Court order
Do Legal Origins Affect Cross-Country Incarceration Rates?
Daniel D'Amico & Claudia Williamson
Journal of Comparative Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Prison populations vary tremendously across countries. This paper investigates the potential relationship between incarceration rates and legal origins in a large cross-section of countries. We argue that legal origins alter the relative costs associated with imprisonment as a means for social control. Using panel data from 2001 to 2011, we find countries with civil legal origins have lower prison populations. Our empirical results are highly robust after controlling for crime rates, criminal justice resources, economic factors, political institutions, and social factors. In addition, our results do not appear to be driven by the variation in criminalized activities. To explain these results, we conjecture that imprisonment is a lower cost mechanism for enforcing social order in common law countries. In civil law countries, bureaucratic infrastructures allow for methods such as day-fines, community service, seizure of property, and probation as more affordable alternatives to imprisonment.
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Gbemende Johnson
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Judicial intervention is often required to define the boundaries of executive power. Although many separation of powers analyses examine the interaction of courts and legislatures, few examine how the design of executive and judicial institutions affect judicial decision making in cases involving challenges to executive power in the U.S. context. I argue that the degree of judicial institutional vulnerability to executive retaliation will have a significant impact on judicial making. Using an original dataset of cases involving executive power challenges in the American states between 1980 and 2010, I find that courts are more likely to uphold executive power in environments where the threat of institutional retaliation from the executive is high. The results of this analysis indicate that the strength of judicial checks against executive power depends on broader relations of institutional authority, not just on constitutional doctrine or culture.
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Christine Ruva & Christina Guenther
Law and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
This 2-part study explored how exposure to negative pretrial publicity (Neg-PTP) influences the jury process, as well as possible mechanisms responsible for its biasing effects on decisions. Study Part A explored how PTP and jury deliberations affect juror/jury verdicts, memory, and impressions of the defendant and attorneys. One week before viewing a criminal trial mock-jurors (N = 320 university students) were exposed to Neg-PTP or unrelated crime stories (No-PTP). Two days later deliberating jurors came to a group decision, whereas nondeliberating jurors completed an unrelated task before making an individual decision. Neg-PTP jurors were more likely to vote guilty, make memory errors, and rate the defendant lower in credibility. Deliberation reduced Neg-PTP jurors' memory accuracy and No-PTP jurors' guilty verdicts (leniency bias). Jurors' memory and ratings of the defendant and prosecuting attorney significantly mediated the effect of PTP on guilt ratings. Study Part B content analyzed 30 mock-jury deliberations and explored how PTP influenced deliberations and ultimately jury decisions. Neg-PTP juries were more likely than No-PTP juries to discuss ambiguous trial evidence in a proprosecution manner and less likely to discuss judicial instructions and lack of evidence. All Neg-PTP juries mentioned PTP, after instructed otherwise, and rarely corrected jury members who mentioned PTP. Discussion of ambiguous trial evidence in a proprosecution manner and lack of evidence significantly mediated the effect of PTP on jury-level guilt ratings. Together the findings suggest that judicial admonishments and deliberations may not be sufficient to reduce PTP bias, because of memory errors, biased impressions, and predecisional distortion.
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We Are the World: The U.S. Supreme Court's Use of Foreign Sources of Law
Ryan Black, Ryan Owens & Jennifer Brookhart
British Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
The United States Supreme Court recently employed foreign legal sources to interpret U.S. law, provoking widespread political and legal controversy. Scholars have yet to examine systematically the conditions under which justices cite foreign law, however. Applying theoretical approaches from international relations and judicial politics scholarship, we search every Supreme Court opinion between 1953 and 2009 for references to foreign law. Justices strategically reference foreign law to prop up their most controversial opinions. They also borrow law from countries whose domestic political institutions are viewed as legitimate; and, surprisingly, conservatives are as likely as liberals to cite foreign law. These findings add important information to the discussion over citing foreign law, and highlight how geopolitical context influences domestic legal policy.
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Donald Michael Gooch
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Judicial polarization is an important but underexplored aspect of judicial behavior. This analysis uses a gamut of measures to assess polarization on the Supreme Court across chief justice and jurisprudential regimes. I examine individual justice polarization and ideological extremity over full tenures on the Court and also how Court polarization is responsive to polarization in coordinate institutions. I find mixed evidence of greater polarization in the abortion rights regime. I find strong evidence of increasing Court polarization concomitant with congressional and presidential polarization since the 1950s across chief justice regimes. Court polarization is responsive to polarization in coordinate institutions. I do not find that individual justices become more polarized over time. Justices shift ideologically over their careers, and this shift is on average to the Left. These findings are robust across multiple specifications of the models and multiple alternative measurements, controlling for other factors which might influence polarization.
