skill/strategy, and (g) perceived improvements in games playing (e.g., throwing). Mia concluded that participants: (a) were motivated to play, (b) were involved in the different learning situations, and (c) improved games playing during the unit. GPAI scores confirmed that participants‟ improved at least one area of game performance (e.g., skill execution-passing) between Day 3 (week 1) and Day 7 (week 2)

The Bergdahl Block: How the Military Limits Public Access to Preliminary Hearings and What We Can Do About It

Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl and Private First Class Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning have something in common. Military officials unlawfully closed all or portions of their preliminary hearings to the public. When doing so, military officials exploited two unusual features of the military justice system, thereby denying the accused and the media of their respective Sixth Amendment and First Amendment rights to a public hearing. The first feature is that the military justice system does not include a standing trial-level court. If there is a problem at the preliminary hearing, the accused and media have nowhere to go for help. The accused and the media must file a writ petition with a military appellate court to vindicate their rights. This leads to the second feature: these courts routinely find that they do not have jurisdiction to hear these claims. And when these courts deny the writ petitions, the accused and the media are left without an effective remedy. Recognizing this, military officials now block access to these hearings by mischaracterizing these challenges as Freedom of Information Act requests. They then tell the accused and the media to seek relief using the rights provided under that law, knowing none will be coming anytime soon. Using the Bergdahl case as context, this Article describes this blocking maneuver. It then exposes the flawed reasoning that military appellate courts use when refusing to hear these constitutional claims. Finally, this Article offers legislative and regulatory fixes to ensure public access to these hearings. Now is the time for change. In the last three years, Congress and the President have made significant changes to the military justice system. These changes have come in large part because the public lost trust and confidence in the military justice system. Transparency fosters trust and confidence. The more the public knows about what is considered at a preliminary hearing, the more trust and confidence the public will have in the commander’s prosecutorial decision based on that hearing, and, ultimately, in the overall role of commanders in the military justice system

Evidence for Mass-dependent Circumstellar Disk Evolution in the 5 Myr Old Upper Scorpius OB Association

We present 4.5, 8, and 16 µm photometry from the Spitzer Space Telescope for 204 stars in the Upper Scorpius OB association. The data are used to investigate the frequency and properties of circumstellar disks around stars with masses between ~0.1 and 20 M_☉ at an age of ~5 Myr. We identify 35 stars that have emission at 8 or 16 µm in excess of the, stellar photosphere. The lower mass stars (~0.1–1.2M_☉) appear surrounded by primordial optically thick disks based on, the excess emission characteristics. Starsmoremassive than ~1.8M_☉ have lower fractional excess luminosities suggesting, that the inner ~10 AU of the disk has been largely depleted of primordial material. None of the G and F stars (~1.2–1.8 M_☉) in our sample have an infrared excess at wavelengths ≤16 µm. These results indicate that the mechanisms for, dispersing primordial optically thick disks operate less efficiently, on average, for low-mass stars, and that longer timescales are available for the buildup of planetary systems in the terrestrial zone for stars with masses ≾1 M_☉