Pub Date : 2022-09-05DOI: 10.1080/0098261X.2022.2112326
Benjamin Melusky, S. Brazelton
Abstract Backlogs and long delays in the confirmation of federal judicial nominees have become a common occurrence in Washington, leaving many federal benches understaffed and overworked. While this phenomenon has been well studied at the federal level examining political and institutional factors at play beyond senatorial courtesy, little is known if delay occurs in court systems of the individual American states, or how extensive the obstruction and the delay should it occur. We examine judicial appointments in states having the selection system of gubernatorial nomination and legislative confirmation. We focus on the duration of the judicial vacancies on state intermediate appellate courts and courts of last resort from 2000 to 2016 and explain the variation over time in the length of this process. We show that partisan division and increases in the polarization of state political parties work together to influence timely staffing of these critical institutions in the American states. Ultimately, these findings offer insight into the issues caused by political gridlock over judicial selection and offer practical institutional remedies to this problem.
{"title":"Partisanship and Polarization in State Court Vacancies","authors":"Benjamin Melusky, S. Brazelton","doi":"10.1080/0098261X.2022.2112326","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2022.2112326","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Backlogs and long delays in the confirmation of federal judicial nominees have become a common occurrence in Washington, leaving many federal benches understaffed and overworked. While this phenomenon has been well studied at the federal level examining political and institutional factors at play beyond senatorial courtesy, little is known if delay occurs in court systems of the individual American states, or how extensive the obstruction and the delay should it occur. We examine judicial appointments in states having the selection system of gubernatorial nomination and legislative confirmation. We focus on the duration of the judicial vacancies on state intermediate appellate courts and courts of last resort from 2000 to 2016 and explain the variation over time in the length of this process. We show that partisan division and increases in the polarization of state political parties work together to influence timely staffing of these critical institutions in the American states. Ultimately, these findings offer insight into the issues caused by political gridlock over judicial selection and offer practical institutional remedies to this problem.","PeriodicalId":45509,"journal":{"name":"Justice System Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86744979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-24DOI: 10.1080/0098261X.2022.2112324
Christopher A. Sadler, Jonah Siegel
Abstract The Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of the right to counsel for individuals accused of a crime is critical to ensuring a fair and just legal system. Despite popular belief, many indigent clients are represented by private attorneys who contract with court systems rather than employees of public defender offices. Understanding the incentives that motivate private attorneys to participate in the public sector by accepting indigent defense court cases is critical to shaping state and local policy related to representation. Prior research on incentives suggests that private sector employees are largely incentivized by income, while public sector employees are driven by a wider range of values. Despite the increasing participation of private-sector contractors in public sector work, the literature has not expanded its examination to include these hybrid workers. This paper examines the intersection of private-sector employees and public services through the lens of indigent defense by examining whether attorneys who participate in indigent defense as contractors do so based on profit-seeking interests. Using data collected from a survey of indigent defense attorneys in the State of Michigan, this paper concludes that private-sector workers who contract with public organizations do so based on income motives. This motive is consistent with traditional motivating factors of private sector employees.
{"title":"Indigent Defense Participation by Private Contractors and the Role of Compensation as an Incentive","authors":"Christopher A. Sadler, Jonah Siegel","doi":"10.1080/0098261X.2022.2112324","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2022.2112324","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of the right to counsel for individuals accused of a crime is critical to ensuring a fair and just legal system. Despite popular belief, many indigent clients are represented by private attorneys who contract with court systems rather than employees of public defender offices. Understanding the incentives that motivate private attorneys to participate in the public sector by accepting indigent defense court cases is critical to shaping state and local policy related to representation. Prior research on incentives suggests that private sector employees are largely incentivized by income, while public sector employees are driven by a wider range of values. Despite the increasing participation of private-sector contractors in public sector work, the literature has not expanded its examination to include these hybrid workers. This paper examines the intersection of private-sector employees and public services through the lens of indigent defense by examining whether attorneys who participate in indigent defense as contractors do so based on profit-seeking interests. Using data collected from a survey of indigent defense attorneys in the State of Michigan, this paper concludes that private-sector workers who contract with public organizations do so based on income motives. This motive is consistent with traditional motivating factors of private sector employees.","PeriodicalId":45509,"journal":{"name":"Justice System Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83670358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-23DOI: 10.1080/0098261X.2022.2112327
Natalie C. Rogol, Matthew D. Montgomery
Abstract The president’s State of the Union Address is the pinnacle agenda-setting event of the executive’s year. Generally, along with the executive’s cabinet, the entire House and Senate are present. One branch’s attendance, however, has noticeably fluctuated over time. To date, we know of no research that studies the public response to the Court’s decision to skip or attend. For this study, we develop a survey experiment to explore the impact that media coverage of justices’ decisions to stay home has on public opinion. We hypothesize participants will be willing to lower their approval of the Court and the president when justices skip the State of the Union. We also suggest that (dis)loyalty to the president should moderate opinions on a justice’s decision to stay home. Supporters of the president should show more propensity to lower their evaluation the Court when a majority of justices choose to stay home.
