Handbook of Trial Consulting

Professor Wiener received his Ph.D. from the University of Houston and his Masters Degree in Legal Studies at UNL. He was professor of Psychology at Saint Louis University (1982- 2000) and most recently chair of the Department of Psychology at Baruch College, City University of New York. In 2002 Dr. Wiener joined the Law-Psychology Program (as director) and the Social Psychology Program at UNL. He is the former editor of Law and Human Behavior, the official journal of the American Psychology/Law Society (Division 41 of the APA). Dr. Wiener's research applies theories of social cognition to problems in legal decision-making. Among the topic areas he has investigated are perceptions of sexual harassment and jury decision making. Specifically, Dr. Wiener studies the role of generic prejudice in criminal cases and he studies how jurors reach capital murder decisions in assigning penalties. The National Science Foundation has funded and continues to fund this work. Currently, Dr. Wiener applies social cognitive theories of emotion, motivation, dual process of cognitive processing to explain how legal actors reach decisions relevant to law and policy. Other topics of investigation include the role of implicit attitude activation in generic prejudice, the role of emotions in jury judgments as they develop across the presentation of criminal cases, the role of mortality salience in death penalty judgments, and the role of counterfactual thinking in negligence judgments. Dr. Wiener teaches courses at UNL on behavioral sciences and the law and legal decision making.

• An Overview and General Model of Juror and Jury Decision-Making.- The Story Model Theory of Jury Decision Making.- Statistical Models of Jury Decision Making.- Focus Groups.- Systematic Jury Selection.- Persuasion and Argument Development.- Mock Trial Research.- Survey Research.- Training and Education.- Ethical Issues.- Professional Issues.- Reform Movements.- Lawyers View of Trial Consulting.- Judge’s View of Trial Consulting.- Eyewitness identification and lineups.- Admissibility of Expert Witness Testimony.- Witness Preparation.- Selecting Experts.- Technology and Trial Consulting.- The Use of Demonstrative Evidence.- Technology II : The Role of the Trial Consultant.- Psychopathy.- Discrimination.- Change of Venue and Pretrial Publicity.- Assessment of Damages I: Mental and Social Health.- Assessment of Damages II: Neuropsychological Concerns.- Decision Making about Damages.- Jury Instructions.- The Future of Trial Consulting.

From the reviews: "Handbook is principally oriented towards psychologists, it can also be very useful to other social scientists or legal practitioners ... . very useful to those who are interested in examining more in depth the legal and theoretical issues ... . chapters are very practical, are clearly evidence based, and can be useful to both lawyers and trail consultants. ... The Handbook of Trial Consulting provides ... a comprehensive, state-of-the-art review of the major areas that can be subsumed under the title." (Michel Sabourin, PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 56 (48), November, 2011)