bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Rhode Island Supreme Court: A Well-Integrated Political System
Authors: Beiser Edward N.
Published: June 2006

Richard Fenno (1962: 315) has suggested that: “[I] f one considers the main activity of a political system to be decision making, the acid test of its internal integration is its capacity to make collective decisions without flying apart in the process.” In the context of the Congress, Fenno (1962: 310) defined committee integration as: “the degree to which there is a working together or a meshing together or mutual support among its roles and subgroups. Conversely, it is also defined as the degree to which a committee is able to minimize conflict among its roles and its subgroups, by heading off or resolving the conflicts that arise. A concomitant of integration is the existence of a fairly consistent set of norms, widely agreed upon and widely followed by the members.”
Policy-Making and State Supreme Courts
Authors: Glick Henry Robert
Published: June 2006

The most frequent and visible sources of judicial policy are decisions in court cases in which judges create new solutions to problems and conflicts presented to them. Sometimes important policies are established in a single case or policy may develop gradually in a series of cases dealing with similar situations. This form of policy-making frequently occurs without much direct interaction between courts, legislatures, and executive agencies. Though the implementation of court policies may depend on the cooperation of other officials, the initiation and early shaping of a particular policy may be done almost exclusively by the courts.
The Legal System, Public Bureaucracy, and Political Development
Authors: Benjamin Roger W.
Published: June 2006

Very different assumptions guide the efforts of social scientists and comparative legal scholars interested in the development process. These assumptions form paradigms; the paradigms guide and structure research problem selection, choices of concepts to be used, and even the form and content of evidence held to be admissible. For instance, a political scientist may treat the legal system of a transitional society as the outgrowth or a function of cultural, social, economic, and political environment, but the legal scholar may not be comfortable with this wholly dependent placement of his analytic slice of “reality.” Social scientists increasingly accept basic aspects of the value system of science. This requires a concern for making generalizations which may be linked to theoretical constructs, and which are empirically testable in such a way as to allow intersubjective evaluation. Description, explanation, and prediction are typically cited as a social scientist's aims. “Relevance” is a term we hear much of today, but unless a social scientist is content to ignore the imperatives of the value system of science, relevance must remain a fundamental, from that of the social scientist. A. Singham's work furnishes an opportunity to reflect on these considerations.
Pre-Dispositional Data, Role of Counsel and Decisions in a Juvenile Court
Authors: Zenoff Ferster Elyce , Courtless Thomas F.
Published: June 2006

Two separate questions must be answered when a child is charged with delinquency. The first is whether he has committed the alleged act. If the child is found to be delinquent, the second question is what action the court should take to correct the child's delinquency. Both questions may be considered in a single hearing or they may be separated and determined in two hearings.
Functional Psychosis and Witchcraft Fears: Excuses to Criminal Responsibility in East Africa
Authors: Kato Lutapimwa L.
Published: June 2006

The belief that serious or acute mental problems are only prevalent in urbanized and technologically advanced societies and absent in preindustrial, largely rural, African societies is an exaggeration (Milner, 1966). Mental disorder, however, is not a major concern of East African legal systems. The social fabric in East African societies is still closely knit and thus provides ways to treat or take care of the deviants. Large-scale industrial development, which enhances the likelihood of behavioral aberrations in the industrialized societies of Europe and America, has not yet taken place, and thus the peasants of East Africa have been spared its ill effects.
Stephen J. Field and Public Land Law Development in California, 1850-1866: A Case Study of Judicial Resource Allocation in Nineteenth-Century America
Authors: McCurdy Charles W.
Published: June 2006

The landmarks of California resource law were laid down within the turbulent context of “the stampede of 1849 and subsequent years.” From all over the world men came to seek fortune in that “glorious country,” fully expecting government “to use its resources positively to enlarge their opportunities.” But federal policy was in a state of flux when gold was discovered on the public domain. Before 1846 mineral lands had been reserved from sale or pre-emption; federal authorities had attempted simultaneously to expedite development and to raise revenue through a complex set of leasing and regulatory arrangements with private firms. Several factors had impeded effective administration of the program, however, and in 1846 lead, copper, and iron lands had become subject to public sale. The discovery of gold in California, then, found the federal government without an applicable policy and “at a loss for knowledge as how to act.” Public sale of gold-bearing tracts was impossible, given the time necessary for survey and classification. A handful of federal officials did submit—and even tried to secretly impose— various plans for reviving some form of federal intervention. But Californians made it clear that they would stubbornly resist any program likely to forestall rapid exploitation of the public domain, and widespread recognition of the difficulties inherent in administering any policy that would conflict with local interests led to congressional unwillingness to take any action until 1866. In the interim, the State of California deemed it advantageous to take the situation “precisely as it finds it…. It looks to the fact that the General Government permits [miners] to trespass on the public domain without complaint … [and] the State is not the steward, nor bailiff, of the General Government, having in charge the protection of the public property.?
Price and Prejudice: A Variance Components Analysis of Some Causes and Consequences of Regulating Chicago Storefront Banks
Authors: Berk Richard A. , Poolman Robert , Oppenheim Jerrold
Published: June 2006