{"title":"Snooze or Snub? How the Public Reacts to Judicial Attendance at the State of the Union","authors":"Natalie C. Rogol, Matthew D. Montgomery","doi":"10.1080/0098261X.2022.2112327","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2022.2112327","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The president’s State of the Union Address is the pinnacle agenda-setting event of the executive’s year. Generally, along with the executive’s cabinet, the entire House and Senate are present. One branch’s attendance, however, has noticeably fluctuated over time. To date, we know of no research that studies the public response to the Court’s decision to skip or attend. For this study, we develop a survey experiment to explore the impact that media coverage of justices’ decisions to stay home has on public opinion. We hypothesize participants will be willing to lower their approval of the Court and the president when justices skip the State of the Union. We also suggest that (dis)loyalty to the president should moderate opinions on a justice’s decision to stay home. Supporters of the president should show more propensity to lower their evaluation the Court when a majority of justices choose to stay home.","PeriodicalId":45509,"journal":{"name":"Justice System Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-08-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86712990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-15DOI: 10.1080/0098261X.2022.2107963
Benjamin J. Kassow, Michael P. Fix
Abstract This manuscript examines how federal appeals courts respond to precedent, in this case, Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation v. Public Service Commission. This account includes a comprehensive theory that examines attitudinal factors that relate to Central Hudson, specific relevant legal factors that relate to the case, as well as strategic considerations. We additionally argue that federal appeals courts may reasonably ignore Central Hudson in certain specific instances (most notably when other highly relevant cases are available for lower federal court judges to use). Our results show partial support for several portions of our theory, including a lower propensity for federal appeals courts to positively treat precedent when ideological distance is high. We also find support for one of our factual-based hypotheses (regarding cases that involve drugs and attorney advertising, where other U.S. Supreme Court precedents are readily available for appeals court judges to use).
{"title":"Federal Appeals Court Responses to Supreme Court Precedent","authors":"Benjamin J. Kassow, Michael P. Fix","doi":"10.1080/0098261X.2022.2107963","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2022.2107963","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This manuscript examines how federal appeals courts respond to precedent, in this case, Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation v. Public Service Commission. This account includes a comprehensive theory that examines attitudinal factors that relate to Central Hudson, specific relevant legal factors that relate to the case, as well as strategic considerations. We additionally argue that federal appeals courts may reasonably ignore Central Hudson in certain specific instances (most notably when other highly relevant cases are available for lower federal court judges to use). Our results show partial support for several portions of our theory, including a lower propensity for federal appeals courts to positively treat precedent when ideological distance is high. We also find support for one of our factual-based hypotheses (regarding cases that involve drugs and attorney advertising, where other U.S. Supreme Court precedents are readily available for appeals court judges to use).","PeriodicalId":45509,"journal":{"name":"Justice System Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-08-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79303831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-11DOI: 10.1080/0098261X.2022.2107964
Jake S. Truscott
Abstract While many are aware that the Supreme Court allocates seats for the public to view oral arguments, substantive analyses that have measured the motivations for attendance are lacking. I analyze who attends oral arguments using a descriptive approach with a novel dataset of public attendance at Supreme Court oral arguments during the 2019 term. A concurrent assessment of interviews conducted on argument days illustrates notable differences among the motivations of prospective attendees. I conclude by noting that although the linkage between latent case salience and the demand for admission to arguments is not neatly discernable, attendance at the Supreme Court offers an interesting divergence from perceptions of attendance in a traditional courtroom setting.
