Monahan and Slobogin's Social Science in Law, Cases and Materials, 11th

This title offers an engaging and comprehensive overview of how American courts use research and testimony from the social sciences in reaching their decisions. It is organized around Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the United States Supreme Court's landmark decision on scientific evidence, and the series of recent cases beginning with Roper v. Simmons in which the Court explicitly relied on social science evidence to transform the process of criminal sentencing. The eleventh edition offers a completely revised and up-to-date treatment of the increasingly critical role social science research plays in both federal and state judicial opinions. New with this edition are enhanced materials on the usefulness of statistical significance tests, the importance of reference groups, the construction of opinion surveys (including Internet surveys), the proper interpretation of Daubert as applied to social framework evidence (including a discussion of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Diaz v. United States), the relevance of empirical information to constitutional analysis, research on the efficacy of the exclusionary rule, research on the deterrent effect of the death penalty and the impact of death-qualification, the science, ethics, and legality of risk assessment (especially at sentencing), the use of algorithms by the police, the criminal law doctrines governing the relevance of social science information, expert evidence on confessions, research on jury instructions and lay decision making, and the selection and qualifications of expert witnesses.