October 13
Objections Chapter 3
● Powerpoint + Discussion Questions
○ What would you say are the essential parts of emotions? What would your
emotion look like?
○ What does the chapter suggest is the source of our emotions? Why do we have the
emotions that we do?
○ What are the three phases of an emotion?
Objection Chapter 3 notes:
What are emotions?: Emotions are programs that organize elements of psychology and physiology to
react to situations that repeatedly occurred over our species evolutionary history in a manner that led, on
average, to fitness-enhancing outcomes. (32)
They initiate and regulate action.
“Emotions tend to have a characteristic feeling or quality—“qualia” in philosopher-speak.” (32)
Both emotion and cognition require circuitry. (33)
If a state does not have a characteristic feeling, it is not an emotion
Brains are for behaving. Generally speaking, no brain, no complex behavior. This page speaks on an
example “sea squirt.” (31)
Behavior- at least behavior that tends to lead to positive fitness outcomes- requires direction. Random
movements tend not to aid an animal's survival. (31)
The root of “emotions” is movere, the latin verb “to move.”
Making the natural seem strange:
Color detection, movement analysis, reproductive value estimation, kin detection, expected welfare
valuation, and categorization analysis are all stereotypically labelled by social and behavioral scientists as
cognitive processes, but all are critical components of various emotions. (33)
“Fear program” includes visual and auditory systems that assess the presence of predators and an
eye-gaze analysis system that determines whether the predator has seen you. (33)
Notes in class;
What is an emotion?
Instinct/uncontrollable, personal, valence, motivation, physicalMyth #1: emotions are something you learn
Study by Paul, all over the world showed the same emotion (gave motion cues)
Myth #2: Emotions are separate from the brain
Frontal Lobe (logical thought) Emotions are usually in the limbic system
Myth #3: Emotions always hinder decision making
Phineas Gage video:
Gage was no longer Gage
He lied to his friends and it ruined his brain (the pole) Used tons of profanity, rude
Front part of the brain, patients become unable to read clues/facial expression
To be a normal human being, you have to have the drive that is often brought with emotion and behavior
calculator.
DISGUST
October 18th, 2021
Readings: Objection, Chapter 1
Emotion Notes
● 3 stages
○ Detect the situation - Input
○ Integration - Algorithm
■ Need to initiate certain emotions, but first, need to integrate information
■ ex/ blood sugar levels low → switch on hunger
○ Select a plan of action - Output
What is an Emotion? Powerpoint Notes
● Myth #1: Emotions are something you learn
○ Emotions
○ Happy
■ Motion cues: raising and lowering of mouth corners
○ Sad
■ Motion cues: lowering of mouth corners, raise inner portion of brows
○ Fear
■ Motion cues: Brows raised, eyes open, mouth opens slightly
○ Anger
■ Motion cues: Brows lowered, lips pressed firmly, eyes bulging
○ Surprise
■ Motion cues: brows arch, eyes open wide to expose more white, jaws drop
slightly
○ Disgust
■ Motion cues: upper lip is raised, nose bridge is wrinkled, cheeks raised
● Myth #2: Emotions are separate from the brain
○ Neural networks of emotion
■ Frontal lobe
● Logical thought
■ Limbic system
■ Cerebral Cortex
● Myth #3: Emotions always hinder decision making
○ Phineas Gage
■ Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad
construction foreman remembered for his improbable[B1]: 19 survival
of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely
through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and
for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior over
the remaining 12 years of his life‍—‌effects sufficiently profound that
friends saw him (for a time at least) as "no longer Gage". [H]: 14
■
Long known as the "American Crowbar Case"‍—‌once termed "the case which more than all others is cal­cu­lated to
excite our wonder, impair the value of prognosis, and even to subvert our phys­i­o­log­i­cal doctrines" [2]‍—‌Phineas
Gage influenced 19th-century discussion about the mind and brain, par­tic­u­larly debate on cerebral
local­i­za­tion,​[​ M]: ch7-9 [B] and was perhaps the first case to suggest the brain's role in deter­min­ing per­son­al­ity, and
that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific mental changes.
■
● Why do these myths persist?
○ What would we do if we didn't have any emotions?
○ What are the three phases in how an emotion works?
Disgust
Lecture Notes
I.
Why this emotion matters for/within the law
II. Examples of things that produce disgust[from disgust surveys]
A. Urine, blood, impurities of childbirth, open wounds, sores, clothes that have been
worn, lice, rats, meat, a dead rat, rotting flesh, sick person
B. Compare to Leviticus from the bible
1. Bad things from god
a) Bodily fluids, menstruation, bodily mutilation → lots of
commonalities with disgust from surveys
b) Things that gross us out now we see have been prohibited for a
long time
III. How disgust works as an emotion
A. Disgust → serves 2-3 different functions
1. Serves as a warning device
a) Intuitive biology; avoiding things you know will make you sick
(1) Avoiding food with bold on it
(2) Avoiding bugs that are frequent disease carriers
2. What is it looking for?
a) Visual cues - mold
b) Olfactory cues - bad smells, body odor
c) Tactile cues- wet, spongy things
3. Sexual disgust
a) Avoid contact with people who are unlikely to bear you a fruitful
child
b) No sense in procreating with this person because the odds of a
healthy viable baby are low
c) Who would this be
(1) Your family → high risk; a genetic defect
d) What cues are it looking for ?
(1) Cues of relatedness
(2) Cues of health issues that would prevent procreation
(a) ex/ extreme obesity
4. Moral Disgust
a) The idea that we get disgusted by certain types of behavior
(1) Cheating
(2) Betrayal
(3) Offensive things
b) People don't really experience disgust when they say these things
(physiologically) what they really mean = they really don't like this
certain situation
c) Things that gross us out we often interpret as morally wrong, this
often turns into law
*** IN POWERPOINT**** THREE TYPES OF DISGUST
Function
Pathogen
To avoid contact with
disease-causing
Sexual
To avoid sexual
contact with
indivisuals
jeopardizing fitness
Cues
Behavior
Moral
5. Why does it look gross to us?
6. Example
a) Tribe free procreating whoever around (relative, etc) passing down
gene to someone who doesn't have that great of a chance to life
b) Then someone is born with a mutation that really grosses them out
c) So they stop procreating with each other
d) So non-inbred procreation has a better chance than the letter
7. Descriptive claim vs normative or prescriptive claim
a) Is-Ought distinction; fact vs opinion
b) Have to keep these things separate in our head
c) A DESCRIPTIVE claim is a claim that asserts that
such-and-such IS the case. A NORMATIVE claim, on the other
hand, is a claim that asserts that such-and-such OUGHT to be the
case
8. Naturalistic fallacy
a) What is natural is good, what isn't natural isn't good
b) The naturalistic fallacy is an informal logical fallacy that argues
that if something is 'natural' it must be good. ... The is/ought
fallacy is when statements of fact (or 'is') jump to statements of
value (or 'ought'), without explanation
c) In philosophical ethics, the term naturalistic fallacy was introduced
by British philosopher G. E. Moore in his 1903 book Principia
Ethica. Moore argues it would be fallacious to explain that which
is good reductively, in terms of natural properties such as pleasant
or desirable
d) Idea that because something we evolved a certain, assumption that
it is per se good
(1) Evolution- build us to be good people → no reason to
assume this
(2) Evolution → surviving continuing generations
9. Medicine
a) Unnatural
b) Nothing natural
c) But it's good = keeps people alive longer; promotes health
10. True
a) Argument something is true does not mean it is good
b) Argument something is good does not mean it is good
c) Where do we see this
(1) Religious fights
(a) Benefits
OJECTIONS- BLOUNT
October 25th,2021
Readings: Chapter 11 & 12
Lecture Notes
I.
Beginning Notes
A. Give people traits that are uneasy
1. Filmmakers
a) Examples
(1) Obesity
(2) Gauntness
II.
(3) Diseases
b) These are things we see are given to “villains”
B. Untouchables
1. Caste system
2. Lowest tier
3. They do the jobs that people don't want to do: slaughter animals, sanitation
a) Our social caste system is very fluid
4. Lower cast = lower/less desirable job
C. Slavery
D. Discriminatuion
1. People harboring disgust to one side
E. Anti Semtic Propaganda ~ especially used by nazi we see disgust to a group of
people, below are how nazi described jews in writings:
1. Snacks
2. Rats
3. Spiders
4. Worms
F. People use disgust
Accounting for the Disgust-to-Wrong leap:
A. Defamation
1. Elements of defamation
a) If you say something untrue about someone that ruins their
reputation
b) If its a true statement but its bad about someone it is not
defamation
c) If you make up a lie and it hurts them; you get sued
d) As a result, in order to prove defamation five key elements must be
at play.
(1) A statement of fact. …
(2) A published statement. …
(3) The statement caused injury. …
(4) The statement must be false. …
(5) The statement is not privileged. …
(6) Getting legal advice.
B. Accounting from Digust to Wrong ~ Defamation per se - different from
regular defamation
1. You do not have to prove damages
a) If you say someone committed a crime
b) If you say something that risks their occupation --- injurious
c) If you accuse someone of a disease or sexual misconduct
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
d) Loathsome disease
(1) Std, leprosy, the plague
(2) These things are so bad that if you do it, you are going
to be held civilly liable
(3) Cases
(a) Austin v White
Martha Nussbaum → quoted in PPTS
Loathsome diseases
a) Std, leprosy, the plague
b) EX/ Austin v. White,
Serious sexual misconduct
Gruesome photos
a) Decide
b) Outweighed by
(1) Autopsies
(2) Crime senses
(3) Research seems to
c) Lowers amount of proof that jury needs to see
d) Might have probative value
e) Unfair prejudice
(1) Interfere with jury to come to conclusion whether or not the
person committed the crime
f) Rule 403 of the Federal Civil Codes of Procedure
(1) In deciding whether or not to admit evidence into trial, the
judge must decide whether the probative value of the
evidence is substantially outweighed by the danger of
unfairly prejudicing the jury
(2) The danger of unfair prejudice
(3) You do not want to unfairly prejudice a jury
g) What does unfair prejudice mean?
(1) Undue tendency
h) Mock jury studies show if a jury sees juries photographs it will
increase the likelihood of finding liability in civil trials and issuing
guilty
i) Lower the amount of evidence the jurors need to make such
findings
j) Raise the level of juror assurances
Two fake jury experiment
a) Both sides hear the same exact same thing
(1) One group is shown gruesome photos
III.
(a) This group more likely to find the person
guilty/liable
C. Laws Concerning Personal Relationships
1. Close genetic relatives
a) Parents
b) Your children
c) Siblings
2. Those who are unable to procreate
a) Prepubescent children
b) Those of the same sex
c) Other species
3. Those who pose fitness risk to offspring
a) People with deformities
b) People with disease or more likely to have a disease (promiscuous)
c) Extremely obese or undernourished
d) Those who are very far below you in mate value
(1) Giant gaps
(2) Uglier
4. Examples
a) Pedophilia
b) Bestiality
c) Sodomy
(1) sexual intercourse involving anal or oral copulation.
d) Homosexual marriage
e) Incest
f) Prostitution
(1) These are all examples Where government steps in and puts
limitations on marriages
(2) Pg. 178 → objections
Powerpoint Notes
A. Good cases on why to prohibit these things/ examples of prohibitions of incest,
bestiality, and homosexuality x
1. Code of Hammurabi
a) Oldest complete legal code that we know about
b) King Hammurabi → whatever you say goes, this changes;
democracy legal system, defend rationally.
2. The Hittite Laws
3. The Assyrian Law
4. The Bible, Torah, and Quran
5. The attic code
IV.
6. Laws of Manu
7. Corpus Juris Civilis
8. Tang Code
9. Christian Penitentials
10. Medieval Religious and State Law
11. American Colonial Laws
Lecture Notes (2)
A. **what makes you want to have intercourse with your sister?
B. Leon Kass
1. Are we okay with prohibiting things that we find bad because of
instinctual reactions?
a) Argues yes
b) Wrote article; usefulness of disgust
(1) Repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom
beyond reason power to fully articulate it
C. Martha Nussbaum
1. Hard disagree to Kass
2. Says not good enough
3. Show some harm if you want to get rid of this
D. What do we do about disgust in law?
E. Ancient Rome
1. Sexuality more accepted
2. This is an exception, a one off
F. Any legal law, almost certain to see prohibitions against incest, sodomy etc
1. Only very recently we have dialed back on SOME
a) Incest → people have not, univesal taboo
G.
Disgust is a Moral Compass
-The friendlier end
-We want to be critical about
what we should be disgusted
about
-With that being said we
should listen to it, if you can
find a reason why you
shouldn’t listen to disgust then
good
Disgust is a Useful Tool
● “It would be a
mistake to accept
the guidance of
disgust
uncritically, but it
is indispensable to
a morally accurate
perception of
whats at stake in
the law, and so we
must take steps to
Disgust is a Bad In
Intuition
● The moral
progress of
society can be
measured by
the degree to
which
All intuition should be
suspect
● “Our gut
feelings,
including
disgust, exist
because they
helped us
survive and
reproduce, but
that does not
mean we should
necessarily look
-Martha
~ Fool’s errand
properly direct it
as it at objects
warranting
disgust”
-Objections
●
~Anytime your gut tells you
Problem with it:
something, you should be
1)
taking a closer look at that
○ Gut feeling is
there because it
plays some role
○ Doesn’t
necessary mean
its good for now
○ There because it
evolved, doesn’t
make you good
REGRET
October 27th, 2021
Readings: Marriage & Sex 1: Regret Gonzalez vs Carhart
-missing first 20 mins of class-
I.
