Law & Society Blog

In Cultural Cognition and Public Policy, Dan Kahan and Donald Braman outline their theory of what explains persistent public disagreement over the effects of public policies and certain controversial legal issues, such as gun control, abortion, and the death penalty…. (Id., at 24).In other words, because of the cultural biases woven into our engines of perception and world-construction, conclusively establishing the truth of a proposition within the scientific system does not necessarily end policy debates, as demonstrated by the continuing debate (in the U.S.) over one of the most secure elements in all of human knowledge, the theory of evolution.

The NYCLU filed a complaint in the Southern District of New York, seeking preliminary and permanent injunctive relief against
a program, unprecedented in this country, under which millions of innocent New Yorkers are subject to suspicionless searches by the police. The New York City Police Department has adopted and is enforcing a criminal, law-enforcement policy and […]

A recent paper by Randolph Jonakait, Rasul v. Bush: Unanswered Questions, provides a useful roadmap to the complex legal landscape surrounding the detentions at Guantanamo, both procedurally and substantively. On a procedural level, Jonakeit correctly reads Rasul’s holding to be that “[a] person held anywhere by the United States as an enemy combatant can challenge […]