From Truth to Technique addresses key questions raised by the burgeoning literature in what Philip Gaines calls advocacy advice texts-manuals, handbooks, and other how-to guides-written by lawyers for lawyers, both practicing and aspiring, to help them be as effective as possible in trial advocacy. In these texts, advice authors share principles, strategies, and techniques for persuading juries and winning cases. Some manuals even form the basis for required advocacy courses in law schools. Unlike training manuals in other professional domains-sales, leadership, management, fundraising, coaching, etc.-advocacy advice texts offer guidance for effectiveness in a realm of activity where the stakes may be the very highest for the parties and where society has an abiding interest in the truth being discovered and justice being done. Helping advocates learn how to win cases may be the ultimate purpose of advice texts, but to what extent are ideas about the values of truth and justice-what Gaines calls metavalues-incorporated into discussions about winning tactics and techniques? To explore this question, Gaines takes the reader through a discursive history of the relation between technique and metavalues as presented in advocacy advice-beginning with a thematic analysis of the first texts published in the Anglo-American tradition in the early 17th century, through treatises written during seasons of radical change in the profession in the 18th and 19th centuries, and up to the present day with a look at the more than 200 trial manuals currently in print. This diacronic study reveals dramatic changes in the place authors give to the metavalues of truth and justice when lawyers advise other lawyers about how to be effective in the courtroom.

Effective Interviewing and Interrogation Techniques believably answers the question, How do you know when someone is lying? It also provides a guide for interviewing probable suspects and interrogating likely perpetrators on techniques and tradecraft. This book covers topics about searching for truth and revealing lies. It presents forensic assessments based on psychophysiology, and assessments on the basis of non-verbal behavior. The book also covers interview and interrogation preparation, as well as question formulation. It discusses the Morgan Interview Theme Technique or MITT, and the Forensic Assessment Interview or FAINT. The book addresses techniques for interviewing children and the mentally challenged, and offers information about pre-employment interviews. It also explains how to understand aggressive behavior and how to deal with angry people. The 4th Edition adds several Chapters on how to ascertain maximum information from victims and witnesses. The book concludes by presenting future methods for searching for the truth. Law enforcement and security professionals, as well as prosecutors, criminal defense lawyers, and civil litigators will find this book invaluable. - The only book to address FAINT, Integrated Interrogation Technique, Forensic Statement Analysis and MITT in one source - Several Chapters on ascertaining information from witnesses and victims - Enables the interviewer to obtain a confession that can stand up in court

In all disciplines there are specifiable basic concepts, our universes of discourse, which define special areas of inquiry. Semiotics is that ‘science of sciences’ which inquires into all processes of inquiry, and which seeks to discover methods of inquiry. Peirce held that semiotics was to be the method of methods. An account of semiotic method should distinguish between the way the term ‘sign’ is used in semiotics and the various ways this term was meant in nearly all the traditional disciplines. In this monograph Roberta Kevelson minutely explores Charles S. Peirce’s method of methods.

Using case studies and the results of extensive fieldwork, this book considers the nature of state power and legal violence in liberal democracies by focusing on the interaction between law, science, and policing in India. The postcolonial Indian police have often been accused of using torture in both routine and exceptional criminal cases, but they, and forensic psychologists, have claimed that lie detectors, brain scans, and narcoanalysis (the use of “truth serum,” Sodium Pentothal) represent a paradigm shift away from physical torture; most state high courts in India have upheld this rationale. The Truth Machines examines the emergence and use of these three scientific techniques to analyze two primary themes. First, the book questions whether existing theoretical frameworks for understanding state power and legal violence are adequate to explain constant innovations of the state. Second, it explores the workings of law, science, and policing in the everyday context to generate a theory of state power and legal violence, challenging the monolithic frameworks about this relationship, based on a study of both state and non-state actors. Jinee Lokaneeta argues that the attempt to replace physical torture with truth machines in India fails because it relies on a confessional paradigm that is contiguous with torture. Her work also provides insights into a police institution that is founded and refounded in its everyday interactions between state and non-state actors. Theorizing a concept of Contingent State, this book demonstrates the disaggregated, and decentered nature of state power and legal violence, creating possible sites of critique and intervention.

Professional Emotions in Court examines the paramount role of emotions in the legal professions and in the functioning of the democratic judicial system. Based on extensive interview and observation data in Sweden, the authors highlight the silenced background emotions and the tacitly habituated emotion management in the daily work at courts and prosecution offices. Following participants ‘backstage’ – whether at the office or at lunch – in order to observe preparations for and reflections on the performance in court itself, this book sheds light on the emotionality of courtroom interactions, such as professional collaboration, negotiations, and challenges, with the analysis of micro-interactions being situated in the broader structural regime of the legal system – the emotive-cognitive judicial frame – throughout. A demonstration of the false dichotomy between emotion and reason that lies behind the assumption of a judicial system that operates rationally and without emotion, Professional Emotions in Court reveals how this assumption shapes professionals’ perceptions and performance of their work, but hampers emotional reflexivity, and questions whether the judicial system might gain in legitimacy if the role of emotional processes were recognized and reflected upon.

Thoroughly revised and updated for this Fifth Edition, Judges on Judging offers insights into the judicial philosophies and political views of those on the bench. Broad in scope, this one-of-a-kind book features "off-the-bench" writings and speeches in which Supreme Court justices, as well as lower federal and state court judges, discuss the judicial process, constitutional interpretation, judicial federalism, and the role of the judiciary. Engaging introductory material provides students with necessary thematic and historical context making this book the perfect supplement to present a nuanced view of the judiciary. "Judges on Judging is consistently rated by my students as their favorite book in my class. No other single volume provides them with such a clear and accessible sense of what judges do, what courts do, and the way judges think about their roles and their courts." —Douglas Edlin, Dickinson College

In its simplest form, the scientific method can be thought of as learning from our mistakes and trying to correct them. True scientists try to think rationally, never adopt dogmatic opinions and are always willing to listen to opposing views. They never claim to know the absolute truth but are relentless in their search for it. In this timely book, the author describes the fundamentals of critical scientific thinking. The book further examines the correct use of the scientific method and how to apply it to current events and scientific topics to obtain honest assessments. Current controversies discussed include climate change and COVID-related lockdowns. Additional Features include: Demonstrates the use of the scientific method to assist with objective analysis of issues Addresses that induction plays a role but the true method for advancing knowledge is hypothesis-deduction Explores current hot topics within the framework of the scientific method Outlines common misunderstandings of the scientific method Applying the Scientific Method to Learn from Mistakes and Approach Truth is approachable enough for the general public and recommended for university and advanced high school science educators and their students.

Bringing together legal strategy, psychology, and persuasion theory, this book offers a fresh approach to trial preparation, one that focuses on how jurors think. Ritter demonstrates how lawyers can turn jurors from neutral finders of fact into advocates for their client's side. Whether a lawyer tries a few cases or many, and whether these cases are large or small, this book provides a trial-tested framework for building a stronger, more persuasive case.