II.
III.
IV.
Why/where does regret matter in the legal system?
A. Legal sentencing
B. Legal process; can matter
C.
When a judge can depart from sentencing guidelines
A. The offense committed in an unsophisticated matter
B. Isolated incident
C. Defendant show remorse
1. Has to be more than an apology
a) Established in an appellate case
Federal guidelines to depart from the sentencing guideline
A. Accept responsibility with a timely guilty plea
B. Cannot be after the fact
C. Once you go to trial; no longer an option
Death Penalty
A. The case that justices change their mind about
to them as
moral compass
in a modern
legal system”
● Most
antagonistic
V.
VI.
B. Sometimes in favor sometimes not
C. Supreme court justices
D.
E. Callins v collins
1. Dissent**
a) We don’t know if we’re doing it right
b) Objective standards, individualized sentencing, impossible to do
this, cant guarantee that the process we are using is right
c) John paul stevens changes mind gives four reasons
(1) Bias and favor of conviction
(a) In order to be on the death penalty jury, you have to
answer questions saying you’re not opposed to the
death penalty
(b) Doing this prevents justice
(2) Decisions cannot be adequately supported by evidence but
rather than emotion
(a) Subtweet to courts saying it’s okay to have a jury
use their emotion to come to a conclusion
(b) MERE SYMPATHY
(c) ALLOWING VICTIM IMPACT
STATEMENT
Death Penalty video
A. Prisoners get whatever they request
Gonzalez vs. Carhart
A. Discussion Questions
1. What method of abortion does the statute in question here regulate?
2. What is different about the statute here from the one in Stenberg that made
the statute unconstitutional and this one okay?
3. Which one of the holdings of Casey does the Court focus on the most in
deciding this case?
B. Prior supreme court cases
a) Roe v wade 1978
b) Planned parenthood v case 1992
c) Stenberg v carhart 2003
(1) Nebraska statute shut down
C. Casey standard
1. Three holdings
a) (1) Women have the right to choose to have an abortion prior to
viability and to do so without undue interference from the State;
b) (2) the State can restrict the abortion procedure post-viability, so
long as the law contains exceptions for pregnancies that endanger
the woman's life or health; and
c) (3) the State has legitimate interests from the outset of the
pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the
fetus that may become a child.[7]
(1) The court focuses on this holding
D. Language
1. Undue burden
2. Substantial obstacle (24-hour wait limit, parent consent)
E. Four challenges
1. Invalid on its face (does it pose a substantial obstacle in the path of the
women seeking an abortion before a fetus is viable)
2. Does it pose an undue burn for being too broad?
a) Court says not applicable in the case because lots of options left
over, only one specific kind of abortion, not stopping other
versions.
3. Void for vagueness
a) Scope indefinite
b) Stegner struck down far
c) Difference between this case and stenger
(1)
4. Invalid due to medical exceptions
F. Case Brief
1. Fact
a) A federal statute was passed that bans so-called partial-birth
abortions.
Its constitutionality was challenged under the
Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Rule
a) The federal nationwide ban on so-called “partial-birth abortions” is
constitutional.
3. Facts.
a) Following the ruling of the United States Supreme Court in
Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000), which struck down the
Nebraska law that prohibited abortions in which the physician
delivers a “substantial portion” of the fetus into the woman’s
vagina in order to perform a procedure that kills the “unborn child”
and that lacked a health exception, Congress passed a federal
statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1531, that basically bans partial-birth abortions
d)
e)
4.
5.
and addresses the constitutionally offensive portions of the
Nebraska statute.
b) The federal statute, unlike the Nebraska statute, defined the
prohibited procedure as a deliberate delivery of a “living fetus” to
the point that either the entire head (in a head-first presentation)
or any part of the fetal trunk past the naval (in a breech
presentation) is “outside the body of the mother,” followed by
an “overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the
partially delivered living fetus.”
c) In addition, the “overt act” requirement distinguishes the intact
dilation and evacuation (D&E) from the standard D&E
because the act that induces death, such as puncturing the
skull with scissors and then vacuuming out the brain, must be
separate from the delivery and occur after the delivery to an
anatomical landmark.
In contrast, in a standard D&E, death occurs in the womb by way of
dismemberment by traction when pieces of the fetus are pulled through the
cervix; that is not an overt act or a “delivery” covered by the statute.
A third difference between the federal statute and the Nebraska statute is
that the federal statute only applies when the physician’s intention from
the outset was to employ the prohibited procedure. It would not apply to
an “accidental intact D&E” that may occur if the fetus unintentionally
slips past one of the anatomical landmarks.
Issue.
a) Is the federal nationwide ban on so-called “partial-birth abortions”
constitutional?
b) Did the Court of Appeals err in its judgments finding the
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 unconstitutional on its
face?
c) Does it place an undue burden on the women getting an abortion
Held.
a) (Kennedy, J.) Yes. The federal nationwide ban on so-called
“partial-birth abortions” is constitutional. The 2003 Partial-Birth
Abortion Ban Act avoids vagueness problems by spelling out
“anatomical landmarks” on the fetal body and setting physician
intent requirements that provide reasonable notice of the particular
abortion procedures prohibited.
The plaintiffs failed to
demonstrate “that requiring doctors to intend dismemberment
before delivery to an anatomical landmark will prohibit the vast
majority of D&E abortions.” The statute does apply both
pre-viability and post-viability because, by common understanding
and scientific terminology, a fetus is a living organism while within
the womb, whether it is viable outside of the womb or not. But,
under Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 506 U.S.
833 (1992), which reaffirmed a woman’s right to choose an
abortion previability, the issue in this facial challenge was whether
the statute imposed a substantial obstacle to late-term, but
previability abortions. Casey recognized the state’s interest “in
protecting the life of the fetus that may become a child.” That
interest allows the state to restrict abortion methods that doctors
might otherwise choose, “in order to promote respect for life.”
The health exception recognized in Casey and Stenberg cannot be
interpreted in a way to “set at naught” the government’s interest in
fetal life. Here, there is “documented disagreement whether the
Act’s prohibition would ever impose significant health risks on
women.” When medical uncertainty is present, the Court defers to
legislative choice. In addition, the mother’s health exception
requirement cannot be interpreted to preclude regulation of
abortion methods that further the government’s interest in
protecting and respecting fetal life when there is only uncertainty
in the medical community about whether a specific abortion
method is ever medically necessary. In this case, Congress sought
to promote respect for life by drawing a bright line between
abortion and infanticide. The statute also recognizes “the bond of
love the mother has for her child” by saving her from the sorrow of
undergoing what she may not be told until later is a gruesome
procedure. The Act is not invalid on its face.
6. Concurrence.
a) (Thomas, J.) The opinion “accurately applies” Casey and Roe v.
Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), however those decisions, while
“current jurisprudence,” have “no basis in the Constitution.”
7. Dissent.
a) (Ginsburg, J.) The reconstituted Court’s “alarming” decision
disrespected precedent, gutted the long-standing health exception
requirement, and showed an obvious “hostility” to abortion rights.
The ruling “refuses to take Casey and Stenberg seriously.” It
ignores district court findings that intact D&E is safer for women
with certain conditions and generally offers safety advantages over
standard D&E, instead siding with a statute that even the majority
recognized contains factual errors. The Court deprives women of
the right to make an autonomous choice, even at the expense of
their safety.
8. Discussion.
a) Do not forget that this decision answered a facial attack on the
statute, leaving open the possibility that the statute, as applied, may
not survive constitutional scrutiny. Medical uncertainty may
reverse the direction of this case; if, for example, a partial-birth
abortion became medically necessary to save the life of a woman,
the statute may not withstand constitutional scrutiny.
LOVE
November 1st, 2021
Readings: Marriage & Sex II: Love, Lawrence vs Texas (2003)
Discussion Questions for Lawrence v. Texas (2003)
I. Majority/Concurring Opinions
A. What does the state prohibit?
1. The state prohibits sexual intercourse between same-sex
B. And what part of the Constitution do the petitioners allege that the
statute violates?
1. 14th amendment
C. What does the court say that the four cases leading up to Bowers,
(Griswold, Eisenstadt, Roe, and Casey) establish with respect to the
protections that the 14th Amendment provides for Court sexual
conduct?
1. Roe
a) made no attempt to establish that this right was deeply rooted
in this nation’s history and tradition
b) Instead, it based its conclusion that the 14th amendments
concepts of personal liberty is broad enough to encompass a
woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy
c) Recognized that the right to abort an unborn child was a
fundamental right protected by the due process clause
2. Casey
a) Stare decisis
b) Whether it’s proven unworkable
3. Romer
a) Not allowed to target specific groups
b) Bowers allowed, not accurate now
c) Stare decisis- courts are bound by prior decisions
What standard of review does the Court use to evaluate the Texas statute? And
what is the actual holding of the Court?
II. Dissenting
A. Why does Scalia spend so much time talking about Roe v. Wade and
Planned Parenthood v Casey?
1. Casey redefines roe
2. Scalia wrote that if the court was not prepared to validate laws based
on moral choices as it had done in Bowers, state laws against bigamy,
same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery,
fornication, bestiality, and obscenity would not prove sustainable
3. Wants to analogize between the two
4. Stare decisis
a) Scalia also criticized the majority opinion for failing to give the
same respect to stare decisis that three of those in the majority
had insisted on in Casey.
B. Scalia rebuts what many of the specific contentions of the majority opinion,
but i'm more concerned with the big-picture points scalia makes about the
role of the Supreme Court. What larger point is he trying to make about
what the majority is doing in this case, particularly with respect to
stare decisis?
1. Failing to give respect ^ answer above
C. What is a fundamental right?
1. Does the constitution confer a fumandamental right to engage in
sodomy
a) How they framed the question
b) Analyzed the history of it being outlawed
c) Emerging awareness
(1) But they don't see it anywhere in the constitution
(a) Bowers → reliant on history but missed multiple
examples
(b) Look at history, but need to look at recent history
(c) Show examples that it isn't one sided
(i) Historical Developments
(a) Pointing to other legal systems
(european or canadian ~ similar
legal systems)
(b) Britain denounced laws
(i)
Colonial times prohibition
of sodoomy
(c) “Not that these laws have been
around forever, its that what they
used to be is sodomy regardless of
who, applied to everyone, was not
targeted to one class of person”
D. Bowers
1. 2 cases
a) Casey
(1) The Casey decision again confirmed that our
laws and tradition afford constitutional
protection to personal decisions relating to
marriage, procreation, contraception, family
relationships, child rearing, and education. Id.,
at 851. In explaining the respect the
Constitution demands for the autonomy of the
person in making these choices, we stated as
follows:
(2) “ These matters, involving the most
intimate and personal choices a person may
make in a lifetime, choices central to personal
dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty
protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At
the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s
own concept of existence, of meaning, of the
universe, and of the mystery of human life.
Beliefs about these matters could not define
the attributes of personhood were they formed
under compulsion of the State.” Ibid.
(3) Persons in a homosexual relationship may
seek autonomy for these purposes, just as
heterosexual persons do. The decision in
Bowers would deny them this right.
E. The rationale of the majority opinion was based on the historical
review of the legislation that criminalized certain sexual
practices, but without regard for the gender of those involved.
Justice Kenndey cited the Model Penal Code's recommendations
since 1955, the Wolfenden Report of 1963, and a 1981 decision
of the European Court of Human Rights in Case 7525/76
Dudgeon v United Kingdom. He endorsed the views Justice
Stevens had outlined in his dissent in Bowers and wrote:
"Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not
correct today. It ought not to remain binding precedent. Bowers
v. Hardwick should be and now is overruled."
F. The majority opinion also states that the intimate, adult
consensual conduct at issue here was part of the liberty
protected by the substantive component of the Fourteenth
Amendment's due process protections. Justice Kennedy said that
the Constitution protects "personal decisions relating to
marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, [and]
child rearing" and that homosexuals "may seek autonomy for
these purposes."
G. Holding that "the Texas statute furthers no legitimate state
interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and
private life of the individual", the court struck down the
anti-sodomy law as unconstitutional. Justice Kennedy
emphasized that this decision deals only with sexual conduct in a
private setting:
H. “The present case does not involve minors. It does not involve
persons who might be injured or coerced or who are situated in
relationships where consent might not easily be refused. It does
not involve public conduct or prostitution. It does not involve
whether the government must give formal recognition to any
relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter.”x
I. What standard of review does Scalia say that the majority applies to
the law here, and why is the distinction so important to Scalia?