{"title":"The Supreme Spectacle: An Analysis of Public Attendance at the Supreme Court","authors":"Jake S. Truscott","doi":"10.1080/0098261X.2022.2107964","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2022.2107964","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract While many are aware that the Supreme Court allocates seats for the public to view oral arguments, substantive analyses that have measured the motivations for attendance are lacking. I analyze who attends oral arguments using a descriptive approach with a novel dataset of public attendance at Supreme Court oral arguments during the 2019 term. A concurrent assessment of interviews conducted on argument days illustrates notable differences among the motivations of prospective attendees. I conclude by noting that although the linkage between latent case salience and the demand for admission to arguments is not neatly discernable, attendance at the Supreme Court offers an interesting divergence from perceptions of attendance in a traditional courtroom setting.","PeriodicalId":45509,"journal":{"name":"Justice System Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78910354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-05DOI: 10.1080/0098261X.2022.2102455
Maoz Rosenthal, Shai Talmor
Abstract In political systems where political parties are not the sole veto player on judicial nominations, the judicial selection process obfuscates judges' political preferences. However, activists, politicians, pundits, public opinion, and scholars try to assess these preferences because they are crucial for understanding the interaction between judges and political elites. We present a method for inferring judges' political ideology without prior knowledge of their political affiliations. The method we suggest uses the Manifesto Research Group on Political Representation's (MARPOR) coding scheme to assess judges' decisions within their political ideology contexts. We claim that this contextualization accounts for variance in judicial review patterns and associates the judges' reviews with their ideological positions. We apply our method to the Israeli High Court of Justice's judges' decisions and use our data to discuss some public quandaries regarding the court.
{"title":"Estimating the “Legislators in Robes”: Measuring Judges' Political Preferences","authors":"Maoz Rosenthal, Shai Talmor","doi":"10.1080/0098261X.2022.2102455","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2022.2102455","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In political systems where political parties are not the sole veto player on judicial nominations, the judicial selection process obfuscates judges' political preferences. However, activists, politicians, pundits, public opinion, and scholars try to assess these preferences because they are crucial for understanding the interaction between judges and political elites. We present a method for inferring judges' political ideology without prior knowledge of their political affiliations. The method we suggest uses the Manifesto Research Group on Political Representation's (MARPOR) coding scheme to assess judges' decisions within their political ideology contexts. We claim that this contextualization accounts for variance in judicial review patterns and associates the judges' reviews with their ideological positions. We apply our method to the Israeli High Court of Justice's judges' decisions and use our data to discuss some public quandaries regarding the court.","PeriodicalId":45509,"journal":{"name":"Justice System Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88008338","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1080/0098261X.2022.2104671
Tracy L. R. Lightcap
Abstract State court systems are being reshaped by the widespread adoption of drug courts. However, there has been limited attention to what drives the decision to create drug courts in the states. I link the establishment of drug courts to local issue environments found in each state that support proactive judicial and legal elites. I propose hypotheses that link the density of drug courts to judicial professionalization, state funding of courts, drug arrest rates, and levels of court consolidation. I test these hypotheses with panel data from 2009 to 2014. I find that states with more professional judiciaries and higher rates of drug arrests are more likely to adopt drug courts, that higher levels of court consolidation show a small negative effect and, finally, that higher levels of state funding for court systems do not have consistent effects. I conclude that there is support for (a) using the issue environments approach to analyze the establishment of drug courts and (b) considering issue environments when analyzing other community oriented changes in state court systems.
