social science
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Judges, Lawyers, and Science
It might have looked like an essentially technical matter, but the Supreme Court’s recent decision in R. v. Tatton, 2015 SCC 33 turns out to be full of interesting things to discuss. I have already written about what it might suggest about the Court’s views on mandatory minimum sentences, and what it tells us about Continue reading
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Contesting Expertise in Prison and at Large
I wrote on Thursday about a very interesting article by Lisa Kerr, “Contesting Expertise in Prison Law,” which argues that courts should be less deferential to prison administrators and should take facts, especially social science evidence about the real-life operation of prisons and the lives of prisoners into account, as well as that lawyers need to Continue reading
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Fighting Expertise with Expertise
Lisa Kerr, a brilliant colleague of mine at the JSD programme at NYU and soon-to-be professor at Queen’s, has recently published a fascinating article called “Contesting Expertise in Prison Law,” explaining the practical and normative importance of expertise and evidence in prisoners’ rights adjudication. I am no doubt biased, but I think it deserves to be read Continue reading
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The Elephant in the Conference Room
In my post discussing the Supreme Court’s recent decision in R. v. Fearon, 2014 SCC 77, which held that (some) warrantless searches of cell phones incident to arrest were constitutional, I “wonder[ed] whether Justice Cromwell was swayed by his conclusion ― irrelevant and apparently unsupported ― that the robbery of which Mr. Fearon is accused is ‘a crime Continue reading
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More on the Empirical Turn
My latest post for the CBA National Magazine’s blog has now been published. Continuing on the topic of the “empirical turn” in Charter litigation exemplified by decisions such as Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford, 2013 SCC 72, [2013] 3 S.C.R. 1101, I argue that the courts’ reliance on social science evidence can be dangerous because the Continue reading
Double Aspect 