1. Worried about society being too socially risque
2. He thinks that this decision may create this state of affairs due to
3. What isn’t going to be allowed now?
a) Laws don’t survive strict scrutiny
Lecture Notes
I.
Lawrence v Texas
A. Majority
1. Alito
2. Kennedy
3. Roberts
4. Scalia
5. Thomas
B. Minority
1. Breyer
2.
C. Outdated
D. Texas Penal Code
1. Devious sexual intercourse
E. Notes
1. Use examples of sex in history (western; Europe)
a) Sexual offenses act
b) Laws specifically targeting homosexuals didn’t start showing up
until the 70s
c) Model penal code 1995 did not provide for this type of crime
d) Even since bowsers was decided 12 states stoped, 4 continued to
target homosexuals
e) Court admits that sodomy laws were enforced against
consenting adults
II.
Bowers
A. How did they characterize it?
III.
Majority
IV.
Cases
A. Griswold
1. Struck down the law that prevented married couples from getting
contraception
2. Violates 14th amendment
B. Eisenstadt
1. Struck down the law that prevented unmarried couples from getting
contraception
C. Roe
1. Right to abortion
D. Carey
1. Contraception to minors under 16
2. Standard
E. What do these four cases establish in regards to 14th amendment?
1. Extends beyond marriage
Lawrence vs Texas (2003) ~ case brief
➔ Decision
◆
In a 6-3 opinion delivered by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the Court
held that the Texas statute making it a crime for two persons of the same sex
to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct violates the Due Process Clause.
After explaining what it deemed the doubtful and overstated premises of
Bowers, the Court reasoned that the case turned on whether Lawrence and
Garner were free as adults to engage in private conduct in the exercise of
their liberty under the Due Process Clause. "Their right to liberty under the
Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct
without intervention of the government," wrote Justice Kennedy. "The Texas
statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the
personal and private life of the individual," continued Justice Kennedy.
Accordingly, the Court overruled Bowers. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justices Clarence Thomas and
Antonin Scalia, with whom Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices
Thomas joined, filed dissents.​​
➔ Brief
◆ RULE
● The State cannot demean a homosexual person's existence or control
their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their
right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right
to engage in their conduct without the intervention of the
government. It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a
realm of personal liberty that the government may not enter.
◆ FACTS
● Responding to a reported weapons disturbance in a private residence,
Houston police entered petitioner Lawrence's apartment and saw him
and another adult man, petitioner Garner, engaging in a private,
consensual sexual act. Petitioners were arrested and convicted of
violating a Texas statute forbidding two persons of the same sex to
engage in certain intimate sexual conduct. In affirming, the State Court
of Appeals held, inter alia, that the statute was not unconstitutional
under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The
Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals
remanded the case for further proceeding
●
Police found two men engaged in sexual conduct, in their home, and they
were arrested under a Texas statute that prohibited such conduct between
two men
● In Houston, Texas, Harris County Police officers were dispatched to a
private home in response to a reported weapons disturbance. They entered
(the right to enter does seem to have been questioned) the home where John
Geddes resided, and observed Lawrence and another man, Tyron Garner,
engaging in a sex act. The men were arrested, held overnight and charged
with violating a Texas statute making it a crime for two persons of the same
sex to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct. Specifically, the statute
provided “A person commits an offense if he engaged in deviate sexual
intercourse with another individual of the same sex” and goes on to define
deviate sexual intercourse as follows: “ any contact between any part of the
genitals of one person and the mouth or anus of another person or the
penetration of the genitals or the anus of another person with an object”.
The two men were then convicted before a Justice of the Peace.
●
◆ ISSUE
● Is the Texas statute making it a crime for two persons of the same sex
to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct a violation of the Due
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
◆ ANSWER
● Yes.
◆ CONCLUSION
● The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify
its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual.
➔ Concurring/Majority Notes
◆ U.S. courts are, as a rule, reluctant to overturn precedents, especially in
recently decided cases. Bowers was less than two decades old, and three of
the justices in that case still sat on the court. Kennedy understood that in
order to justify such a step, he had to show that the earlier decision failed
on jurisprudential as well as societal grounds. He began his opinion with
a bold statement of the right to privacy
● Liberty protects the person from unwarranted government intrusions into a dwelling or
other private places. In our tradition, the State is not omnipresent in the home. And there are
other spheres of our lives and existence, outside the home, where the State should not be a
dominant presence. Freedom extends beyond spatial bounds. Liberty presumes an autonomy
of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct. The
instant case involves the liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent
dimensions.
◆ The only way that the court could agree that the sexual conduct of two
consenting adults fell within the liberty provisions of the due process clause
(“nor shall any state deprive any person of…liberty…without due process of
law”) was to reexamine Bowers.
◆ He questioned the way in which Justice Byron White, who authored the
majority opinion in Bowers, had framed the central issue of the case—as
whether the Constitution “confers a fundamental right upon
homosexuals to engage in sodomy”—and asserted that White’s
formulation “discloses the Court’s own failure to appreciate the extent
of the liberty at stake.” The very wording “demeans the claim of the
individual put forward, just as it would demean a married couple
were it to be said marriage is simply about the right to have sexual
intercourse,” he wrote.
◆ O’Connor concurred in the part of the opinion that overturned the Texas
statute, agreeing that it discriminated against gays, but she defended
the right of a state to outlaw certain types of intimate acts, provided
that it applied the ban on a nondiscriminatory basis. For her, the case
should have been decided not on the basis of a right to privacy
embedded in the due process clause but according to the manner in
which the law was enforced, measured against the equal protection
clause.
◆ Justice O’Connor
● She does not join the court in overturning Bowers, but rather, reaches
her conclusion based on equal protection, rather than any due
process clause. She states that even using a rational basis review “we
have consistently held that some objectives, such as a bare desire to
harm a politically unpopular group, are not legitimate state interests”.
● She comes to this conclusion based on the fact that sodomy is not
prohibited between opposite-sex partners, thus unfairly
targeting same-sex partners and making them unequal in the
eyes of the law. Since this law brands homosexuals as criminals, it
makes it more difficult for them to be treated like everyone else, thus
violating equal protection and legally sanctioned discrimination.
◆ Discussion. (Written by Justice Kennedy)
●
The court does not focus on protecting sodomy specifically, but
rather, personal relationships.
●
It explains that despite the fact that the statutes in question purport to
only prohibit sex,
○ “Their penalties and purposes, though, have more far-reaching
consequences, touching upon the most private human conduct,
sexual behavior, and in the most private of places, the home.”
○ The court found it alarming that the statute in question sought
to control a personal relationship, stating that forming personal
relationships is one of the liberties we have, and should be able
to choose such relationships without fear of being punished or
classified as criminals.
◆ The court focuses on the fact that the laws should not target relations
between consenting adults in private, as this is what liberty hinges on.
The court states that adults are entitled to respect for their private lives, and
“Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right
to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government”.
The
court ultimately applies for a rational basis review, stating that the Texas
statute in question furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify an
intrusion into the personal and private life of an individual.
◆ This case overrules Bowers v Hardwick, which had held that there is no
fundamental right to engage in sodomy or homosexual activities. Bowers
was based on the fact that historically sodomy has been outlawed, but
this court finds that historically it was only outlawed to protect individuals
from sexual predators, and that rationale should not be used when consenting
adults are involved, specifically stating “The present case does not involve
minors. It does not involve persons who might be injured or coerced or who
are situated in relationships where consent might not easily be refused. It does
not involve public conduct or prostitution. It does not involve whether the
government must give formal recognition to any relationship that
homosexual persons seek to enter.”
Life and Death Decision: Chapter 3
November 10th, 2021
-missed first 13 mins of class; missed most of the angry men video/movie
clip
Book Summary
●
●
Bringing drama to life, A Life and Death Decision gives unique insight into how a jury
deliberates. We feel the passions, anger, and despair as the jurors grapple with legal, moral,
and personal dilemmas. The jurors' voices are compelling. From the idealist to the "holdout,"
the individual stories—of how and why they voted for life or death—drive the narrative. The
reader is right there siding with one or another juror in this riveting read.
From movies to novels to television, juries fascinate. Focusing on a single case, Sundby sheds
light on broader issues, including the roles of race, class, and gender in the justice system.
With death penalty cases consistently in the news, this is an important window on how real
jurors deliberate about a pressing national issue.
What to focus on
★ Page 74
★ Where Peggy recited impute sympathy to the jury; doesn’t register to the others
★ How much attention paid to the attorneys
○ Peggy said they were in love with the prosecutor
○ Prosecutor gave a facial expression of liking jurors
★ Page 76
○ Prosecutor had a very good manner with the jury
○ Really liked the group
★ What role does embarrassment play in jury selection
○ Big part
○ Embarrassed to ask for the jury instruction > not okay ~ does not usually
happen
■ Did not want to appear uneducated
■ Nervous to ask for clarification
○ Testimony
■ Embarrassed about it being read to them
★ Was Peggy persuaded or overwhelmed and beaten into submission?
○ We’re okay with persuasion
○ Not okay with having someone be forced to conform
○ Class notes
■ Made Peggy feel bad
■ Made Peggy feel dumb
■ Overwhelmed
● Tried changing her answer
○
○ Hung jury
■
○ Peggy crying
■ Realization; knew what she had to do
■ “I guess i have to do this”’
■ Talks about sleep insomnia
★ Experiment
○ Get people in the room then get people who are in on experiment to come
in the room
○ Only one person not in the joke; everyone else is in on it
○ 2 lines are identical one is different; the person is asked, which one is
longer
■ Everyone says the wrong answer
■ By the time you get to the person, they don’t know what the right
answer is
■ A person would say the wrong number to be in a group
○ More people you have joining incorrect conformity more likely to have
people join
Discussion Questions
1. What are the essential “parts” of emotions? What would your
definition of this emotion look like?
a. Emotion
i. Noun
ii. a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's
circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.
iii. Emotions are biologically-based psychological states brought on by
neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts,
feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or
displeasure.
2. What are the three phases of an emotion? (according to the book)
a.
b.
c.
Lecture Notes
I.
Video Notes: Angry Men
II.
Reading Notes
A. 3 stages of what jurors do
1. Guilt
2. Aggravating circumstances → turn it into death penalty crime
3. Decision
a) For it to be a felony murder → have to have the intent
B. Did he have the intent to rob the place?
1. Didn’t take anything
2. If the person didn’t intend to kill but significant risk of death and
continued to act
C. 12th juror
D. Peggy
1. Tried to find the opposite view of everything
2. Tried to find the good in everything
3. Why wasn’t she talking about the victim?
a) Wasnt given information
b) Didn’t know anything
4. Contrarian
5. What is her take on the crime?
a) Confused
b) Said she saw his face on the video
c) Wasnt a “normal” robbery
(1) Took his time to get to the counter then suddenly fired
(2) Slow approach + quick trigger = odd combo
(3) Shock
(4) Weary about accepting what other witnesses were
saying
E. Mark
F. Kent
1. Mediator
Life and Death Decision: Chapter 4
November 15th, 2021
- missed the first 14 mins of class
Lecture Notes
● Unanimous verdict
○ Discussions proceed in a very “human” way
● Mediation
● Why didn’t mediation work
○ Trials about trials
○ New basis for appeals
● “Does the cream rise to the top?”
○ Is this effective in achieving the best result
○ 12 people all have to agree
○ Can deadlock → no one likes to do this (do not like repeat trials)
● Frank and Peggy alike (2 reasons)
○ Tend to relate events from trial to their own life
○ Both looked for clues, beyond the courtroom
■ Trying to figure out what really happened instead of the stories
given to them in the courtroom
○ Page 118 → tend to relate events from trial to their own life
■ Says both have a way of interesting what they’re hearing
■ Made them justices within the jury
○ Both emotional people
● Frank
○ Exasperated that we don’t hear much about the victim
○ Retributivism
● Peggy
○ Retributistivst
○ Wants to know what does he deserve
○ What in his background led to this
○ He should be punished but not killed
● Victim impact evidence
○ How much damage
○ Thinking of a
AFTER MIDTERM:
Objection Chapter 1 Notes:
Example: donald trump repeatedly evoked disgust to demonize his opponents, calling hillary clinton’s
bathroom break during a democratic debate “too disgusting” to talk about referring to clinton as a “nasty
woman” during a presidential debate, as blood coming out of her wherever. (page 3)
-
why disgust plays such an outsized role in human affairs, the explanation of why it does & how it
does.
Jonathan Haidt, illustrating a phenomenon they termed “moral dumbfounding.”
●
●
●
-
example on page 4 (julie & mark are siblings & make love)
example page 4 (Claire & Jake make a deal for money) Jake does exactly what he promised.
-
Book of leviticus: made up of proscribed objects and practices handed down to Moses by God:
(page 5)
-
In the 2003 case, Lawrence vs Texas, the US supreme Court struck down a texas statute
prohibiting sodomy (page 5)
Valerie Curtis recently conducted a series of interviews and surveys of women of things people
find disgusting. (page 5) list of things.
