Visual Decision Aids for Forensic Science Evidence. Gianni Ribeiro from the University of Southern Queensland reports on a psychological study showing that visual decision aids can improve juror understanding of forensic tests.

Neuroscience Evidence in Criminal Cases. Debby Denno from Fordham Law School draws on a long-term empirical project and investigates what types of neuroscience evidence really drive criminal cases.

Past-Acts Evidence in Excessive Force Litigation. James Stone from Stanford University discusses some proposed reforms to the way that courts handle past-acts evidence, both with respect to plaintiffs and police-defendants, in excessive police force cases.

Snitching. Sasha Natapoff from Harvard Law School discusses the problems of criminal informant testimony.

Provisional Assumptions. Heidi Liu from George Washington University Law School discusses the problems of asking jurors to ignore inadmissible evidence and proposes an alternative mechanism – the “provisional assumption.”

The Law and Science of Eyewitness Evidence. Brandon Garrett from Duke University and Thomas Albright from the Salk Institute discuss the latest research on the reliability of eyewitness testimony and related reforms that have surfaced from courts and legislatures.

Expertise in Crisis. Dave Caudill from Villanova University discusses the current crisis expertise and how a more modest and sociological view of scientific inquiry might encourage greater acceptance of consensus science.

Neuroscience, Neutrality, and the Rules of Evidence.

Steven Friedland and Amy Overman from Elon University discuss how neuroscience findings about our cognitive biases should inform the way we think about the rules of evidence, and whether those rules can ever truly be neutral.

The Neglected Origins of the Hearsay Rule in American Slavery. David Sklansky of Stanford Law School discusses the Supreme Court case of Queen v. Hepburn, a freedom suit in the early Republic which proved to be a turning point in the development of the hearsay rule in American evidence law.

Digital Habit Evidence. Andrew Ferguson from American University discusses the habit rule under Rule 406, and how the Internet of Things and digital habit evidence might change its importance in the future.