This title provides transcripts that offer new insights on the infamous trial. In 1925 Leonard Rhinelander, the youngest son of a wealthy New York society family, sued to end his marriage to Alice Jones, a former domestic servant and the daughter of a 'colored' cabman. After being married only one month, Rhinelander pressed for the dissolution of his marriage on the grounds that his wife had lied to him about her racial background. The subsequent marital annulment trial became a massive public spectacle, not only in New York but across the nation - despite the fact that the state had never outlawed interracial marriage.Elizabeth Smith-Pryor makes extensive use of trial transcripts, in addition to contemporary newspaper coverage and archival sources, to explore why Leonard Rhinelander was allowed his day in court. She moves fluidly between legal history, a day-by-day narrative of the trial itself, and analyses of the trial's place in the culture of the 1920s North to show how notions of race, property, and the law were - and are - inextricably intertwined.

Bridging law, genetics, and statistics, this book is an authoritative history of the long and tortuous process by which DNA science has been integrated into the American legal system. In a history both scientifically sophisticated and comprehensible to the nonspecialist, David H. Kaye weaves together molecular biology, population genetics, the legal rules of evidence, and theories of statistical reasoning as he describes the struggles between prosecutors and defense counsel over the admissibility of genetic proof of identity. Combining scientific exposition with stories of criminal investigations, scientific and legal hubris, and distortions on all sides, Kaye shows how the adversary system exacerbated divisions among scientists, how lawyers and experts obfuscated some issues and clarified others, how probability and statistics were manipulated and misunderstood, and how the need to convince lay judges influenced the scientific research. Looking to the future, Kaye uses probability theory to clarify legal concepts of relevance and probative value, and describes alternatives to race-based DNA profile frequencies. Essential reading for lawyers, judges, and expert witnesses in DNA cases, "The Double Helix and the Law of Evidence" is an informative and provocative contribution to the interdisciplinary study of law and science.

This book incorporates modern pedagogy principles and active learning. It employs a directed reading approach to flip every class session resulting in higher student readiness and doctrinal understanding. Alternative contextualization, spaced repetition and interleaving are employed in every lesson to facilitate student cognitive schema formation. Active learning exercises result in students reading the rules more carefully and creating deeper and more meaningful context for the rules they are learning than when using traditional, passive casebooks. Formative assessment is continuous and expertly incorporated into the book's structure such that students continuously receive extensive feedback about their learning without any extra labor expenditure on the professor's part. Because active learning at its core, is a constructivist pedagogy that recognizes student learning is achieved through engagement with content rather than hierarchical delivery of information, every chapter in this book and the accompanying directed reading questions are carefully designed discovery sequence exercises that result in deep and efficient understanding of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the cases interpreting those rules in significantly fewer pages than is possible with traditional casebooks. Finally, the book is deliberately designed to be used in both the traditional law school classroom and in the synchronous or asynchronous online setting if the professor chooses to use online instruction rather than traditional face to face instruction methods.

Courts: A Text/Reader, Third Edition, helps you understand the U.S. court system in context, with each brief authored section of the text enhanced by edited research articles that illustrate the questions and controversies in the judicial system today. The articles reflect both classic studies of the criminal court system and state-of-the-art research, and they often have a policy perspective that demonstrates the potential impact research can have on the court system. Designed to enhance understanding, the book includes a helpful "How to Read a Research Article" section before the first reading, as well as article introductions and discussion questions that will capture your interest and help you develop critical thinking skills. New to the Third Edition Ninety percent of the journal articles have been updated and introduce you to important topics, such as the effects of trial judges' sex and race, perceptions of plea bargaining, wrongful convictions, and the sentencing of drug offenders. New "Current Controversy" debates in each chapter highlight contentious issues in the courts, such as public defender caseloads, the impact of social media on criminal trials, and the need for more drug courts. A new "Current Cases" boxed feature elaborates on recent key court decisions and the impact they have had on issues such as defining "effective" counsel, racial bias in sentencing and jury deliberations, and the importance of judicial impartiality. Coverage of critical topics has been expanded throughout to introduce you to important issues, such as specialized courts, bail and pretrial release, the death penalty, and restorative justice. Statistics, graphs, and tables have all been updated to demonstrate the most recent trends in the court system.