Justice Blackmun: page 7
Julia Kristeva: page 8 (spoiled milk)
Page 9:
Immanuel Kant: “a rejection of an idea that has been offered for enjoyment”
Steven Pinker: “intuitive microbiology”
Darwin: viewed disgust as a system for avoiding the ingestion of toxins but limited his definition of the
disgusting to “something offensive to the taste”
Winfried:
Paul Rozin:
William Miller:
Colin Mcginn:
Page 10:
Three overarching features of our model that make it a valuable contribution to the investigation:
●
●
●
this approach provides a deductive blueprint for investigation, because natural selection operates
slowly over enormous spans of time etc
offer a scientific explanation for disgust. it is embedded in neural circuitries, we avoid temptation
to relegate those aspects of cognitive process. (page 11)
provide an explanation of disgust that can reconcile many of disgusting ostensibly incongruent
features.
Three interdependent investigations: pg 11
The first: explores the evolved architecture of disgust (how it works; why it works in the way that it does)
2nd: explores morality and how the properties of disgust made this particular emotion ripe for picking by
psychological systems designed to generate and enforce cultural norms.
3rd: examines disgust’s role in the legal system; identifying the various ways in which disgust pervades
the law, explaining why disgust operates as it does in each comedy and eventually offering a normative
recommendation about how the law should reckon with disgust going forward.
Notes in class: 10/18/21
3 stages of emotion: functions:
1) Detect the situation (input)
2) Integration
(algorithm)
3) Select a plan of action (output)
Disgust:
Examples
Blood, vomit, pimple popper, spiders- Pathogens
a warning device that makes you feel like you should get out
Why is it gross? Pathogens? Because it has been engraved to be grossed out by them, by family etc.
Second form of disgust: inputs
Cues of relativeness
Very young, very old, some sort of disease that can prevent appropriation
Outputs:
The three types of disgust:
Pathogen
to avoid contact with
disease-causing
organisms
Visual cues such as
things that look like
bodily fluids or
products (blood, urine,
vomit) or rotting
organic matter (mold,
maggots) olfactory cues
(smells like bad
hygiene or spoiled
food) and tactile cues
that feel like biological
matter (wet, spongy)
Sensation of disgust,
disgust facial
expressions, motivation
to avoid contact,
nausea, vomiting, etc.
Sexual
avoid sexual contact
with individuals
jeopardizing fitness
Cues indicating low
mate value (genetic
relatedness, being very
young or very old and
therefore you can’t
reproduce, same sex,
really ugly or
deformed, or show
signs of extreme
obesity or disease or
other health issues)
The feeling of being
repulsed by the thought
of sex with that person,
motivation to avoid
contact or any romantic
situations, etc.
Moral
From Disgust surveys:
Urine, menstrual blood, spit blood
From Leviticus in the Bible:
Prohibited for a long time (bodily discharges such as semen, and menstration) etc
Descriptive claim:
The fact of the world, this is the claim.
Fact
Normative claim:
A claim that is what is good or bad.
Opinion
Natural:
- Per se good.
Unnatural:
- per se bad
The argument that could be good, may not be true
Things that can be true but not be good.
Chapter 9 notes:
In Yulin, theres a festival where they celebrate by eating 10,000 dogs.
According to animal rights groups, as many as 10 million dogs are consumed in China each year.
Another 5 million consumed in vietnam. South Korea is around 2 million.
How do we leap from gross to wrong?
- The generalized review: disgust originally evolved as a way to keep pathogens, toxins, and
harmful substances from entering our body. As happens so often in evolution, this mechanism
was recruited from a secondary task- to discourage sexual behavior that might result in
fitness-negative (or at least sub optional) reproductive outcomes. Once these mechanisms are in
place, they start to place themselves in the norms; norm generators, norm enforcers, - ;
“Instead, we can find evidence in several areas of high- profile jurisprudence, induding obscenity law and
other First Amendment issues, defamation law, evidence law, criminal law, criminal procedure, and
Fourteenth Amendment issues revolving around privacy and equal-protection rights. As we'll see, the law
replete with proscriptions derived from low estimated values of consumption, contact, and sex: don't eat,
don't touch, don't mate. But disgust's impact often ex-lends well beyond these direct proscriptions, too,
influencing which words and images we find offensive; affecting jurors' decisions of guilt and
punishment; and feeding into the moralization tactics used in both social activism”
-
Germs! (can harm you)
Chapter 10 notes:
Some words can get you thrown in jail.
- the first amendment offers no quarter for speech or expression that is considered ‘obscenity’
Miller vs California: set 3 criteria
a: whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work,
taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.
b: whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined
by the applicable state law
c: whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary artistic, political, or scientific value.
In Miller, the court did not require states to use a uniform definition of “patently offensive”
BUT the justices did offer that this requirement could be satisfied by, for example, patently offensive
representations or descriptions of two different types of conduct:
A: ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated
B: masturbation, excretory functions and lewd exhibition of the genitals.
Fair game for restriction ^
CLASS NOTES 10/20/21
- Food taboos go with people who
Food festival:
Animal activists try to stop the food festivals.
It is inexpensive for Yulin people.
Learn to be what you should not be disgusted by
Do not eat the things you are not really exposed to
Gross-wrong-illegal
Does it reflect the revolving standards of decency?
- What is the actual definition? Of the society as a whole
Getting from wrong to illegal
Obscenity
- “a: whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the
work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.
- b: whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically
defined by the applicable state law
- c: whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary artistic, political, or scientific value.”
“Patently offensive conduct” can be satisfied by offensive descriptions of two different types of conducts
1. Ultimate sexual acts, normals or perverted, actual or simtulated or masturbation, excretory
funcitons, and lewd exhibition of the genitals
In additon to obscenity the FCC also has the authority to regulate speech considered
Indecency: “material that, in context, depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs in terms
patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium”
Profanity: “language so grossly offensive to members of the public who hear it as to amount of a
nuisance.”
Falls into two categories: excretion or sex (not just sex, non traditional, non reproductive, prurient,
patently offensive, masturbatory
Relies on intuition: jurors and judges supply their own meaning of average person, contemporary
community standards, patently offensive etc.
Carlin’s words you can’t say on TV:
- Ends up becoming the decency standards
- “On seven dirty words”
- He would notice you can speak in specific context
- “Which ones do not have a context”
- Idea plus the word
- Used it into language into jokes
- Preposition, the words are the same. Page 156
- It is the thing it which is refers
- Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cock sucker, mother fucker, and tits
Things that signal pathogens, disease, non-reproductive sexual acts
Russia: khuy (cock), pizda (cunt), ebat’ (to fuck), and blvad (whore)
India: madarchod (motherfucker) and raand (slut), bhenchod (sisterfucker)
Song covers:
Piss Christ Andres Serrano - pissed a lot of people off
American Jesus: hold me, carry me
La nona Ora: Maruizio Cattelan
Nowadays a lot of people are testing prosecuted movies (page 159)
Court between disgust and obscenity:
U.S District Court for the eastern district of pennsylvania
U.s Supreme Court in Miller
Justice Stweart concurring in Jacobellis vs Ohio attempting to define “hard-core pornography”
Chapter 11 notes:
-
Speaks on hemingway and wyndham lewis
Speaks on gruesome, how books grab disgusting things to make them look like villains
Visual use nasty visuals to show pain and suffering
Political effect can be used with past issues like people being whipped (during slavery)
In an article, they point out that some visuals can have restrictions on them
The imagery of disgust is an effective tool for moral judgement
Usually in civil cases, one of the most essential elements that plaintiffs must prove is damages;
they must show the defendant's wrongdoing.
- Two of the categories have minimal or no disgust components (more related to anger) :
Damages are presumed if you make a false statement that someone committed a crime, or a false
statement that injures another in trade, business, or occupation. The other two categories however do. It is
considered defamation per se to falsely accuse someone either of having a “loathsome disease” or of
“serious sexual misconduct”
- Definitions of loathsome disease and serious sexual misconduct (page 169)
Several mock juries have found that gruesome photos can:
- Increase the likelihood of finding liability in civil trials and issuing guilty verdicts in criminal
trials
- Lower the amount of evidence that jurors need to make such findings
- Raise the level of jurors' assuredness that their decisions are correct.
They believe that a gruesome photo will affect the outcome of the verdict
Chapter 12 notes:
-
-
The code of Hammurabi punished incest between father and daughter with exile. Sex between
mother and son is put to death.
On page 178, there are many codes ^
Incest through marriage or sexual conduct remains a strong universal taboo. (punishable in nearly
all countries)
Recall our hypotheticals from Chapter 1. Know from Haidt’s study that people will remain
steadfast to their instinctual objections even once the rationally defensible justifications are
preempted. (184)
The objections that are driving these laws run deeper than the surface level justifications of
consent or genetic integrity.
Homosexual cases: Bowers v Hardwick, Lawrence v Texas, US v Windsor and Obergefell v
Hodges.
Bowers, 1986, courts decision was 5-4 (page 186)
^ 17 years later, the supreme court changed its mind- in Lawrence vs Texas. Court overruled
Bowers. (186)
The court then began extending this protection from homosexual sex to marriage, ruling in the
U.S Windsor for the DOMA (187)
The point for these four cases is : the best that the various justices of the supreme court could do
to provide a justification for laws prohibiting same-sex intimacy and marriage (a) the existence of
-
a majoritarian moral disapproval of the act and (b) a “history and tradition” of prohibiting
practice.
Judgement both entails both moral disapproval of homosexuality and a moral conviction.
Class Notes October 25th: Disgust lll
An example:
Gives a bit of a story but you can tell he is bad due to the specific words and invokes disgust.
Giving characters traits (skin conditions, scarring, slimy green or snake-like features)
“Throughout history, certain disgust properties- sliminess, bad smell, stickiness, decay, foulness - have
repeatedly and monotonously been associated with, indeed projected onto… jews, women, homosexuals,
untouchables, lower-class people..”
- Martha Nussbaum
People use disgust to show a moral argument.
Accounting for the disgust-to-wrong leap:
1. Defamation per se
- Commited a crime
- Injurious to occupation
- Loathsome disease (STD, LEPROSY, THE PLAGUE)
- Serious exual misconduct
Cannot be he said she said.
2. Gruesome Photos
- Rule 403 of the federal rules of evidence
In deciding where or not to admit evidence into trial, the judge must decide whether the probative value of
the evidence is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfairly prejudicing the jury.
Research seems to support concerns. Several mock jury studies have found that gruesome photos;
- Increase the likelihood of finding liability in civil trials and issuing guilty verdicts in criminal
trials
- Lower the amount of evidence that jurors need to make such findings
- Raise the level of juror assuredness that their decisions are correct
Laws Concerning Personal Relationships
- Close genetic relatives
Parents, your children, siblings
- Those who are unable to procreate
Those of the same sex
Other species
- Those who pose fitness risks to offspring
People with deformities
People with disease
The extremely obses
Those who are very far below you in mate value
On page 178:
What grosses me out is normal for you - ,,, Sex with animals different on what punishments
Thomas Hogg:
Another new haven sal, was in prison for 2-3 months, deformed piglets, they believed they looked like
deformed piglets.
Hogg wore a steel trust- apparently the deformed eyes of the hang of his scrotum, never confessed,
whipped him instead- did not hang him.
Wearing a steel belt to hold his hernia.
They experiment with the pigs.
Disgust is a moral compass:
“Repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom beyond reason’s power to fully articulate it.”
“Disgust is the only voice left that speaks up to defend the core of humanity”
Disgust is a useful tool:
‘It would be a mistake to accept the guidance of disgust uncritically, but it is indispensable to a morally
accurate perception of what's at stake in the law and so we have to take steps to properly direct it at
objects warranting disgust.”
Disgust is a bad intuition:
“The moral progress of society can be measured by the degree to which separates disgust from danger and
indignation.. Basing laws and social rules on substantive harm, rather than on the symbolic relationship
an object bears to anxieties”
All intuitions, disgust, should be suspect:
“Our gut feelings, including disgust, exist because they helped us survive and reproduce, but that does not
mean we should necessarily look to them as a moral compass in a modern legal system.”
Notes for Gonzales vs Carthart:
?nothing written? Printed out?
Notes for class: October 27th
Speaking on regret:
Something you do when you experience guilt or shame / wish you didn’t do something you did
Guilt (private)
Shame (public)
Input
Insufficiently value someone
else (when you should value
more)
(All of this is social
devaluation)
1. Threat of social
devaluation b/c of the
spread of negative
information
2. Violation of a social
norm
3. Negative interaction
with a dominant or
higher ranking other (a
boss, way above you in
the social ladder, can
control good/bad things
that can happen to you)
Output
Increase your value of that
person
1. Minimize being the
de-valued
2. Negative interaction
from a valued norm
3. Avoiding a formidable
rival (avoid someone
who might put you
down)
Why does regret matter to the legal system?
- Sentencing
- Family feelings
- Probation issues
Example:
The statue that talks about when it can depart from sentencing guideline
- Shown remorse (has to be more than an apology)
- Isolated
- Accept responsibility
- “Remorse is the litigating factor”
- Convince the judge you feel guilty, and are remorseful.
