A defendant’s failure to show remorse is one of the most powerful factors in criminal sentencing, including capital sentencing. Yet there is currently no evidence that remorse can be accurately evaluated in a courtroom. Conversely there is evidence that race and other impermissible factors create hurdles to evaluating remorse. There is thus an urgent need for studies about whether and how remorse can be accurately evaluated. Moreover, there is little evidence that remorse is correlated with future law-abiding behavior or other (...) legitimate penal purposes, and, in fact, there is evidence that remorse is often conflated with shame, which is correlated with increased future criminality. More accurate information on the nature and evaluation of remorse can be used to reform the criminal justice system. (shrink)

This illuminating Research Handbook analyses the role that emotions play and ought to play in legal reasoning and practice, rejecting the simplistic distinction between reason and emotion. International expert contributors take multidisciplinary approaches, drawing on neuroscience, philosophy, literary theory, psychology, history, and sociology to examine the role of a wide range of emotions across a variety of legal contexts. Chapters consider how the rich tapestry of human emotion impacts legal actors, influences legal doctrine, and shapes the dynamics of legal institutions. (...) Moving beyond legal contexts traditionally considered rife with emotion such as the criminal law and jury trials, the Handbook explores how emotion relates to contracts, property, bankruptcy, international law, and truth and reconciliation commissions. It also reflects on the importance of research methodologies, theories, and techniques for assessing the role of emotion in the legal arena. Surveying the depth and complexity of law and emotion across a panoply of legal actions, institutional contexts, and legal doctrines, this Research Handbook will be critical reading for academics and students of legal theory and legal philosophy. Its detailed examination of emotions in the practice of private, public, international, and criminal law will also be beneficial for lawyers, judges, and policymakers. (shrink)