Tag Archives: law and psychology

Equal Justice Under LawLast semester a team of instructional designers worked with Dr. Charles Brainerd to enrich his current course "Memory and the Law" with interactive content, quizzes, additional links, and video of his lectures. The Memory and the Law course at Cornell is a cross-college course (Law/Human Ecology) and students in this course come from very different backgrounds. The course is lecture-based, and the units of the course progress from exploring the science of memory to the application of memory issues in the courtroom. Brainerd saw this project as an opportunity to repurpose and augment his materials so that students could review the course content, but also so that professionals and other types of learners could benefit from the portions of the course that were specific to their immediate needs. The intention was to simultaneously provide materials for Cornell students, and to create materials that could be used in a future distance learning format.

Noni Korf Vidal, project manager for this project, and instructional projects manager for CIT, worked on this project with her colleague Eric Howd, and 3 of Dr. Brainerd's students, Courtney Eisner, Eric Zember, and Liz Curran. Their insights into how the course materials could be improved for students were an essential element in the process.

A comprehensive online FAQ document was among the course enhancements developed, based on analysis of past tests to identify concepts more frequently misunderstood. Dr. Brainerd’s lectures were recorded, benefiting both current students who may need to miss a class as well as distance learners. Supplementary video lectures were identified as well. Interactive diagrams were developed for some of the more complex models presented in the course. But most fun are the recreations of memory tests which are conducted in the classroom.

Click here and you can try a few examples! http://courses.cit.cornell.edu/hd3190/demo/

This project was one of the Faculty Innovation in Teaching (FIT) Program projects, 20 of which are awarded annually. The FIT program is part of a larger distributed learning initiative supported by the President and the Provost. The program is designed to allow faculty to develop innovative instructional technology projects that have the potential to improve the educational process. The program provides faculty with the technical staff and other resources necessary to plan and implement their projects, thus allowing faculty to focus on their pedagogical objectives.

The CIT staff who work on the FIT awards are also part of the Faculty Support Services team at CIT. They provide consultation for instructional design, use of course technologies such as BlackBoard, and helping faculty adapt technology for their teaching needs.

For Further Information

Faculty Innovation in Teaching Program http://innovation.cornell.edu/index.cfm

Law, Psychology and Human Development: http://www.human.cornell.edu /HD/Research/concentrations/law-psychology-and-human-development.cfm

Emotions -- particularly those provoked by negative events -- can cause distorted, inaccurate memories, but less often in children than in adults, according to a new Cornell study.

The findings, published online in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, contradict prevailing legal and psychological thinking and have implications for the criminal justice system, report Charles Brainerd and Valerie Reyna, professors of human development and co-authors of the 2005 book "The Science of False Memory." Read More

It's the last place you want to be judged on your looks. But in a court of law, it pays to be attractive, according to a new Cornell study that has found that unattractive defendants tend to get hit with longer, harsher sentences -- on average 22 months longer in prison. Read more

Karene Booker

Death penalty cases involve children, adolescents, mental retardation, mistakes, and discrimination. A course on the Social and Psychological Aspects of the Death Penalty provides undergraduate and graduate students with an unprecedented opportunity to learn about the capital trial process, understand the roots of injustice, and apply their knowledge. The course is collaboratively taught by Charles Brainerd, Professor of Human Development along with John Blume, Professor of Law and Director of the Cornell Death Penalty Project and Sheri Lynn Johnson, Professor of Law and Assistant Director of the Cornell Death Penalty Project.

The course focuses on how the field of human development contributes to death penalty cases through the creation of social history reports and provides training in how to prepare such reports. Students study relevant areas of death penalty law and design relevant research. Students also study specific areas of human development research that figure centrally in social history reports such as intelligence testing, educational disability, mental illness, social and family environment, prediction of future dangerousness, and anti-social personality. Nationally renowned death penalty scholars provide guest lectures on a variety of topics including how to conduct a mitigation investigation, the importance of developing a reliable social history, interviewing techniques, and victim outreach. Students conduct mock interviews and complete a mock social history report for a hypothetical capital case as their final project.

This interdisciplinary course is part of the educational outreach undertaken by the Cornell Death Penalty Project. The Death Penalty Project began in 1996 as an outgrowth of collaboration among law faculty in response to the crisis in indigent representation created by the closing of the death penalty resource centers that provided advice and assistance to attorneys assigned to represent a death-sentenced client. From the outset, the Project was designed to foster scholarship related to the death penalty and its administration in the United States. In addition to providing information, resources, and assistance to attorneys involved in the representation of capital clients, the Project provides an opportunity for Cornell Law students to participate in the representation of death-sentenced inmates.

The Cornell Death Penalty Project takes no official position on the wisdom or desirability of the death penalty. It is premised on the belief that when the government uses extreme criminal sanctions, it should do so with great care and reflection. Because the history of the death penalty in the United States is rife with mistake, arbitrariness, and discrimination, it should be studied for the extent to which arbitrariness, mistake and discrimination persist, and the ways they can be minimized. Moreover, because the death penalty is an irreparable sanction, its imposition should only occur when the defendant is well-represented.

For Further Information

Cornell Death Penalty Project Website http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/death/

Human Development Today e-News

Human Development Outreach & Extension Home Page