The impact of government regulations on the functioning of markets is currently a topic of lively debate. In this paper we examine the effects of legislative and administrative regulations on the market for services provided by Chicago currency exchanges. Our findings suggest that the regulations stifle competition, with the result that the opportunity to extract excessive profits exists. And since currency exchanges tend to be concentrated in poorer neighborhoods with higher proportions of minority residents, the burdens of market inefficiencies fall on those individuals who can least afford them.
Dworkin, Hart, and the Problem of Theoretical Perspective
Authors: Mandel Michael
Published: June 2006

The following article analyzes the dispute between legal philosophers Ronald Dworkin and H.L.A. Hart over the nature of legal rights. The author argues that central to this dispute is a pervasive methodological problem of social theory, the “problem of theoretical perspective.” He makes use of a distinction between “internal” and “external” perspectives to defend what he conceives to be Hart's more fully social approach to the conceptualization of legal rights.
Evaluating the Competence of Lawyers
Authors: Rosenthal Douglas E.
Published: June 2006

The title states the article's subject: the problems and possibilities of evaluating the competence of lawyers. It attempts to: (1) survey what has been written about the subject, commenting on the strengths and limitations of alternative approaches; (2) suggest those activities of lawyers which most influence the effectiveness of their performance and what competence means as to them; (3) indicate what are the principal problems inhibiting better performance evaluations and some ways to try to deal with these problems; and (4) propose some research tasks which may improve our capability as systematic and relatively objective evaluators.

The literature exhibits approximately five approaches to evaluating lawyer competence. Two are indirect: (1) measurement of competence by a lawyer's training and/or his or her performance on a certification examination and (2) assessment based upon a lawyer's status or reputation. These approaches are of limited value where, as in most present instances, there is no proven relationship between such measures and actual competent performance. The other three approaches focus on performance. The first judges performance in terms of successful and unsuccessful outcomes in advocacy. The second judges performance in terms of the avoidance of negligence. The third involves a more systematic and detailed evaluation of the ways lawyers carry out certain activities central to the services they offer. The article suggests how this last approach can be most effectively developed. In spite of the formidable problems raised by attempts to evaluate lawyers, the author is optimistic that such evaluation is possible and can be productive.
Studying American Legal Culture: An Assessment of Survey Evidence
Authors: Sarat Austin
Published: June 2006

This paper argues that American legal culture, specifically the complex of public attitudes toward our major legal institutions and values, is truly democratic. The most persistent, although often unexplained, theme in that complex of attitudes is the demand for equal treatment. Americans endorse the ideals of equal treatment and believe that the most glaring defect of the present legal system is its failure to provide such treatment. Yet, as de Tocqueville noted, our ideas of equality are often incomplete; the demand for equal treatment appears to be a demand for equality between oneself and those now accorded preferential treatment rather than a demand that those less favored be treated as well as oneself. Evidence in support of the argument is gathered from survey studies of public attitudes toward the police, lawyers, and courts as well as of their attitudes toward crime, punishment, and civil liberties.
Plea Bargains, Concessions and the Courts: Analysis of a Quasi-experiment
Authors: Church Thomas
Published: June 2006

National debate over the predominance of plea bargaining in the administration of criminal justice in America has become increasingly strident over the past several years. Positions range from the almost unqualified endorsement of plea bargaining practices by no less an authority than the Chief Justice of the United States, through the American Bar Association's (1963) typically moderate proposal for improving procedural safeguards, to the recommendation of total abolition of the practice by the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals (1973). Because of a dearth of hard data concerning the effects of plea bargaining on the criminal justice system, debate over the proposals has tended to produce more heat than light. In the trenchant understatement of one surveyer of the subject, “[s]uch recommendations suffer from insufficient empirical grounding and could benefit from further research on plea bargaining” (Mulkey, 1974: 54).
An Impact Analysis of Judge-Made Products Liability Policies
Authors: Croyle James L.
Published: June 2006

