The Trial Process

As noted in the Preface to Volume 1 in this series, the goal of Perspectives in Law and Psychology is to provide a forum for books aimed at systemati­ cally interfacing the two disciplines. Toward this end, Volume 1 pre­ sented a collection of original writings focused on the criminal justice system that grew out of a conference held at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Because that volume was based on conference proceedings, however, an attempt was not made to provide thorough coverage of all law-psychology issues in the criminal justice system; rather, it highlight­ ed a select few issues that were currently being investigated by some of the outstanding people in the field. This volume differs substantially from the first in that it attempts to bring together those psycholegal scholars who are doing the major re­ search on the trial process today and provides broad coverage of critical research on the trial. Thus, the chapters not only provide an extensive review of existing literature in this field but also present new contribu­ tions by these scholars.