One class of cases on one specific issue:
- Death Penalty
- Judges changed their mind about their decision, went back on it
- Justice Blackman wanted to hear his case bc he wanted to change his quote
Why did he go back on his word?
- We can't guarantee we are doing it right, we have to have individualized sentencing.
Four reasons for the other judge:
- Ensuring adequate evidence
Allowing the impact statements:
- Can cause the jury to do improper reason
Video: Death Penalty, the Abyss
Give work clothes
Last meal
Took 15 seconds to strap someone down
Her execution gave an emotional response
In 2000, Fred Allen quit his job.
Prior Supreme Court Cases:
Roe V. Wade (1973)
Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) - states were passing laws that would be harder to get an abortion
(needed parents consent, etc, 24 hour wait limit)
Stenberg v. Carhart (2000)- The Supreme Court had a statue that was struck down.
Strict scrutiny is lethal.
Class notes with reading: October 27th Gonzales vs Carhart
Legal question:
Violates the due process clause of the constitution, does it place an undue burden as a substantial obstacle.
D&E: Dilation and extraction
First Trimester: Vacuum Aspiration, Medication
Second Trimester: D&E, medical induction, hysterectomy, hysterotomy, intact D&E
She speaks: (the minority woman) “every single case that has ever come before the supreme court about
abortion, of coursem consistently require that the laws have an exception for the womens stuff. Second,
she says that the majority declares 80% that the premise central replaces conclusion, the government is
legitimate, is substantially interested in preserving and promoting your life.”
Holdings from Planned Parenthood:
1. A woman has a right to choose to have an abortion before viability and to obtain it without undue
interference from the state,
2. The state has the power to restrict abortions after fetal viability, if the law contains exceptions for
pregnancies which endanger the woman’s life or health.
3. The state has legitimate interests from the outset of the pregnancy in protecting the health of the
woman and the life of the fetus that may become a child.
Four challenges to the act: questions to answer****
1. Is the act void for vagueness because the scope is indefinite?
2. Does it pose an undue burden for being too broad?
3. Is it invalid on its face (does it pose a substantial obstacle in the path of the woman seeking ans
abortion before fetus is viable)?
4. Is it invalid for lack of a medical exception?
Were not even sure if this is medically necessary, within the medical community, there are certain times
when you need to do this but sometimes there are other methods, you can do those instead; they say when
there is uncertainty, we will refer to the legislator, the state has the legitimate interest
Ginsburg Dissent:
Ginsburg says that no one is saving a single life, you’re just speaking on how to but either or its not
working. She has three points.
When there is disagreement, we should air on the side to protect the mothers health.
LAWRENCE VS TEXAS: reading/notes November 1st
Where?:
Houston, Texas.
What happened?;
Harris County Police Department were dispatched to a private residence in response to a reported
weapons disturbance. The police entered an apartment where one of the petitioners, John Lawerence,
lived. They observed Lawrence and another man, Tyron Garner engaging in sexual activity and both of
them ended up arrested, held in custody overnight and charged and convicted before a justice of the
peace.
The petitioners (Lawerence and Garner) exercised their right to a trial de novo in Harris County criminal
court. (page 563)
^ Since it was rejected, they entered a plea of nolo contendere and were each fined $200 and assessed
court costs of $141.25.
Afterwards, sent to certiorari to consider three questions:
1. Whether petitioners’ criminal convictions under Texas “Homosexual conduct” law- (which
criminalized sexual intimacy by same sex couples but not identical behavior by different sex
couples violate the fourteenth amendment guarantee of equal protection of the laws.)
2. Whether petitioners’ criminal convictions for adult consensual sexual intimacy in the home
violate their vital interests in liberty and privacy protected by the Due process clause of the fourth
amendment.
3. Where bowers v hardwick, supra, should be overruled?
Speaking about Griswold:
The court invalidated a state law prohibiting the use of drugs or devices of contraception and counseling
or aiding and abetting the use of contraceptives.
After Griswold, it was established that the right to make certain decisions regarding sexual conduct
extends beyond the marital relationship.
On page 572, the American law institutes promulgated the model penal code: they ended up making three
grounds to justify the decision
1. The prohibitions undetermined respect for the law by penalizing conduct many people engaged in
2. The statues regulated private conduct not harmful to others
3. The laws were arbitrarily enforced and thus invited danger of blackmail
Spoke on the casey decision
Had two principal cases decided after Bowers cast its holding even more doubt:
In Planned parenthood of South Eastern, the court confirmed the substantive force of the liberty
protected by the Due Process Clause. The Casey decision confirmed that our laws and tradition afford
constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family
relationships, child rearing and education. (page 574)
The second post bowers case was Romer v Evans: there the court struck down class based
legislation directed at homosexuals as a violation of the equal protection clause. (pg 574)
- A lot of countries had accepted as an integral part of human freedom.
They say on page 577 that the holding on bowers has not induced detrimental reliance comparable to
some instances where recognized individual rights are involved.
- Justice Steven’s conclusion (pg 577) speaks on two propositions abundantly clear (1&2)
- Justice O’connor conclusion (pg 579)
CLASS NOTES NOVEMBER 1ST:
- speaks about what happens in the case of lawrence.
- ^found sexual activity
- TEXAS PENAL CODE (a. any contact between any part of the genitals of one person and the mouth
or anus of another person
B. the penetration of the genitals or the anus of another person with an object
WHat are those 3 questions?:
Does this statute violate the equal protection clause
Does it violate the due process clause of the 14th amendment?
Should we rule roe bowers department
Griswold: Court struck down the law that prevented married couples from getting contraceptions
Eisenstadt: Extend this ^ to unmarried couples
Roe: right to privacy to abortions
Carry: contraceptives to minors under 16
They say, take it together, these four things establish: beyond marriage (fourteenth marriage extends
beyond marriage)
How did they characterize (how did bowers): fundamental right to engage in sodemy
6 things of history:
Model Penal Code: page 572
Northern England:
Casey’s decision: 574 confirmed that our laws and tradition afford constitutional protection…
Rower vs Evans: Gathering, invalidated an amendment to Colorado’s constitution which named as a solitary class
Speak on Stare Decisis and they overrule bowers saying that it is incorrect, to respect stare decisis but its not always
correct.
What do they say about dignity:
“The texas statue furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of
The individual
The concurrence: one important thing, what's the difference? That she doesn't want to change it. She wants to
use equal
Protections clause. She doesnt want it to have it grouped or targeted by itself.
The Dissent:
Why does he spend so much time speaking about roe v wade:
-
The same issues as casey/roe very parallel
You hypocrites, how important stare decisis is and now you’re just rolling over bowers
because its going
Over a different result, just changing anything to get an end result.
Whether its proven unworkable.
We made a ruling in roe, and we are only going to overturn it if it is unworkable. Only overrule
In these 3 things:
1. Foundations have been eroded by subsequent decisions
2. It has been subject “substantial and continuing” criticism
3. It has not induced “individual or societal reliance” that counsels against overturning
Why is everything being turned over?
- This decision is basically changing all laws that are morally seen as wrong
- Moral disapproval is not enough
By no state should …. (look back at pages)
Two tiers:
First thing you have to decide is if the law is infringing on a fundamental liberty interest, if the
answer is yes, strict scrutiny, is the law compelling strict interests, if it doesn't then it gets rational
review and that standard is it has to be Rationally in the states interests
How do we determine if its a
“Deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition”
Why does the dissent say that they are applying rational review:
- Legitimate state interests
Homosexuals (they said they should do this)
- Protest, use democratic means
CHAPTER 1: THE IDEALIST
WHO?
- Carlos Castillo
WHAT WAS HIS JOB?
- He was a night clerk at a convenient store/gas station
WHAT HAPPENED?
- Carlos Castillo was not paying attention to the person coming in, Steven Lane, shot him and
robbed the store, the media only showed what had happened for a day and then dismissed the
whole issue the next day. Basically saying that what had happened was not important like it
would be if this man was a celebrity.
The Lane case became a nationwide study designed to examine the many assumptions that have been
made about how juries decide to impose the death penalty.
^why? Why this case?
- because they wanted to gain an understanding of how jurors actually make the most difficult
decision entrusted to juries in criminal law- the decision of whether a defendant lives or dies
by talking to the juror themselves.
Steven Lane had been a drug addict who supported his habits by robbing local stores, using the cash
to buy his day’s fix. (pg 7)
INTRODUCING KEN:
- Normal man, lived in a townhouse settlement, very well dressed and nice living.
- Ken would constantly contrast his own life with Lanes.
- Ken would set a narrative for Lane's life, get up and map out what Lane would do that day
specifically.
- THAT NIGHT of the shooting, his girlfriend told steven that they had ran out of drugs (she
said at the trial as well) and steven went out and said, i'm going out to get some money.
- As Steven found an all night convenience store, entered and waited for service, he also
threatened the other customers. he directed the gun to Carlos after Carlos had noticed what
was happening, asked him to open the till and then pulled the trigger immediately making
Carlos collapse. Then, Carlos continues to crawl and Lane puts the gun back in his waistband
and Carlos was not able to open the till since he was on the floor dying.
- Ken noted that the killing was very dumb.
A capital trial consists of two distinct phases: A guilt innocent phase and a penalty phase.
- Guilt-innocent phase: have to find at least one special circumstance that has been proven
beyond reasonable doubt whether the defendants become “death eligible.”
- Penalty Phase: chooses life or death sentence
- Death eligible: Trial can now move into the penalty phase and the jury will be asked whether
the convicted defendant should live or die.
Some words can be unnecessarily torturous to the victim.
Jury had found Steven Lane guilty of first degree murder with a special circumstance.
Speaks on a Pearly Gates Analogy:
They ask jurors in penalty cases to draw their own senses of morality, outrage, and mercy in deciding
whether the defendant deserves to live or die.
Steven Lane tries to escape jail.
Steven confessed to the murder
Modeled in the jail that he became good
Jury began deliberations; put two posters up
aggravating evidence
detailing mitigating circumstances
Peggy really cared for Steven Lane's past. Seemed to be holding more emotion than reason.
Witherspoon questions refer to someone (pg 23)
Chapter 1 Questions on Critical Reading:
1. Why are death penalty jurors unique when compared to jurors in other cases?
2. How does Ken make a reason vs emotion argument to Peggy (p.25)
CLASS NOTES: NOVEMBER 3RD
Speaks on how the 18 year old kid has had miserable years.
They go once around the table for everyone to speak their minds to seeEvidence: eye witnesses, not
impulsive
Ken does take the case into his own hands (forman)
Ken is very cautious, but ready for this case. He is very up to date with things, he becomes the leader.
Take control of these things.
Capital juror has to be
Witherspoon questions: No matter what the facts or circumstances of this case might be, you do not
believe that
1. Guilt
2. Special Circumstance
3. Death Eligible
Premeditated
Felony Murder
Vile, heinous manner
Mercy
List of norms: pg 13
- Developing trust (a great calming device) He used it to conduct meetings in his past.
- He refers to it as a business meeting he did.
Mitigating evidence pg 15 :
- Defendant was mentally ill
- Prison guards observations that the defendant conforms well to the structured setting of a
prison
- A mother’s testimony that the defendant was a good son growing up, and accounts by
siblings of the abuse that the defendant suffered at the end of a parent.
Aggravating evidence: pg 15
- If it was heinous
- Lack of remorse
“Unavoidably a moral decision”
Peggy was so hesitant, they believed she was not leading towards the death penalty
Ken would say that do not do it for them.
Ken would say it would be a fact based decision thinking with your emotions and you have to put
those aside. (pg 25)
^ The power of these questions to Peggy was no doubt magnified by the fact that according to…”
CHAPTER 2: THE CHORUS
The chorus expressed the collective sentiments of the community about the unfolding action and
provided a sense of continuity in theme.
The jurors who comprised the chorus shared a # of characteristics: (pg 29)
- all white women
- ages of 46 through 70
- had grown children
- all married, 2 divorced
- some were college graduates, some attended & some just had highschool
- all working
- belonging to a church
- Comfortable but not affluent
- Swing votes (no polarized view)
This chorus presented a picture of stability and middle class sensibility whose lives largely revolved
around their families and jobs.
Even a chorus member who strongly believed in the death sentence, continued to wrestle with
emotion after sentencing Lane to death. (page 30)
The Chorus Members used two fundamental questions:
- How could they best prevent Steven Lane from ever killing again?
- Did his actions and life story justify a sentence of death?
(How much they feared lane and how much hatred they had for him and what he has done) pg 31
● The chorus members thought Steven Lane was one of the attorneys because of how well
dressed he was. Good appearance.
● When the chorus saw photos of Lane before, in jail, they felt deceived (pg 31)
● The Chorus’s reaction was that he was being remorseless and unrepentant for his actions by
trying to cover up his tattoos. Also showing that he was arrogant, cocky.
● Chorus did not say the murder was gory nor bloody. (pg 32)
● They saw it as a senseless killing.
● (32) says that the clerk was basically like an innocent child. Lane gave him no chance, he was
used to getting things his way with a gun.