This paper assesses the impact of changes in products liability law by measuring liability insurance expenditures. Expenditure for liability insurance premiums is used as an index of resource redistribution from sellers of defective products to individuals who have been harmed by such products. Using multiple regression, comparative state data are analyzed for the period immediately prior to the enactment of the Consumer Products Safety Act in 1972, when doctrines concerning manufacturers' liability for defective products were changing in the direction of stricter negligence standards and thus greater liability for the manufacturer. Three types of products liability policies were in effect among the 50 states at that time. They were strict liability in tort, negligence plus warranty with no privity requirement, and negligence plus warranty with privity of contract required. Data from states with strict liability policies are compared with data from states where the negligence plus warranty standards were used. In states where manufacturers were subject to greater liability for defective products, more money was spent on liability insurance. This example from one area of tort law shows that common law decisions can have important social effects, and suggests a method for measuring those effects.
The American Law of Slavery, 1810-1860 a Study in the Persistence of Legal Autonomy
Authors: Tushnet Mark
Published: June 2006

In 1821 the Mississippi Supreme Court held that a white person could be indicted for the common law crime of murder when the victim was a slave:

Because individuals may have been deprived of many of their rights by society, it does not follow, that they have been deprived of all their rights.

In some respects, slaves may be considered as chattels, but in others, they are regarded as men. The law views them as capable of committing crimes. This can only be upon the principle, that they are men and rational beings.
Institutions of Representation: Civil Justice and the Public
Authors: Mayhew Leon H.
Published: June 2006

Discussion of the distribution and delivery of legal services usually turns on the problem of civil justice for the poor. Our attention is so dominated by the problems of distributive justice for the poor that we ignore the more general problem of civil justice for the public.

In Western society the primary function of law has been the protection and regulation of property. Indeed, the earliest liberal conceptions of public life are founded on the premise that men gave up an utterly private life in order to enjoy the utilities provided by public protection for their persons and, even more important, the fruits of their labors—in Locke's (1689: Art. 123) phrase, "their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name property." In the earliest liberal tradition, the holding of property is the foundation for participation in public life; accordingly, the principal end of the civil law is the definition and protection of property rights.
The Newspaper Ombudsman and Consumer Complaints: An Empirical Assessment
Authors: Hannigan John A.
Published: June 2006

This paper reports the results of a survey of 282 clients of Sound Off, a Canadian newspaper ombudsman. The data suggest that the newspaper ombudsman works best as a communication “facilitator” but is less effective as a dispute “mediator.” Furthermore, this service was found to be of least benefit to the socially advantaged who appear to use it to pursue more difficult problems. Nevertheless, 73 percent of the respondents indicated that they would use this “action line” service again if the need arose.
Rule Departures and Making Law: Juries and their Verdicts
Authors: Myers Martha A.
Published: June 2006

This study addresses the issue of rule departures and law-making activity by juries adjudicating guilt in felony cases. Analysis of data from a sample of jury trials suggests considerable conformity to rules. That is, jury verdicts are influenced by evidence of the defendant's guilt and credibility as a witness. Rule departures appear to be limited. They reflect a concern not only with the defendant per se, but also with his choice of a victim and with the seriousness of the prosecution charge against him. The findings suggest that, as actually performed, the jury role is neither clerklike nor discretionary. Rather, it conforms more closely to Kadish and Kadish's (1973) notion of a recourse role, where rule departures occur only under certain circumstances.
Appeal
Authors: Shapiro Martin
Published: June 2006

This article is a survey of the literature on appeal, emphasizing its significance for political regimes rather than for individual litigants.
Federalism and Legal Process: Historical and Contemporary Analysis of the American System
Authors: Scheiber Harry N.
Published: June 2006

Whether federalism is more than a legal fiction is a question that generates considerable controversy among scholars in law and the social sciences. Historians of nineteenth-century American federalism have differed about the workings of the federal system in the era characterized as “dual federalism.” This article provides an analysis of these controversies and offers a theoretical position on the problem of real power under federalism. The historical literature, it is argued, provides legal scholars and social scientists with abundant data on the reach, diversity, and effects of governmental action in the different historical epochs of American federalism. The relationship of federalism in the United States to political freedom, governmental performance and efficiency, and the formation of public policy all receive attention.
Law and Development in the Light of Dependency Theory
Authors: Snyder Francis G.
Published: June 2006