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Judicial Disharmony: A Study of Dissent
Anthony Niblett & Albert Yoon
International Review of Law and Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
While it is well documented that judges at times disagree on case outcomes, less understood is the process by which they justify their divergence. In this article, we empirically examine how judges differ in their view of the relevant law to a case. We create a unique dataset looking at the universe of published opinions in federal appellate court cases from the United States between 2001 and 2005 that include a dissenting opinion. We find that judges who disagree on the outcome of a case disagree as to which binding precedents apply. Authoring judges gravitate toward precedents that are ideologically similar to their own preferences. Precedents cited only by the majority are strongly ideologically correlated with the majority author's preferences; precedents cited only by the dissenting judge are ideologically similar to her preferences. Precedents cited by both the majority and dissent (i.e., precedent that both judges agree are relevant to the case before them) are not ideologically correlated with either judge. Our findings provide strong evidence that judicial differences over case outcomes do not reflect judges' divergent interpretations of the same precedent, but gravitation towards largely different precedent.
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Tia Stevens & Merry Morash
Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, January 2015, Pages 77-95
Abstract:
This study was designed to examine whether the shift in juvenile justice policy toward punitive sanctioning disproportionately impacted racial and ethnic minority boys. Using a nationally representative sample derived from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth 1979 and 1997 (NLSY79, NLSY97), this study examines 1980-2000 differences in contact with the justice system, controlling for self-reported delinquency. Results confirmed that boys in 2000 were significantly more likely than those in 1980 to report being charged with a crime. Once charged, they were less likely to be diverted and more likely to be convicted and placed in a correctional institution. Consideration of interaction effects revealed these effects were magnified for Black and Hispanic males. These findings provide evidence of a general trend toward more punitive treatment of boys in the juvenile justice system, especially racial and ethnic minority boys.
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The Impact of Ethnicity, Immigration Status and SES on Juror Decision Making
Russ Espinoza et al.
Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, forthcoming
Abstract:
The purpose of this research was to examine how ethnicity, immigration status and socioeconomic status (SES) may contribute to juror bias. Three-hundred and twenty European-American venire persons were assigned to one of eight criminal court trial transcript conditions that varied defendant ethnicity (Mexican or Canadian), immigrant status (undocumented or documented) and SES (low or high). Dependent measures were verdict, sentencing, culpability, and trait attributions. Results indicated the low SES undocumented Mexican defendant was found guilty more often, given a more severe sentence, thought to be more culpable, and rated lower on a number of trait measures compared with all other conditions. Subtle bias theories, such as aversive racism, appear to best explain the biases in juror decisions.
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Incentives to Invest in Litigation and the Superiority of the Class Action
David Rosenberg & Kathryn Spier
Journal of Legal Analysis, Winter 2014, Pages 305-365
Abstract:
We formally demonstrate the general case for class action in a rent-seeking contest model, explaining why separate action adjudication is biased in the defendant's favor and collective adjudication is bias free. Separate action bias arises from the defendant's investment advantage in capitalizing on centralized control over the aggregate (classwide) stake in the common question defense, while the plaintiff, with only an individual recovery at stake, spends much less. Class action eliminates bias by enabling both parties to make their best case through centralized optimal classwide investments. Our social benefit-cost analysis shows that class action surpasses alternative methods for achieving bias-free adjudication.
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Source Cues and Public Support for the Supreme Court
Tom Clark & Jonathan Kastellec
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
It is well known that the public often relies on cues or heuristics when forming opinions. At the same time, leading theories of opinion formation about the Supreme Court see such support as relatively fixed. Using a series of survey experiments, we find source cues significantly influence the public's support for the Court, including the extent to which individuals believe the Court should be independent from the elected branches. Specifically, we find partisan source cues play a significant role in shaping public opinion regarding life tenure for the justices and the extent to which the Court should have the final say in constitutional matters - individuals are less likely to support court-curbing measures when informed that elites from the opposite party have proposed them than when such measures are endorsed by either a neutral source or members of their own party. We also find a strong connection between specific support for particular decisions and the degree to which people believe the Court should be free from external influence, as individuals are more likely to say the justices should be influenced by demonstrators when the side they favor is the one doing the demonstrating. These results have important implications for understanding the extent to which politicians can shape the public's overall support for the Court, as well as for assessing the degree to which the public views the Court as a "political" institution.
