Applied psychology and judicial decision making: Corporal punishment as a case in point.

Abstract

Through the review of two recent corporal punishment decisions, this article examines the impact of psychological knowledge and data gleaned from applied settings on judicial decision making. First, the Supreme Court's decisions and the behavioral science data concerning corporal punishment are reviewed. Then an expanding body of knowledge concerning corporal punishment, which the Court seemed to ignore, is considered. Finally, there is a broader exploration of the application of psychological evidence with regard to judicial decision making, suggested reasons for its rejection in many instances, and possible remedies for increasing its value in the future.Apparently isolated and sometimes minor incidents often lead to landmark legal decisions that may ultimately affect us all. The suspension of high school pupils in Des Moines, Iowa, for wearing armbands to protest the Vietnam War during the 1960s eventuated in a broad ranging decision by the Supreme Court concerning the rights of students (Tinker v. Des Moines School District^). The firing of ward attendants in a little-known Alabama state hospital resulted in the most forceful statement to date concerning the right to treatment for mental patients (Wyatt v. Stickney 2 ). The tragic death of a mentally retarded boy in a Pennsylvania institution produced the first definitive statement concerning the right to education for handicapped children (Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children v. Commonwealth 3 ).However, not all such incidents guarantee that individual rights will be vindicated. Such has been the case with regard to corporal punishment. When Russell Carl Baker threw a kickball at the wrong time and was subsequently swatted on his buttocks with a desk drawer divider by his teacher, national attention was focused on the right of the schools to physically discipline students. Despite the introduction of psychological and educational evidence supporting its abolition, two recent cases of major importance have upheld the schools' prerogative to do so. This article explores the impact of psychological knowledge gleaned from applied settings on judicial decision making in the context of the two corporal punishment cases; Baker v. Owen, 4 decided in 1975 by a federal district court in North Carolina and affirmed without opinion by the Supreme Court later that year, and Ingraham v. Wright, 5 a 1977 decision in which the Supreme Court for the first time permitted a full-dress review of the constitutionality of corporal punishment by school systems. The first part of this article reviews these decisions. The second scrutinizes that portion of the Court's decision that referred

Minors' consent to treatment: A developmental perspective.

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Youth privacy when educational records include psychological records.

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Training Psychologists for Changing Schools

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