Post-World War II theories of modernization, including theories of law and development, have proved inadequate either to explain development and underdevelopment or to make a substantial contribution to our understanding of the role of law in underdeveloped countries. To what extent do contemporary ideas of underdevelopment and dependency in the social sciences provide the foundation for a theoretical renewal in the comparative sociology of law? To answer this question, the paper first examines the origins of these ideas and discusses the methods, presuppositions, and concepts of the principal theoretical writings on underdevelopment and dependency. It then considers two important issues raised by these writings and addressed by a number of recent studies: the relation between the state and classes, and the relationship of peasants to capitalism. This review concludes that theories of underdevelopment and dependency contribute to the reorientation of social research on law by forcing a reappraisal of previous ideologies and proposing new frameworks of analysis. But it also argues that such a reorientation must ultimately transcend those concepts by participating in the elaboration of Marxist theories of law.
The Influence of Income and Other Factors on Whether Criminal Defendants go to Prison
Authors: Clarke Stevens H. , Koch Gary G.
Published: June 2006

The experiences of 798 burglary and larceny defendants in the criminal courts of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, in 1971 were studied to identify the factors having the greatest influence on the defendant's likelihood of emerging from court with an active prison sentence. The following variables were found to have a significant effect, listed in order of importance: (1) severity of offense (defined in terms of value of property taken and degree of skill required)—positive effect; (2) defendant's income—negative effect; (3) prior arrest record—positive effect; (4) strength of case against defendant as determined by promptness of arrest—positive effect. The influence of the defendant's sex could not be measured because there were too few females in the sample. Race, age, and employment were found to be of little or no importance. The four most important variables had a generally additive effect on prison probability.

Further analysis showed that the defendant's income affected not whether he was convicted of an offense, but the likelihood of going to prison after conviction. Most of this effect could be explained by the low-income defendant's poorer opportunity for pretrial release and greater likelihood of having a court-appointed rather than privately retained attorney. This suggests that the apparent disadvantage of the low-income defendant could be overcome by improvement of pretrial release and defense service.

The study's implications with regard to sentencing procedures are discussed. Judges' wide latitude in imposing sentence may enable the defendant's income to exert the large influence that it apparently does, but narrowing judicial discretion may not reduce the effect of income if present plea bargaining practices continue.
Political Leadership and Legal Change in Zinacantan
Authors: Collier Jane F.
Published: June 2006

This paper analyzes the role of local political leaders in channeling the impact of national development programs on the processes of dispute handling in Zinacantan, a Maya Indian community in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. Although the development programs have caused individual Zinacantecos to become more aware of the benefits they might obtain by appealing to remedy agents outside of the Indian community, few cases are taken to Mexican authorities because Indian leaders, who have a vested interest in handling the disputes of constituents, have sought to preserve the popularity of traditional conciliatory procedures by altering the types of settlements they suggest to disputants. As a result, traditional conciliatory procedures are flourishing, but the substance of the settlements reached through such procedures has begun to change toward conformity with codified state and national laws where those laws conflict with traditional Indian custom.
The Partial Juror: Correlates and Causes of Prejudgment
Authors: Costantini Edmond , King Joel
Published: June 2006

Data from two 1979 potential juror surveys concerning three criminal cases in Yolo County, California, form the basis for an analysis of opinions indicative of prejudgment in those cases. Strong bivariate relationships are demonstrated between knowledge about a specific case, general attitudes on crime, gender, and education level, on the one hand, and two measures of propensity to prejudge a defendant's guilt, on the other. Further, multivariate discriminant function analysis is used to show that these four independent variables taken together are able to produce significant increases in the ability to make predictions of prejudging opinions on the part of the respondents and that knowledge about a specific case is by far the most important variable in determining such predictions.
Corporate Homicide: Definitional Processes in the Creation of Deviance
Authors: Swigert Victoria Lynn , Farrell Ronald A.
Published: June 2006

A conception of corporate behavior as criminal has entered the scientific and popular vocabulary. This has been accompanied by an expansion of common law to include the activities of corporations. The definitional change is exemplified by the indictment and trial of Ford Motor Company on charges of reckless homicide. The present work focuses on the history of events surrounding this precedent action. Using information from media accounts, it explores the definitional processes by which the world's second largest automobile manufacturer was indicted as criminal. Content analysis of these reports suggests that the expansion of legal parameters to include formerly exempt behavior was preceded by the development of a vocabulary of deviance, personalization of harm, and attributions of nonrepentance to the offender. Public reevaluation of corporate actors and actions in terms of a vocabulary previously reserved for conventional criminality, the transformation of the definition from one of product defect and diffuse consumer cost to one of personal injury, and depiction of the corporation as refusing to recognize the harms associated with its acts, it is argued, opened the way to the application of criminal statutes.
Complaint as a Problem-Solving Mechanism
Authors: Ross H. Laurence , Littlefield Neil O.
Published: June 2006