{"title":"Reshaping Court Systems: Issue Environments and the Establishment of Drug Courts","authors":"Tracy L. R. Lightcap","doi":"10.1080/0098261X.2022.2104671","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2022.2104671","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract State court systems are being reshaped by the widespread adoption of drug courts. However, there has been limited attention to what drives the decision to create drug courts in the states. I link the establishment of drug courts to local issue environments found in each state that support proactive judicial and legal elites. I propose hypotheses that link the density of drug courts to judicial professionalization, state funding of courts, drug arrest rates, and levels of court consolidation. I test these hypotheses with panel data from 2009 to 2014. I find that states with more professional judiciaries and higher rates of drug arrests are more likely to adopt drug courts, that higher levels of court consolidation show a small negative effect and, finally, that higher levels of state funding for court systems do not have consistent effects. I conclude that there is support for (a) using the issue environments approach to analyze the establishment of drug courts and (b) considering issue environments when analyzing other community oriented changes in state court systems.","PeriodicalId":45509,"journal":{"name":"Justice System Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78507336","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-27DOI: 10.1080/0098261X.2022.2100727
Lucia Manzi
Abstract What explains a criminal justice system’s persistent failure to prosecute a salient and widespread criminal issue, such as systemic corruption? I argue that this results from the presence of a prosecutorial gatekeeper, namely an institution capable of raising jurisdictional issues strategically for the purpose of appropriating investigations and controlling their outcome. In this article, I examine the effects of prosecutorial gatekeeping on corruption investigations within the Italian context. I analyze the causes and effects of the Roman prosecutor’s office use of gatekeeping powers over the years from 1975 to 1994. I show that the Roman prosecutor’s office pursued prosecutorial gatekeeping in order to undermine sensitive corruption investigations involving elected officials and state agents. This resulted in the Italian criminal justice system’s protracted failure to uncover systemic political corruption. Only a suspension in the use of prosecutorial gatekeeping eventually allowed for the Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) operation to move forward unobstructed in exposing this pervasive criminal system in 1992.
{"title":"Prosecutorial Gatekeeping and Its Effects on Criminal Accountability: The Roman Prosecutor’s Office and Corruption Investigations in Italy, 1975–1994","authors":"Lucia Manzi","doi":"10.1080/0098261X.2022.2100727","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2022.2100727","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract What explains a criminal justice system’s persistent failure to prosecute a salient and widespread criminal issue, such as systemic corruption? I argue that this results from the presence of a prosecutorial gatekeeper, namely an institution capable of raising jurisdictional issues strategically for the purpose of appropriating investigations and controlling their outcome. In this article, I examine the effects of prosecutorial gatekeeping on corruption investigations within the Italian context. I analyze the causes and effects of the Roman prosecutor’s office use of gatekeeping powers over the years from 1975 to 1994. I show that the Roman prosecutor’s office pursued prosecutorial gatekeeping in order to undermine sensitive corruption investigations involving elected officials and state agents. This resulted in the Italian criminal justice system’s protracted failure to uncover systemic political corruption. Only a suspension in the use of prosecutorial gatekeeping eventually allowed for the Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) operation to move forward unobstructed in exposing this pervasive criminal system in 1992.","PeriodicalId":45509,"journal":{"name":"Justice System Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90466917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-21DOI: 10.1080/0098261X.2022.2095944
Mintao Nie, Gunnar Grendstad, William R. Shaffer, Eric N. Waltenburg
Abstract What is the effect of gender on the deliberative process of judging? Drawing on previous research on female leaders’ inclination to foster a more inclusive and collaborative decision-making process, we argue that decision making takes more time in a collegial court when female justices preside over decisional panels. Analyzing an original data set on cases decided by the Norwegian Supreme Court between 2008 and 2019, we find that when a woman is the presiding justice, the duration of case disposition time increases. This effect, however, persists for only eight days. Our finding suggests that institutional practices take effect over gendered effects.
{"title":"The Impact of Female Leadership in Collegial Courts on Time to Render Merits Decisions: Evidence from the Norwegian Supreme Court","authors":"Mintao Nie, Gunnar Grendstad, William R. Shaffer, Eric N. Waltenburg","doi":"10.1080/0098261X.2022.2095944","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2022.2095944","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract What is the effect of gender on the deliberative process of judging? Drawing on previous research on female leaders’ inclination to foster a more inclusive and collaborative decision-making process, we argue that decision making takes more time in a collegial court when female justices preside over decisional panels. Analyzing an original data set on cases decided by the Norwegian Supreme Court between 2008 and 2019, we find that when a woman is the presiding justice, the duration of case disposition time increases. This effect, however, persists for only eight days. Our finding suggests that institutional practices take effect over gendered effects.","PeriodicalId":45509,"journal":{"name":"Justice System Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85910656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-20DOI: 10.1080/0098261x.2022.2100959
Muhammad Rezaur Rahman, S. M. M. Hider
{"title":"The Constitutionality of the Co-existence of Secularism and Islam as the State Religion: Samarendra Nath Goswami v. Government of Bangladesh and Ors.","authors":"Muhammad Rezaur Rahman, S. M. M. Hider","doi":"10.1080/0098261x.2022.2100959","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261x.2022.2100959","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45509,"journal":{"name":"Justice System Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75399511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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