Roseanna Sommers

Commonsense Consent

How do ordinary people understand the concept of consent? This Article documents that laypersons, unlike most legal theorists, believe consent is compatible with fraud. It uses this discovery to revisit the so-called “riddle of rape-by-deception” and to interrogate the relationship between public attitudes, normative theory, and law.

The Voluntariness of Voluntary Consent: Consent Searches and the Psychology of Compliance

The Fourth Amendment allows police to perform warrantless searches of individuals if they give consent to be searched and that consent is voluntary. Based on original laboratory research, this Essay posits that fact-finders assessing voluntariness underappreciate the extent to which suspects feel pressure to comply with requests to be searched.

Will Putting Cameras on Police Reduce Polarization?

The Psychology of Punishment and the Puzzle of Why Tortfeasor Death Defeats Liability for Punitive Damages