When consumers experience problems with purchases the most frequent mechanism for their solution is complaint to the seller. This case study describes and attempts to evaluate the working of the complaint mechanism in handling the problems of purchasers of selected household appliances. The complaint mechanism was found to be commonly used and effective in handling matters defined by consumers as problematic, and consumers often seemed to obtain more generous concessions than the law required of the seller. The latter's response was liberal because management defined generous dealing with customers as consonant with long-run commercial interest, and because staff experienced both official and unofficial pressures to grant customers' requests.
Socialization Effects of Professional School: The Law School Experience and Student Orientations to Public Interest Concerns
Authors: Erlanger Howard S. , Klegon Douglas A.
Published: June 2006

While undergoing training in professional school, students are assumed to experience attitude change, internalizing the norms of their future profession. In law school this change is thought to be particularly conservative, reflecting a business orientation and a minimal concern with pro bono and social reform work. This paper examines these assumptions by presenting data from a panel study of students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. Although some changes in attitudes are found, they are much smaller than suggested by recent critical literature on legal education. These findings lead to the proposal of a research agenda that stresses the contribution of the job market as well as that of education in fostering a traditional orientation toward the role of lawyers and the law.
A Study of Admitted Income Tax Evasion
Authors: Mason Robert , Calvin Lyle D.
Published: June 2006

A sample survey of 800 Oregon adults showed that nearly one in four admit they practice evasion. Higher percentages were found for people who were young, with low income, male, and who believed their chance of getting caught was low. Occupational prestige and belief that the tax system is unfair were unrelated to noncompliance. Differential opportunities to practice evasion is a promising explanation, and the deterrent effect of penalties seems uncertain. The evidence suggests conceptualizing tax evasion as a white-collar crime by the nature of the violation and not by the characteristics of the offender.
Plea Contracts in West Germany
Authors: Felstiner William L. F.
Published: June 2006

Many routine criminal cases in central Europe are concluded by an abbreviated process known as the penal order. The penal order is a written proposal by the state to a defendant stipulating the crime committed and the penalty to be levied if the defendant does not object. This paper describes the West German version of the penal order and argues that it avoids some of the negative practices allegedly inherent in American plea bargaining.
From Plea Negotiation to Coercive Justice: Notes on the Respecification of a Concept
Authors: McDonald William F.
Published: June 2006

Because the literature on plea bargaining disagrees about a definition of the concept, many differences in findings and opinions are more semantic than substantive. The concept of plea bargaining should not be restricted to either pleas or bargains. The fundamental phenomenon is the state's use of coercion to obtain the legal grounds for imposing a penalty.
Mandatory Sentencing and the Abolition of Plea Bargaining: The Michigan Felony Firearm Statute
Authors: Heumann Milton , Loftin Colin
Published: June 2006

Increasing concern about the substantial discretion accorded prosecutors in plea negotiations and judges in sentencing decisions has led to a number of proposals to curtail both. In this paper, we assess the consequences of an attempt, simultaneously, to abolish plea bargaining and introduce mandatory sentencing. The Wayne County (Detroit) Prosecutor prohibited his subordinates from plea bargaining in any case in which a recently enacted state statute warranted a mandatory sentence. This statute imposed an additional two-year prison term if a defendant possessed a firearm while committing a felony. Using qualitative data collected from interviews with judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys, and quantitative disposition data for the six-month periods before and after the law went into effect, we describe the effects of the new statute on dispositions in Detroit. Though there is some evidence that the law and the prohibition on plea bargaining may have selectively increased severity of sentences for certain classes of defendants, for the most part disposition patterns did not appear to have been altered dramatically. In many serious cases, sentences for the primary felony were adjusted downward to take into account the additional two-year penalty; in “equity” cases, in which defendants had not previously received prison time, other mechanisms, such as abbreviated bench trials, were often employed to circumvent the mandatory sentencing provision.
Crime Rates, Sanction Levels, and Constraints on Prison Population
Authors: Nagin Daniel
Published: June 2006

In recent years there has been an accumulation of analyses showing a negative association between crime rates and various measures of criminal sanctions, which have been widely interpreted as evidence of the deterrent effect of sanctions (see Tullock, 1974; Tittle, 1973; van den Haag, 1975). In this paper, results are presented that are in conflict with such an interpretation. For the sanction of imprisonment (time served in prison and the risk of imprisonment given commission of a crime), the analysis indicates that the negative association is more readily interpreted as a negative effect of crime rates on sanction levels rather than its reverse—a deterrent effect.
For Jurisprudential Sociology
Authors: Nonet Philippe
Published: June 2006