● Chorus felt disgusted by Lane, his lack of remorse, which is why they gave him the death
penalty.
● Prosecution never proved that Lane was there.
● The chorus saw that Lane did not want to take responsibility for his actions (pg 35) Lane
continued to do loopholes around it
● The chorus feared that Lane would come after them
● More basic questions when it came to deterrence: was the death penalty necessary to prevent
Steven Lane from killing again?
● The chorus was skeptical about Lane escaping (pg 38)
● Steven lane has had many encounters on what he has done in his past
● The jurors became angry when Lane’s lawyer would try to differentiate Lane from serial
killers that did deserve death. They basically saw that “Carlos’s death wasn't as bad as…”
(pg41)
● Lane’s lawyers needed to present a defense that could convince the chorus members to
suspend their horror over the crime and their anger with Lane.
● (pg 43) later heard something in the defendants case that led them to look beyond the
outrage: LOOK AT THIS HUMAN FACTOR
● ^(looking at the human factor, Lane’s attorneys called an array of witnesses to try to fill that
view of him being a remorseless killer. They even thought a psychiatrist would give better
credibility.
● The psychiatrist even spoke on the trauma of Lane losing his brother and how Steven never
overcame a sense of guilt over that death (pg 44) The psychiatrist even said Steven was sorry
for the murder of Carlos.
● ^Chorus members were unimpressed and harsh with judgement.
● The chorus members saw that the psychiatrist did it for the money, when they asked how
much money he was making, he pulled out some papers and started calculating the bill. The
chorus saw it as unprofessional and he did it for the money.
● The psychiatrist's appearance was also off. (pg 45)
● The chorus saw the psychiatrist as not believable, didn’t sound right (pg46)
● ^ tried to excuse Lane’s actions
● The chorus felt sorry for Lane’s mother, felt as if she was a typical mother, the mother
showed some good in lane. She played a critical role in showing some emotional dimension.
● The chorus was super confused with the jury instructions, they felt as if they had to continue
to ask what this meant and it was just a big deal and so much time taken.
● Three were for life and 9 were for death
● Mark then turned to death next morning (53)
● Peggy refused to change her vote, she was very emotional, some some her as having deluded
herself thinking that she could impose the death penalty, she demostrated from the very
beginning that she would save an ant crawling on her food. (53)
● Peggy was also nervous on losing her job due to how long everything was taking
● A chorus member described the last part a from convincing peggy as horrendous, people
were crying
Chapter 2 Critical Reading Questions:
1. What types of people make up The Chorus?
- In notes
2. What is it about the murder that confounds The Chorus?
- Lack of remorse, the way he was dressed etc.
3. There are four general justifications for punishment: retribution, deterrence,
rehabilitation, and incapacitation. Use the internet to find out what each mean and then
try to figure out which justification for punishment the jury relied on in their sentencing decision.
- In notes.
NOTES: NOVEMBER 8TH 2021
Who was the chorus?
How did the chorus perceive the case?
Why is that meaningful / random person to person:
- Freaked them out that it was just a regular person. It could have been them.
No emotion
- Not a crime of passion, it was cold blooded. No reaction.
Why is no remorse bad?
- That it would be concurrent, matter for judges, jurors, he probably would do it again.
There was no story, what did the defense attorney stress?
- The reasonable doubt, the high burden of proof. Look at this high threshold. Basically saying
that the prosecution has done a good enough job.
There's another thing about the crime that bothered them:
- No time, didn’t even let Castillo grab the cash. Just seemed senseless.
Four theories of punishment:
Retribution: Proportional, punish them because they deserve it, the punishment has to be proportional
to what they deserve. Eye for an eye.
Deterrence: punish someone so more crimes won’t be committed, discouraging an action or event
through instilling doubt or fear of the consequences.
Incapacitation: Make it physically impossible to commit a crime, put them in jail so you can't do the
crime again. Theory of punishment.
Rehabilitation: Cure them from the bad thing, build a better person, try to fix the thing that is making
them want to do this.
What do the last three have different than the first one:
- The last 3 look forward
- The first one is going backwards
Which of these theories for Steven:
- So concerned with Steven harming them
- There is a good chance that he gets out
They said that it was kinda like an insurance policy for the death penalty
What evidence worked and did not work:
- The psychiatrists, plastic briefcase, the paper/bills, super unprepared, half assing it.
Mitigating evidence:
- No on the psychiatrist
- Yes to the mother, feeling sympathetic but not enough pg 47
Aggravating evidence:
- No remorse
- The video
-
Senseless
Prior robberies (crimes)
CHAPTER 3: THE HOLDOUT
Spoke on Norman Rockwell’s painting of a jury that had one woman and eleven men sitting at a
table. Everyone gave that woman a gross look or just an unwanted one.
- Rockwell’s painting was a direct connection of the 12 angry men.
- Henry Fonda in the 12 Angry Men was the holdout which made him the woman in the
painting. (pg 60)
- Peggy resembled the Rockwell painting as well as the 12 Angry Men.
- Started to speak about Peggy, how she was friendly but slightly reserved. (pg 60)
- When Peggy was speaking to the prosecutor, she felt that Lane was honestly guilty before
trial even started. “She had strongly suspected that lane was guilty even before the trial had
begun due to an episode during jury selection.” (61)
- “The other jurors had described how Peggy had prolonged the guilt deliberations by initially
refusing to find Lane guilty of capital murder and then later insisted on a life sentence.” (60)
- After she said that she understood from the law that Lane was presumed innocent until
proven guilty, Lane gave her a “kind of a smile and a look” , a reaction that Peggy took as an
appreciation for her comment. Her awareness of Lane's reaction during her exchange with the
district attorney and her interpretation of his expression indicated that she keenly observed
people's actions for expressions of meaning. (61)
- While Peggy watched the video of the robbery, she saw that he was somewhat in shock
(Lane). She didn’t see this as a regular robbery like the other Jurors. (62)
- Peggy would constantly just to see potential holes and inconsistencies in the evidence (63)
- Peggy didn’t feel comfortable really (64)
- Peggy asked for the witness testimony
- Peggy began to cry (not because of her being bullied but because she was about to be a part
of the whole guilty tribute.) (66/67)
- When she heard about the other robberies, she found herself mad, but still wondering how
Pane ended up going down such a self-destructive path, suspecting that he had not simply
stumbled into such a life. (70)
- “Peggy held on to the hope of redemption for steven. Peggy had strong religious
convictions”- One of her first comments was “I believe change in a person is possible.” (70)
- Peggy stepped in the thirteen year old Steven Lane’s shoes- When she saw his mother & sister testify, she became emotional, tears in her eyes, and pain
in chest. (71)
- She stressed before that Steven was loving and a good kid all before his trauma happened.
(71)
- “When asked if rehabilitation had been important to her decision, she replied “it was very
much on my mind because we didn’t know if he had received any help—…” (72)
- Hope jurors, Cathy came in. (73)
- Cathy and the Hope jurors in other cases still thought it better to give the defendant another
chance.
- The prosecutor had a very good manner with the jury.
- The defense attorney was kind of sloppy.
-
-
-
As they entered the penalty phase, they were nervous about the jury instructions, confused
with them as well.
(80) A Chorus member switched to death, so did Mark.
(81) speaks of a simple experiment in the 1950s. Placed 4 lines on a board at the front of the
room
Asch experiments (82)
Peggy recalled how some jurors expressed anger that Lane had “casually” picked up a paper
and started reading it while the jury was still in the courtroom, an action that they thought
showed he didn’t care.” (85)
Peggy started to experience trouble sleeping; her insomnia had grown worse during
deliberations. (85)
Peggy was starting to put herself into Stevens' place. Feeling more than logical. The jury
started to laugh at her about seeing photos and she saw pain and confusion in Lane's face.
(86)
Peggy’s fatigue started to grow and she fully sensed that the other jurors’ certainty was
steadfast. (87)
(90) lots of silence when Peggy came in, nobody spoke.
(94) the last deliberation, Peggy felt lifeless and flat.
(94) “I have empathy for Lane and I’m going to stand behind it.
(97) She had seen the exchanged glances, felt their dislike and anger. She said yes to the
death penalty.
Peggy would have sleepless nights, saw a counselor felt like the justice system was unjust
Chapter 3 Critical Thinking Questions:
1. What struck you about Peggy? What was different in her description of the deliberations from the
other people’s?
- In notes
2. What role did embarrassment play in the jury’s deliberations?
- Peggy felt like she was just getting strung along.
- Are embarrassed and need clarification.
- They didn't want the prosecutor to think differently when asking for clarification.
- Wanted to feel like they were taking the job seriously
3. What do you think about the group dynamics of the jury?
- It started by 8-4, then it went from 9-3, (chorus member was nervous about imposing death), now
10-2, (if you're just holding out for me and the peggy had regrets to mark), 11-1, peggy was the
last one standing
CLASS NOTES: NOVEMBER 10TH
- 12th Juror was aggressive
- There is a sweet older man that is nice to peggy
- She observed people’s actions for expressions of meaning.
- Peggy had religious beliefs
- Young and felt ignorant
- More sympathetic (peggy) ^
- Peggy always felt that the people had good in them
-
In the video is that there was shock in this face
Lane took his time to get to the counter, a slow approach to a quick trigger (Peggy says that it
is odd, impulsive killing to Peggy but not a regular robbery)
- Everyone basically is completely on board for it to be felony murder, Peggy does not think it
is that
- Peggy said it was more of a reckless killing
1. Guilt
2. Aggravating circumstance
3. Death Penalty
- For it to be a felony murder, they say that it was
- Lane did not take the money which is why it is a felony murder
- Peggy quotes the jury instructions that she is allowed to have sympathy
- The jury selection was in love with the prosecutor
- The defense attorney was kind of sloppy (76) …
- Group dynamics: (in critical questions)
- Make an experiment about lines
- When Peggy was getting bullied, on page (86) they would literally put her down for
everything
- Even if there is something wrong with the jury deliberations, then it would go back into a
recurring.
- The judge went back, they would go out to lunch everyday and they would go get drunk.
They sold a pound of weed, pot cocaine, in the jury room, they were having the time of their
lives. They refused even to order a hearing to explore the allegations.
Peggy’s side
Aggravating
Lengthy history of crime
Failure to reform
Clashes with police
Mitigating
The childhood trauma
No evidence on help or counseling
“Pretty good prison record”
CHAPTER 4: THE TWELFTH JUROR
Peggy commanded the jury’s attention more than everyone else.
Outside the jury room, Peggy came across as highly likeable, intelligent and articulate. (106)
The qualities of Peggy made Ken and the Chorus frustrated as a holdout. (106)
The twelfth juror:
- Jury room bully
- Ken and chorus members stated that they had found it necessary to keep him in check lest he
become overbearing in his comments to Peggy.
- Peggy did find herself disliking the twelfth juror.
- He had cast himself as her direct antagonist, poking her, ridiculing her, and sarcastically
confronting her.
- Referred him at various points as rough and harley davidson.
-
Descriptions, coupled with his harshly judgemental attitude towards Peggy, invited the image
of a loud and overbearing personality housed inside a somewhat menacing exterior.
- A man to be in his mid forties
- A crisp button down shirt
- Blue jeans
- Spoke low
- Carried the gentle trace of a country accent
- Solidly built but not intimidating way
- His face was anything but menacing, tending toward the handsome
- Polite, direct, businesslike
- frank always sped through peggy’s questions
- always gave firm & definitive answers (107)
- short to the point responses / decisive
- not seen the killing as bloody or gory but found it vicious and repulsive
- “senseless and stupid, it was so stupid” “anyone with a lick of sense knows that all of these
stores have video cameras, i mean, i can’t picture what he was thinking” (107)
- Frank quickly saw that he (Lane) deserved the death penalty (108 top page)
- Frank believed that Lane had been raised in a loving family and that any characteristics of
land having SUFFERED ABUSE was completely off base,
- Frank believes Lane deserved to take the LOW ROAD. (108)
- believed Lane wanted to come off as a macho man growing up
- Lane reminded Frank of himself. started to compare his background, his father etc. (108-109)
- felt some type of empathy towards Lane's mother. related to Frank's mother because Frank's
mother would try to get us to church and teach right from wrong. (got angry at the prosecutor
for being very firm with Lane's mother)
- Another circumstance was when Frank lost his close friend at the age of 13. (like Lane lost
his brother)
- As a teenager, Frank started to get into trouble with the law. (was placed on probation instead
of serving jail time” (110)
- Frank ran away to a brother at 18 in another state, but his brother sent him back home.
- Frank's mother went to a judge and asked for help, the judge gave an ultimatum. Enlist or go
to jail.
- Frank enlisted, called the place a jail but ended up turning his life around and became a
military policeman.
- Frank always tried to go with the evidence in the courtroom but was having a hard time being
able to speak out.
Random juror thoughts:
- One juror speaks out on drugs, the drug expert making it a little unbelievable.
