Some Limitations of Experimental Psychologists' Criticisms of the American Trial

For decades, psychologists have conducted experiments that have suggested severe limitations on human cognitive capacities. Many have suggested that these results have important, and largely negative, consequences for an assessment of the reliability of the American trial. They have pointed persuasively at the disturbing number of exonerations of those convicted after trial. And some have gone on to make specific proposals for the incremental, and sometimes radical, changes in the conduct of the adversary trial.

This essay places these studies, as forcefully presented by Professor Dan Simon, in a normative context, and argues that they are more powerful in suggesting changes in pretrial process than in the conduct of trial itself.