Ten years ago, in the first issue of this review, Carl A. Auerbach criticized some early statements of an emerging “Berkeley perspective” in the sociology of law (Auerbach, 1966). Selznick, Skolnick, Carlin, and I were chided for proposing in various terms that a central concern of the sociology of law should be to study the social foundations of the ideal of legality (Selznick, 1961; 1968; Skolnick, 1965; Carlin and Nonet, 1968).
Organizations, Decisions, and Courts
Authors: Mohr Lawrence B.
Published: June 2006

Courts are supposed in common law countries to operate by adversary adjudication. Until a few years ago I, for one, thought that they did. Apart from radio, TV, and the movies, which reinforce this symbol with all their might, my only exposure to courts was as a juror in a case of the alleged theft of one used automobile battery. We deliberated long and found the defendant (who was surely guilty of something!) to be not guilty. I took for granted that my experience was an example of typical practice. It never occurred to me to reflect upon the size of the taxpayers' bill if there were to be a trial of this sort for every crime of this magnitude. Nor did I suspect that I could be witnessing an exception rather than the rule, the exception being a jury trial, since my only contact with a court was in the capacity of juror.
Sentencing of Convicted Offenders: An Analysis of the Public's View
Authors: Blumstein Alfred , Cohen Jacqueline
Published: June 2006

The results of a survey of public attitudes about appropriate length of prison sentences for convicted offenders are reported. Two main questions are addressed: 1) degree of consensus within the population about appropriate sentences for different offenses and 2) the relationship between the desired sentences expressed by the public and the actual time served by offenders in prison. The analysis suggests considerable agreement across various demographic groups on the relative severity of sentences to be imposed for different offenses, but disagreement over the absolute magnitude of these sentences. These results suggest the feasibility of generating consensus on a proportional, just deserts sentencing schedule, but difficulty in establishing the “constant of proportionality.” The sentences desired by the public are found to be consistently more severe than sentences actually imposed, suggesting the need for greater public awareness of current imprisonment practices so that expectations of the determinate sentencing schedules will be realistic and consistent with limited prison capacity.
The Context of Public Bureaucracies: An Organizational Analysis of Federal District Courts
Authors: Heydebrand Wolf V.
Published: June 2006

An organizational approach to the study of dispositions in United States District Courts is outlined, focusing on the pressures created by the combination of an increasing demand for service together with a relative decline in resources. The functions of courts are identified as adjudication, judicial administration, and policymaking. After stating some of the general theoretical issues involved in the approach taken here, courts are described in terms of the following organizational characteristics: (1) they are networks of organized activities with a mixed collegial and bureaucratic authority structure, as well as informal political processes of coordination, (2) heteronomous, (3) a labor-intensive professional service, (4) a branch of government, (5) nonspecialized, (6) passive, (7) vertically and horizontally interrelated with other organizations, (8) whose tasks are influenced by the demographic, economic, and legalgovernmental characteristics of the jurisdictional environment

Theoretically, the output of courts (e.g., the volume and nature of dispositions) is seen as determined by the environmental profile and the complexity of the task structure, with fiscal resources and organizational structure as intervening variables. These major organizational dimensions and variables are illustrated with data on the six District Courts of the Second Circuit.

A preliminary statistical analysis presents the effects of the jurisdictional environment on various types of filings in all United States District Courts in 1950, 1960, and 1973. The results confirm one aspect of the historically increasing involvement of government in the economy and society, namely, that which is mediated by the federal courts. The increasing governmental presence is shown in civil litigation involving the United States government as defendant and plaintiff, as well as in the contextual effects on filings of governmental agencies at the federal, state, and local levels.

The paper concludes with a brief discussion of three types of responses to the current crisis of the judiciary: the judicial response, emanating from the law-finding and adjudicatory role of courts; the bureaucratic response, reflecting the progressive transformation of adjudication into administration; and the technocratic response, emerging as a synthesis of adjudication and administration and stressing the policy-making function of courts within the context of the modern American politieal economy.
Donald Black's Sociology of Law: A Critique
Authors: Greenberg David F.
Published: June 2006

The paper examines the theoretical and empirical adequacy of Donald Black's (1976) The Behavior of Law. The work is found to be logically incoherent and its operationalization of variables problematic. The evidence that bears on its propositions does not consistently support them.
Severity of Societal Response to Crime: A Synthesis of Models
Authors: Green Penny A. , Allen H. David
Published: June 2006