- One uror remarked how the defendant had strongly reminded him of his son. (114)
- A juror in one case, described how hearing testimony detailing the defendant's father's severe
alcoholism and his abuse of the defendant was very very difficult because there was too much
connection between, too much similarity to my history. (114)
- This juror had been married to an abusive alcoholic, which made her identify strongly with
the defendant’s mother as the woman testified about her husband’s destructive influence on
her son.
-
This juror’s identification with the defendant’s mother was particularly strong because the
juror also had a son about the defendant's age.
The juror became the voice of the defendant’s mother in the jury room, pleading for her son’s
life and explaining how her son ended up so far adrift.
All expressed sympathy for his mother and sister.
A juror agonizing over the punishment decision had a dream during the penalty phase in
which he shot his son for having committed the same crime as the defendant (120)
A juror became an outspoken advocate for a life sentence for a reason that the prosecutor
never could have envisioned when choosing the jury.
Peggy saw people's lives as if they were impressionist paintings, comprised of a multitude of
experiences that could be understood only by peering at them from a variety of angles and distances.
Frank by contrast, saw the world as painted in fairly broad brush strokes. As you look onix
you either liked what you saw or you did not, and if you were not happy with what was on life’s
canvas, you did not stroke your chin and discuss what you saw or what it all meant. You grabbed the
brush and changed the painting. (115-116)
- Frank thought that Peggy simply did not know what she was talking about when she argued
that the jury had never been shown that Lane had an opportunity to change the course of his
life.
- SIMILARITIES: deep antipathy, take both of their lives and beliefs far more marked.
- Both reacted strongly to Lane as an individual
- Peggy had actively tried to see the world through Steven’s eyes. Feeling loss (116)
- Frank related directly. (116)
- They both also had shared a strong inclination to search the evidence for clues to puzzle out
what they thought had really happened “behind the scenes.” (117)
- Frank was drawn to the gun
- Peggy saw the arrest photographs, focused on the eyes
- Frank was focused on the tattoos. (117) bc of gang activity
- Frank found it offensive because it was so one sided.
- Accidents that made them feel a way during the penalty phase (118)
- Frank believed that Peggy just didn't have it in her to vote for death. (122)
- Backlashes to peggy's responses (122)
- He described additional exchanges that had ended with Peggy in tears and with him
apologizing.
- Frank was mad that Lane put him in this position.
Chapter 4 Critical Questions:
1. Describe Frank
-
In notes.
2. What are your thoughts on the effectiveness of the jury process when reading this chapter?
-
Require a unanimous vote. 12 people, all have to agree. It can definitely be hard, people can be
hard-headed.
3. How does the author argue that Frank and Peggy are actually very much alike?
-
Page 116
CLASS NOTES NOVEMBER 15TH:
- We know franks feelings, wants death penalty, how did frank get to this position?
- ^ regardless of his experience, it's biased in a way.
- Not proving anything, an outlier.
- Both similarities would puzzle through what happened.
- They both spend a lot of time on what Steven Lane deserves.
- Frank seems super-aspirated not hearing about the victim.
- Peggy does not seem so worried about what they plan to do.
- The lights went out and everyone hid, it was just the defendant and the jury and wanted to see
if they would be scared. The test.
- The mother did not care much about the son, giving the impression, she faints and his
instinctual reaction is to jump up and to help his mother.
CHAPTER FIVE: LOOKING INTO THE KALEIDOSCOPE
Two randomly chosen juries when presented with the same facts invariably will work their way to the
same conclusion, such an impression would ignore the uniqueness of each jury.
The Lane jury’s experience underscores how individual jurors can react differently to the very same
evidence based on their experiences and beliefs (133)
- After Peggy insisted on life, a chorus member paused and marveled that Peggy had “heard
the exact same things we did” and yet had formed a completely different response.
- One juror, for example, walked into the jury room thinking that his jury would reach a verdict
within an hour only to discover, but noooooo, some people went to a different trial than I
did.” (134)
- Another juror hated the prosecution's argument for death because the prosecution appealed to
revenge and some really based kinds of human impulses.
- Because different jurors bring distinct perspectives (134)
- A capital trial might be thought of in much the same way: different pieces of evidence and
information will have been placed inside the evidentiary and the twelve members of the jury
then will have to look into the kaleidoscope and the twelve members of the jury then will
have to look into the kaleidoscope and decide whether the image they see is one of a life
sentence or that of a death sentence. Jurors can try to change the pattern that the other jurors
are seeing by arguing that the kaleidoscope should be twisted again and the evidentiary
pieces allowed to tumble into a different image. (134-135)
- As the Lane jury deliberations demonstrate, a jury is more likely to see a death sentence if the
pieces that comprise the pattern include doubts about the meaning of life without parole(135)
- The Brown case is particularly illuminating because it highlights the critical role that capital
defense attorneys play in shaping whether a jury will see a pattern of life or death. (136)
- The sleeping lawyer cases in particular have tended to catch the public's imagination.
- The lawyer who presented not a single piece of mitigating evidence at the penalty phase and
whose argument for life consisted of .. (136)
- Spoke on Fisher and his lawyer (136)
-
However, disciplining sleeping lawyers now means that individuals who are accused of
capital crimes will always have adequate representation. (137)
The People v Brown is certainly one where the defendants only hope for a life sentence rested with
defense attorneys who meticulously worked to enhance the chances that the jury would see a pattern
of life. (138)
- The killings would appear to be the archetypal case for loathing.
- One juror summarized “these killings were up there in the top five of the most horrible,
gruesome things you can ever imagine one human being doing to another.”
- They took the victim out to this secluded point. It was basically torture, rape and murder.
- handcuffed and leg cuffed, beat him and shot him 18-22 rounds with a BB gun. the victim
was begging.
- The next victim was injected and Brown asked him to give him head and the man said no.
- Brown, in his confession that the kid was beaten so bad that he had to get hospitalized but
they decided to give anal intercourse after dead. they slit his throat
- First murder, the guy was stabbed 8 times; 4 in the front & 4 in the back. His throat slit from
ear to ear.
- They realized the guy was dead and needed to dispose of the body. Tried to decapitate him
(139)
- George brown displayed the type of behavior most likely to anger jurors (140)
- sat through trial “aloof and unemotional”
- “ Most of the time he sat there like a lump on a log”
- The Brown defense's first task was to try to convince the jurors to put aside the horror and
look at the human factor.
- George’s sisters were the one who had experienced first hand the abuse of George’s father.
- Described his father as a literal animal.
- The father would tie George up for the day, two times at a time. Would make the daughters
wait on him while he was having sex with his girlfriend, with his mother downstairs. Beat the
mother up.
- Father hated George because of his dark skin.
- The father had sex with the daughters from the at 4-16. (142)
- George had a pet rabbit. Father shot it & ate it.
- Father shot the dog too.
- George was incarcerated for stealing a bike. Went to prison for 7 years.
- The believed that Brown was dangerous, criminal justice could not control.
- A prison nurse in particular was highly persuasive for a number of jurors. (146)
- The nurse was said to be a hard as nails person. One juror said that “she is strong, strong
proponent of the death penalty)
- That shows that he cannot live out of prison but he was a good prisoner as a contributor.
(146)
- If George was sentenced to prison, brown might be surrounded by many objects
- The Brown jurors, unlike some of the Lane jurors, did not find themselves worrying that
Brown someday would be back on the streets; instead, their focus was almost entirely on
what punishment fit two torture murders by a man with his own tortured past.
-
Chapter 5 Critical Thinking Questions:
1. What is it that makes the case People v. Brown so unique, as a death penalty case?
- They went from death to life to imprisonment.
- People were in favor for the life sentence
2. What types of evidence tend to persuade jurors towards a death penalty or life
imprisonment sentence?
- The amount of people that were already in favor of life, people had allies.
-
CLASS NOTES: NOVEMBER 17TH
1. The defendants continued dangerousness - Incapacitation
2. What punishment will fit the crime - RETRIBUTION
There are what the jury is going back to over and over whether or not life or death.
Gives an overall killing:
LIFE
-
-
-
-
DEATH
Defendant functions well in prison
(incapacitation)
The most important thing is to show the
aspects of their life to help convince the
jury, circumstances beyond his control.
(135) (retribution)
Pose little threat of future violence
(Incapacitation)
Defendant did not intend the killing or
at least they were not the main
instigator. (retribution)
-
Prior history of violent crime
(both/incapacitation/retribution)
Randomly chosen victim (retribution)
Trial strategy that did not respond. (I/R)
Doubts about the meaning of life
without parole (I)
The psychiatrist was just showing that trauma can cause these certain actions.
In People vs Lane, you had bit of aggravating evidence, very minor lack of remorse, lack of
motive, prior criminal history. You did not have any mitigating evidence.
Brown vs Lane, you have so much on mitigating and aggravating evidence. Completely
unsympathetic with the crime he committed BUT his trauma. They decided life. Heinousness
of the crime, lack of remorse, but he was a good prisoner.
“When a judge says there is life without parole.” -Whatever the judge says, each word can be
subtle hints. Means that they will die in prison etc.
What sways the jury goes the other way: because whatever the judge says the jury comes
back within seconds.
The victim of the guy Brown killed, said that you made a mistake and brown said “I do not
need to hear this.” The dad was trying to fight in the courtroom.
Mother was crying, Brown was like fuck you, with tons of profanity.
the jury stated that the more they thought about George’s life, the more comfortable they
became with finding mercy (150)
-
he must be a normal person, the child abuse didn’t affect him that much in the end (151)
Black perspective in the jury (151-152)
Jerry, was apart of the gay community, saw the killings as a brutal assault upon the gay
community. He became more open minded though (153)
Michael and Karen were the last two who thought Georgia should be executed. (153)
The jury went out of the deadlock & the judge said, go back and deliberate again. (155)
George at the end was rude to the victim's father, and cursed him out. (159)
CHAPTER 6: THE UTOPIAN JURY MEETS REALITY
- Jurors speak about their experience of the jury rooms view
- Producers also will find that the jury room, usually small and self-contained, helps foster a
sense of isolation, the better to foment heated discussions. (163)
- Repeatedly talked about how the jury rooms cramped quarters created an emotional pressure
cooker: it was hard sitting in that little room. (163)
- A juror in one case recalled how the emotional temperature in the jury room had approached
boiling as the eleven jurors tried to persuade the lone holdout for life: “she cried, we all
cried.” (163)
- Another juror had said that their other jurors were nice, had a good time, go on walks
together. Some would go eat together, friendly group. (164)
- Another juror said that their jury group became like a family. knew everything about each
other.
- Several jurors even verged on erupting into fist fights with jurors stating that they had to
restrain others from punching each other. (165)
- “In many ways, the human emotions that flared up in the jury room may indicate that jurors
are bringing the type of emotional commitment to their task that we would want from people
to whom we are entrusting such a momentous decision. (165)
- it’s rules are based on an unrealistic conception of juries.
- Jurors would enter the jury box after hearings, days and weeks of penalty phase and be
confused on what to do. (166)
- Said one: Everything the judge reads is very confusing. They should be in plain English! etc
(166)
- Peggy suggested that juries should be tested on their understanding of the instructions before
being allowed to make a life or death decision (166)
- Judges sometimes would appear to turn a cold shoulder when the jury asked them to clarify
jury instructions or define terms such as “mitigating.” (167)
- Slightly more than a third of the jurors (35%) stated that they would welcome the opportunity
to serve as capital juror again. (168) …. Some would say no etc
- 60% stated that they found the experience emotionally upsetting.
- Over 35% reported that they had trouble sleeping or lost their appetite during the trial.
- Most of the dreams would be of murder or bullets or the defendant escaping and killing the
jurors. (168)
- Jurors frequently note that the stress they felt was heightened because they weren’t allowed
to speak on the trial. (169)
- Family relationships were under great strain
- “Home life was ruined”
-
-
-
A few jurors even reported developing drinking problems or resuming smoking as a way of
coping with stress (169)
A juror described in one case how after announcing the death verdict, the courtroom went
from empty to overflowing. “became a circus” (169)
“Madhouse” ^
For one jury member, the clash between the utopian vision of the jury and the reality of jury
duty was greater than for Peggy. Peggy eventually emerged from her depression able to face
the world again but still with many questions and a lingering sense of self-incrimination. For
months after the trial she replayed what had happened in her mind and asked herself what she
might have done differently. (173)
The trial for instance; caused her to become more religious and spiritual as she frequently had
looked to God as a source of strength and comfort both during the trial itself and in its
aftermath. (174/175)
She had concluded that her failure was not in her judgement but in her inability to believe in
herself, a mistake that Peggy vowed she would never make again in her life. Peggy
concluded, “the experience has taught me that I can trust myself.” (175)
CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION
- A jury’s effort to decide between life and death is a distinctly human endeavor infused with
emotion and moral judgement. (177)
- Judges may bring to the decision a better understanding but they alone if they decide life or
death, they make a moral judgement without being forced to listen to the clamor of other
voices in the jury room. (178)
- The first inclination is to think of this question as primarily as one of factual accuracy, an
inclination which is understandable given that DNA testing has revealed a startling number of
innocent individuals who have been convicted and condemned to death. (179)
- This inquiry centers on the idea of moral accuracy: can the legal system guarantee that the
death penalty is being consistently and fairly imposed from case to case based on each other’s
defendants moral culpability and not because of other factors? (179)
- Jurors face important forks in the road that are critical to making their ultimate moral
decision: for instance, deciding whether the defendant will always post a danger; determine if
they can trust the criminal justice system to not release the defendant, debating whether the
defendant had the chance to choose the high road. (180)
- In almost 9 out of 10 capital cases that have resulted in executions since 1977, African
Americans were significantly underrepresented on the juries that had sentenced the defendant
to death, and at least one out of every five blacks who have been executed were sentenced to
death by all white juries. (181-182)
- Such open discrimination is unlikely to occur today because the Supreme Court in 1986 held
in Batson v Kentucky that prospective jurors can be removed only for race neutral reasons
(182)
- Perhaps the most difficult question when it comes to the jury, however, is whether the very
nature of the jury poses a hurdle to consistent imposition of the death penalty. (182)
- Justice Blackmun declared: … (185)
Chapters 6 & 7: Critical Thinking Questions
1. In People v. Lane, do you think it is ultimately logic, emotion, or both that influence the jury’s
decision to assign the death penalty? Explain your answer.
