Concepts such as intention, motive, or forethought have generated a great deal of doubt, dispute, and confusion in legal decision making. Here we argue for an empirically based strategy of defining and using such mens rea concepts. Instead of the standard approach of settling these concepts by theoretical argument and the debaters' own intuitions, we rely on social psychological research to det...

Our legal tradition has always distinguished between children and adults and justified those distinctions in developmental terms. Only relatively recently, however, has that development been extensively studied by psychologists and still more recently, by neuroscientists. Conventional wisdom among children’s rights scholars holds that law should take account of this growing body of science and ...

Jack Levin and Jack McDevitt Northeastern University I. Legal Distinctions II. Hate Crimes and Prejudice III. Why Treat Hate Crimes Differently? IV. Problems in Collecting Hate Crime Data V. Types of Hate Crimes VI. Organized Hate Groups VII. Are Hate Crimes on the Rise? VIII. Responses to Hate crimes IX. Conclusion GLOSSARY Defensive Hate Crimes Hate offenses aimed against particular “outsider...

As climate change begins to disrupt the settled expectations of humans, demands on the legal system will be intense and long term. Is the law up to the task? If it is, it will be at least in part because the legal system proves to be resilient and adaptive. This Article therefore explores how to think about designing legal instruments and institutions now with confidence they will be resilient ...

Presumed distinctions between substance dependence and substance abuse have been at the heart of the development and utilization of substance-based diversion from criminal prosecution to treatment for the past several decades, including its use in drug courts. These distinctions have been promulgated by organized psychiatry since the publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Menta...

Ordinary people often make moral judgments that are consistent with philosophical principles and legal distinctions. For example, they judge killing as worse than letting die, and harm caused as a necessary means to a greater good as worse than harm caused as a side-effect (Cushman, Young, & Hauser, 2006). Are these patterns of judgment produced by mechanisms specific to the moral domain, or do...