This paper reviews three bodies of research which relate to the severity of societal response to crime: studies of social complexity, of punitive reaction to high rates of deviance, and of the ability of the justice system to control criminal activity. We present a model aimed at integrating these findings and accounting for some of the inconsistent results among them. We contend that while normative diversity, on the whole, tends to lessen the severity of response, this tendency may be counteracted by an increased rate of deviance and a decreased certainty of punishment—also products of social complexity.
Regulating Contradictions: The Australian Press Council and the “Dispersal of Social Control”
Authors: O'Malley Pat
Published: June 2006

The history of the Australian Press Council presents an opportunity to examine the thesis that advanced capitalist states are systematically resorting to dispersed forms of social control. While the council appears to conform to the specifications of a “dispersed agency,” it appears largely to be unintelligible in such terms. While representing some aspects of a social control institution, it is better comprehended in terms of the contradictory characteristics of the social field in which it is located, rather than in terms of a broad strategy of state expansion. The dispersal model should be recast to take account of such variations and to recognize the extent to which social fields may generate their own forms of institutionalized control, which bear a highly problematic relation to state regulation.
The Paradoxical Impact of Criminal Sanctions: Some Microstructural Findings
Authors: Ekland-Olson Sheldon , Lieb John , Zurcher Louis
Published: June 2006

Field data from a longitudinal study of drug dealing reveal the importance of interpersonal networks in determining the impact of criminal sanctions. The level of perceived sanction severity was in large measure dependent on the degree of disruption created in interpersonal relations and on the resilience of these relations in adapting to the sanctioning process. Perceived certainty of sanctions was likewise dependent on characteristics of interpersonal interactions. Perceived certainty and severity of sanctions combined to define the level of fear. Sanction-induced fear increased network density and closure. These network properties were largely responsible for the paradoxical impact of sanctions. The relevance of these findings for deterrence research is noted throughout.
Individual Differences in Judicial Behavior: Personal Characteristics and Private Law Decision-Making
Authors: Van Koppen Peter J. , Kate Jan Ten
Published: June 2006

Previous research suggests that differences in judicial decisions stem from differences in personal characteristics of the decision-maker. Dutch private law proceedings permit a research approach in which the judicial decision-making task is simulated by presenting written decisional problems to judges. Judges (N=114) made decisions on the same nine cases and completed questionnaires on role conceptions and personality.

Findings suggest that judicial decisions are only moderately influenced by the personal characteristics of the judges. The judges, however, differed considerably in their decisions. Neither the influence of personal characteristics of the judges nor the characteristics of the cases can explain to a substantial extent the differences in the decisions. It was concluded that judicial decisions stem from an interaction of personal and case characteristics.
The Poverty of Evolutionism: A Critique of Teubner's Case for “Reflexive Law”
Authors: Blankenburg Erhard
Published: June 2006

The concept of “reflexive law” contains two mutually contradictory elements: a doctrine of legal restraint and the notion that restraint can be achieved by procedural rather than substantive regulation. This critique argues that new procedures have historically not replaced substantive regulation but instead have repeatedly introduced more substantive and more formal regulations. Teubner's thesis that “reflexive law” manifests an “evolutionary tendency” is refuted, just as is the claim that his thesis could be inferred from sociological theories such as those of Luhmann or Habermas. As is so often the case in legal theory, “evolutionism” is used as a mask for the legitimation of presumably “progressive” legal ideas.
The Transformation of the American Legal Profession
Authors: Abel Richard L.
Published: June 2006

Professions are historically specific institutions for organizing the production and distribution of services. American lawyers constructed the contemporary legal profession between the 1870s and the 1950s by forming local, state, and national bar associations through which they sought, with considerable success, to control the production of and by producers of legal services. In the last two decades, these structures of control have significantly eroded. Lawyers exerted no restraint over the threefold increase in law students since the early 1960s or the changes in the composition of that student body. Restrictive practices taken for granted for half a century have been summarily eliminated by judicial decisions and executive action. To the extent that lawyers have responded by seeking to create new demand, they run the risk of intensifying competition, becoming more dependent on the state, and organizing hitherto atomistic consumers into collectivities that can challenge professional dominance. The image of the profession as a homogeneous collection of independent practitioners is harder to maintain. The proportion of employees is growing, solo practitioners are declining in the face of a hostile economic environment, and units of production are growing in size and becoming more bureaucratic. Divisions of race, gender, age, and class, superimposed over the differentiation of lawyers among structures of practice and the stratification of private practice into two hemispheres, make professional unity increasingly problematic. For similar reasons, self-regulation is being undermined from within while it is challenged from without. These cumulative transformations demand that we reconsider whether it is useful to continue thinking of the practice of law as a profession.
A Comparative Perspective on Legal Professions in the 1980s
Authors: Lewis P.S.C.
Published: June 2006