I feel it was both… when they felt scared, disgusted, etc. with Lane as well as legitimate logic
with their facts on Lane’s robbery/killing.
2. What would you say the lesson of the book is, if there is one?
- The lesson of the book is, always listen to the jurors’ voices and what they tell us fairness and
justice require. Everyone has their reasons and their own past that they take into account in their
decisions, everyone should be heard in a way, every little detail matters.
CLASS NOTES: NOVEMBER 22ND
What does this mean? The quote of the jury.
- Open school for people, they can mix with the upper classes. In the context that it was written, it
was not as fluid as it is now. Laborer classes.
Second quote: I can remember thinking, gee, the 12 lousy people get to pick a huge decision.
- Ideal of what the jury is supposed to be doing.
Deliberation process:
Casting their votes, telling their points of views, to see their majority of guilty to not guilty.
What is the movie portraying?
Who is making emotion in the movie?
- Bandwagon jumpers. The people who would dig in started to get emotional at the end. The juries
who were more inclined towards a guilty verdict.
- The last guy said something about kids lying, their son is not communicating with him either.
The movie does a clever thing: they want the death to be guilt determination so that they are able to
undermine the evidence that shows that he did not do it. To make sure to not go to the death penalty.
How would you describe that process in People vs Lane:
You see a triumph over numbers, emotional outbursts. In the book it's completely different.
“You feel in your heart that it is not right.”
What prevents a jury selected by race?
En voir dire, you can challenge jury.
Freebies: strike an amount of people. Saying you just do not like them.
The supreme court decision is that you cannot just strike someone due to race.
Judge would be less in depth with what is cruel, heinous etc.
CLASS NOTES: DECEMBER 1ST
What to take away with the book?
An emotional decision.
He is unequivalry unexceptable, should be written in plain english or an outlet when juries have
something to fall back on if they do need help.
Core lesson the professor walked away with: finds it rare for a minority position wins back over. Secondly
is how much this is not a rational, logical process, probably human nature.
The coldest part of it is the determination of when people are going to …
About how we tend to go with our gut and then we use logic to back up what we feel. Sympathy for the
victim, or sympathy for the defendant who was abused.
The role of embarrassment plays, how they keep the jury necessary to keep a good job. Understanding
what the jury instructions are. Seems tragic, these decisions will not be made correctly because the jury
feels embarrassed.
Movie: The Twelve Angry Men
- First Degree Murder Charge, trying to see if the man is guilty or not.
- One man believes he is not guilty.
Each person speaks on why they believe the way they do.
- They say that the kid has stuck the knife into the father
- Witness says she saw him do it through the window
- People make mistakes, some people can be wrong
- He claims he went to the movies, fell through a hole in his pocket, man never went to the
movies apparently, movies could not identify him
- The man went to go get the same knife, for $6
- They all quietly write on a paper if they are guilty or not guilty.
- Secret ballot and someone said not guilty
- Man starts to yell, gets angry
- An older man, says that the other guy deserves the support
- People playing Tic Tac Toe
- It takes seconds for the train to pass, on the top of the lungs as well / has to hear the kid
saying i’m going to kill you
- It went to 9-3
- The guy said that he changed to not guilty.
- The guy said that he did not really speak English about the guy who killed their father.
- The moment after, the boy said that he should have heard the scream, but the train passed as
well.
- It went 8-4. Favor of guilty.
- They pointed out that the man said that he ran to the door, in 15 seconds. The man said that
the guy was confused half of the time. Just in time to see the boy running down the stairs. He
would have had to walk a certain amount of feet to get to the door. They also said that the old
man was crippled, with a cane and needed help getting on the stand.
- The time he walked to the door would have taken way longer.
- The vote went to 6-6.
- They start to say that they are tired of being there, should basically just say it's a hung jury.
- Not guilty because.. Guy started to argue with another man for voting not guilty.
- 9-3.
- The older man started to get angry that all the others really believed
- They keep going about how the witness, the woman, did see him kill his father.
- They pointed out the witness, who was about 45 years old. She had the little side nubs on her
nose, the marks from the glasses.
- Can those marks be made by anything other than eyeglasses?
- Maybe she honestly saw the boy kill but he just did not, she made a mistake.
- Got to be 11-1.
- The last guy thought he was guilty. He says that nobody can prove that he did not do it then.
He keeps going off of how she testified in court. Says he is entitled to his opinion.
-
He then goes off and says he's not guilty, and starts to cry.
12 Angry Men is a 1957 American courtroom drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, adapted from a
1954 teleplay of the same name by Reginald Rose.
[6][7]
The film tells the story of a jury of 12 men as
[note 1]
they deliberate the conviction or acquittal of an 18-year old defendant
on the basis of
reasonable doubt, forcing the jurors to question their morals and values. It stars Henry Fonda (who
also produced the film with Reginald Rose), Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, E. G. Marshall, and Jack
Warden.
12 Angry Men explores many techniques of consensus-building and the difficulties encountered in
the process among this group of men whose range of personalities adds to the intensity and conflict.
It also explores the power one person has to elicit change. The jury members are identified only by
number; no names are revealed until an exchange of dialogue at the very end. The film forces the
characters and audience to evaluate their own self-image through observing the personality,
experiences, and actions of the jurors. The film is also notable for its almost exclusive use of one
set, where all but three minutes of the film takes place.
In the overheated jury room of the New York County Courthouse, a jury prepares to deliberate the
case of an 18-year-old impoverished youth accused of stabbing his father to death. The judge
instructs them that if there is any reasonable doubt, the jurors are to return a verdict of not guilty; if
found guilty, the defendant will receive a death sentence. The verdict must be unanimous.
At first, the evidence seems convincing: a neighbor testified to witnessing the defendant stab his
father from her window. Another neighbor testified that he heard the defendant threaten to kill his
father and the father's body hitting the ground, and then, as he opened his door, saw the defendant
running down the stairs. The boy has a violent past and had recently purchased a switchblade of the
same type as was found at the murder scene, but claimed he lost it. The knife at the scene had been
cleaned of fingerprints.
The jurors at first seem to take the decision lightly. Juror 7 in particular is anxious to catch his tickets
to the baseball game. In a preliminary vote conducted by Juror 1, all jurors vote guilty except Juror 8,
who believes that there should be some discussion before the verdict is made. He questions the
reliability of the witnesses’ testimonies and also throws doubt on the supposed uniqueness of the
murder weapon by producing an identical switchblade from his pocket. He says he cannot vote guilty
because reasonable doubt exists. With his arguments seemingly failing to convince any of the other
jurors, Juror 8 suggests a secret ballot, from which he will abstain; if all the other jurors still vote
guilty, he will acquiesce. The ballot reveals one not guilty vote. Juror 3 immediately accuses Juror 5
(who previously said he grew up in the slums like the defendant). As the two bicker, Juror 9 reveals
that he changed his vote, respecting Juror 8's motives and agreeing there should be more
discussion.
Juror 8 argues that the noise of a passing train would have obscured the threat the second witness
claimed to have overheard. Juror 5 changes his vote, as does Juror 11, who believes the defendant,
had he truly killed his father, would not have returned to the crime scene several hours later to
retrieve the murder weapon as it had already been cleaned of fingerprints. Juror 8 also points out
that people often say "I'm going to kill you" without literally meaning it.
Jurors 5, 6, and 8 further question the second witness's story by noting his claim that he reached his
front door fifteen seconds after he heard the body hit the floor is doubtful as he walked dragging a
leg behind him due to a stroke. After looking at a diagram of the witness' apartment and conducting
an experiment, the Jurors determine that there is no way the witness could have made it to his door
in such a short space of time. Juror 3 is infuriated, and after a verbal argument, tries to attack Juror
8, shouting "I'll kill him!", proving Juror 8's point about the defendant's words. Jurors 2 and 6 change
their votes; the jury is now evenly split.
Juror 4 doubts the defendant's alibi of having been at the movies, based on the boy's inability to
recall certain details regarding his alibi. Juror 8 tests Juror 4's own memory. He is able to remember
events from the previous week, with difficulty similar to the defendant. Jurors 2 and 3 debate whether
the defendant could have stabbed his much-taller father from a downward angle, with Juror 3
demonstrating on Juror 8 that a downward stab was physically possible, though awkward. Juror 5
then demonstrates the correct way to hold and use a switchblade; highlighting that someone who
knew how to use one would always stab underhand at an upward angle against a taller opponent.
Juror 7 half-heartedly changes his vote, leading to an inquisition by Juror 11. Under duress Juror 7
sloppily says he thinks the boy is not guilty. After another vote, Jurors 12 and 1 also change their
votes, leaving only three guilty votes. Juror 10 erupts in vitriol regarding the defendant's ethnicity.
The rest of the jurors, except Jurors 4 and 7, stand up to turn their backs to him. When he bemoans
that nobody is listening to him, Juror 4 states that he has, and tells him to sit down and be quiet.
Juror 10 then walks over to a desk in the corner, now isolated. Juror 8 makes a statement about
reasonable doubt before having the rest of the jurors return to the case. When pressed as to why he
still maintains a guilty vote, Juror 4 declares that the woman who saw the killing from across the
street stands as solid evidence. Juror 12 reverts to a guilty vote.
After watching Juror 4 rub his nose, irritated by impressions from his eyeglasses, Juror 9 realizes
that the first witness had the same impressions on her nose as well and was constantly rubbing
them, indicating that she wore eyeglasses as well but did not wear them to court out of vanity. The
other jurors begin to chime in about this new breakthrough. Juror 8 reasons that the witness, who
was trying to sleep when she saw the killing, was not wearing her eyeglasses when it happened and
she would not have had time to put them on to get a clear view of the person who did the stabbing,
making her story dubious. Jurors 12, 10 and 4 all change their vote, leaving Juror 3 as the sole
dissenter.
Juror 3 gives an increasingly tortured string of arguments, building on earlier remarks about his
strained relationship with his own son, which is ultimately why he wants the boy to be found guilty. In
a moment of rage, Juror 3 tears up a photograph of him and his son before breaking down sobbing.
He mutters "not guilty", making the vote unanimous. As the others leave, Juror 8 helps the distraught
Juror 3 with his coat. The defendant is found not guilty off-screen and the jurors leave the
courthouse. In a brief epilogue, Jurors 8 (Davis) and 9 (McCardle) introduce each other for the first
time by their names before parting.
●
●
●
●
Martin Balsam as Juror 1, the jury foreman; a calm and methodical assistant high school
football coach.
John Fiedler as Juror 2, a meek and unpretentious bank worker who is initially dominated
by others.
Lee J. Cobb as Juror 3, a hot-tempered owner of a courier business who is estranged
from his son; the most passionate advocate of a guilty verdict.
E.G. Marshall as Juror 4, an unflappable and analytical stock broker who is concerned
with the facts of the case.
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Jack Klugman as Juror 5, a man who grew up in a violent slum, and is sensitive to insults
about his upbringing.
● Edward Binns as Juror 6, a tough but principled house painter who consistently speaks
up when others are verbally disrespected, especially the elderly.
● Jack Warden as Juror 7, a wisecracking salesman and baseball fanatic who expresses
indifference to the case.
● Henry Fonda as Davis, Juror 8, a humane, justice-seeking architect; initially the only one
to vote "not guilty" and openly question the seemingly clear evidence presented.
● Joseph Sweeney as McCardle, Juror 9, a wise and intelligent senior who is highly
observant of the witnesses' behaviors and their possible motivations.
● Ed Begley as Juror 10, a pushy, loud-mouthed, and xenophobic garage owner.
● George Voskovec as Juror 11, a European watchmaker and naturalized American citizen
who demonstrates strong respect for democratic values such as due process.
Robert Webber as Juror 12, an indecisive and distractible advertising executive.
Rudy Bond as the Judge
Tom Gorman as the Stenographer
James Kelly as the Bailiff
Billy Nelson as the Court clerk
John Savoca as the Defendant
Walter Stocker as Man waiting for elevator