A survey of murder cases disposed in 1988 in the courts of large urban counties indicated that 16% of murder victims were members of the defendant's family. The remainder were murdered by friends or acquaintances (64%) or by strangers (20%). These findings are drawn from a representative sample survey of State and county prosecutors' records. The survey covered disposed charges against nearly 1...

The organized bar has a long history of promoting an independent and accountable judiciary. Lawyers and judges have led efforts to improve judicial selection methods, establish codes of conduct and ethics, and promote public trust and confidence in the judiciary. Judicial independence is threatened by increasingly expensive and partisan judicial elections in the states and legislative attempts ...

Techniques commonly used to increase truth-telling in most North American jurisdiction courts include requiring witnesses to discuss the morality of truth- and lie-telling and to promise to tell the truth prior to testifying. While promising to tell the truth successfully decreases younger children's lie-telling, the influence of discussing the morality of honesty and promising to tell the trut...