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Tonja Jacobi & Eugene Kontorovich
International Review of Law and Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper provides the first account of the practice of universal voting on the Supreme Court - that is, why justices never abstain, unlike voters in other committee contexts. Full participation among justices is explained using models of spatial competition, showing that two features particular to the Court encourage full participation. First, the doctrine of stare decisis makes the resolution of future cases in part dependent on the resolution of present ones. This raises the cost of abstention, particularly to risk-averse justices. Second, the so-called narrowest grounds or Marks doctrine enforces the logic of the median voter theorem in cases presenting more than two options. This makes voting by otherwise indifferent or alienated justices rational, where it otherwise would not be. Although these explanations may not exhaust the multi-causal factors behind the robust phenomenon of zero abstention, they are the first attempt to rigorously analyze how two unique institutional judicial rules mitigate the incentive to abstain.
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Amicus Coalition Heterogeneity and Signaling Credibility in Supreme Court Agenda Setting
Greg Goelzhauser & Nicole Vouvalis
Publius, Winter 2015, Pages 99-116
Abstract:
What makes lobbying coalitions successful? We contend that greater preference heterogeneity among members of a lobbying coalition enhances the credibility of its signals to a target audience. To test this theory, we analyze the relationship between the preference heterogeneity of state amicus coalitions at the agenda setting stage and the probability of the U.S. Supreme Court granting review in state-filed cases. The results suggest that petitions are more likely to be granted as the preference heterogeneity among members of amicus coalitions increases. Our theoretical and empirical approaches are easily adapted to the study of lobbying influence in other institutional contexts.
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The effect of judicial independence on entrepreneurship in the US states
John Dove
Economic Systems, forthcoming
Abstract:
The relationship between institutional quality, entrepreneurship, and economic growth has been well documented within the literature. However, much less work has been done regarding judicial independence and how this affects, specifically, entrepreneurial activity. Therefore, this paper attempts to fill that gap by exploiting the differences in judicial independence that exist between the US states and empirically evaluating how this affects entrepreneurship. Overall, the results suggest that the method of selecting and retaining justices of both courts of last resort and intermediate appellate courts has a significant and direct effect on entrepreneurial activity, though the latter result is somewhat less robust. The presence of judicial nominating and retention commissions also has a significant and direct effect. Further, although somewhat weaker, the method of selecting the chief justice of a state court of last resort would also appear to have an impact on entrepreneurship. These results are robust to a number of specifications.
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Cigarette cravings impair mock jurors' recall of trial evidence
Daniel Zuj, Matthew Palmer & Eva Kemps
Psychology, Crime & Law, forthcoming
Abstract:
Prior research has demonstrated that cravings for substances, such as cigarettes and food, impair performance on basic cognitive tasks. This experiment examined whether these effects translate to impaired cognition on an important task in an applied setting: jury duty. Forty-six smokers were randomly allocated to a high-craving or control condition of an in-vivo procedure designed to invoke cigarette cravings. Participants were then asked to act as mock-jurors, and read a written legal transcript based on evidence presented in an actual civil case. Later, participants were tested on their recall and recognition of information from the transcript. Participants in the high-craving condition recalled fewer correct facts from the transcript than participants in the control condition, but cravings did not significantly affect the recognition of trial information. These results are consistent with cognitive models of cravings, highlight the importance of providing jurors with sufficient breaks, and suggest that cravings may impair cognition in a variety of important applied settings.
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Emotion, Authority, and Death: (Raced) Negotiations in Mock Capital Jury Deliberations
Mona Lynch & Craig Haney
Law & Social Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article explores the role of emotion in the capital penalty-phase jury deliberations process. It is based on the qualitative analysis of data from ninety video-recorded four to seven person simulated jury deliberations that examined the influence of race on death sentencing outcomes. The analysis explores when and how emotions are expressed, integrated into the jury's sentencing process, and deployed in penalty-phase decision making. The findings offer critical new insights into the role that emotion plays in influencing these legal judgments by revealing how jurors strategically and explicitly employ emotion in the course of deliberation, both to support their own positions and neutralize or rebut the opposing positions of others. The findings also shed light on the various ways that white male capital jurors utilize a panoply of powerful emotion-based tactics to sway others to their position in a manner that often contributes to racially biased outcomes.