The scale of the quantitative changes in the legal profession of the United States described by Curran seems to be not unusual in the Western industrialized world. Many countries have similarly experienced large increases in the absolute number of lawyers, the ratio of lawyers to population, and the proportions of comparatively young and inexperienced lawyers and women lawyers. Nevertheless, the United States remains unusual in its high proportion of lawyers in private practice.
Rule-Centrism Versus Legal Creativity: The Skewing of Legal Ideology Through Language
Authors: Weissbourd Bernard , Mertz Elizabeth
Published: June 2006

This paper takes as an example of Anglo-American legal ideology the work of legal philosopher H.L.A. Hart, analyzing it in light of current linguistic theories. Linguists have proposed that ideological reflection can be affected in particular ways by the structure of the language used to convey it. We find that Hart's theory, with its emphasis on decontextualized rules and prerequisite conditions, fits the linguistic predictions. The paper concludes with the suggestion that the effect of language structure on cultural and/or legal ideologies is, however, socially and culturally circumscribed.
Lawyers and the Structure of Influence in Washington
Authors: Nelson Robert L. , Heinz John P. , Laumann Edward O. , Salisbury Robert H.
Published: June 2006

Despite the widespread perception that lawyers exercise considerable influence over national policy making in the United States, their participation in the process has previously received little systematic empirical analysis. Based on a variety of evidence gathered in interviews with more than eight hundred Washington representatives, including data on their work, careers, contacts with government agencies, networks of acquaintance, and relationships with clients, we argue that lawyers are not as prevalent, active, or influential in national policy making as the popular image suggests. Rather, the findings indicate that lawyers occupy a relatively specialized niche in the system of interest representation, one that allows them to command substantial economic rewards and to maintain a measure of independence and autonomy in their work, but that limits their influence in policy formation.
The Oven Bird's Song: Insiders, Outsiders, and Personal Injuries in an American Community
Authors: Engel David M.
Published: June 2006

In “Sander County” Illinois, concerns about litigiousness in the local population tended to focus on personal injury suits, although such cases were very rarely brought. This article explores the roots of these concerns in the ideology of the rural community and in the reactions of many residents to social, cultural, and economic changes that created a pervasive sense of social disintegration and loss. Personal injury claims are contrasted with contract actions, which were far more numerous yet were generally viewed with approval and did not give rise to perceptions of litigiousness or greed. The distinction is explained in terms of changing conceptions of the community itself and in terms of the problematic relationships between “insiders” and “outsiders” in Sander County.
The Road Not Taken: The Elusive Path to Criminal Prosecution for White-Collar Offenders
Authors: Shapiro Susan P.
Published: June 2006

In the control of stock fraud, criminal prosecution is the road not taken: only six of every hundred parties investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission ultimately stand in judgment before a criminal court. This paper examines the role of criminal prosecution in controlling securities violations. It traces the SEC enforcement process in which most stock swindlers are diverted from criminal prosecution and treated civilly or administratively or spared legal action entirely. It finds that the criminal process attracts the most significant offenses, but also those about which little else can be done. In this light, the paper reconsiders the controversial finding that upper status white-collar offenders fare no better and often worse than their lower status counterparts at criminal sentencing. It finds a double standard, but one with some surprising implications.
Bartering Rationality in Regulation
Authors: Winter Gerd
Published: June 2006

Legal powers given to administrative agencies are frequently used as bargaining chips in negotiations between government and business. This paper develops a typology that helps to explain the empirical variety of such bartering. Inquiring into the historical development of bartering, the article shows that what is new is not the practice of but the discourse about bartering. The discourse legitimates bartering with legal powers. This, in turn, will reshape practice, affecting the bargaining positions of the parties, the mode of law-making, the role of third parties and the public, and the potential of the law to induce social change.
Police Arrests in Domestic Disturbances: A Further Look
Authors: Worden Robert E. , Pollitz Alissa A.
Published: June 2006

This study is a reexamination of the effect of situational characteristics on police arrests in domestic disturbances. Using observational data, we replicate recent research based upon official police reports. We also consider the implications of variables not available in the earlier study, especially the role orientation of the intervening officer. The results support the previous finding that the arrest decision turns on situational cues, but it suggests that the salience of such factors differs for officers whose role orientations differ.
The Emergence and Decline of the Cuban Popular Tribunals
Authors: Salas Luis
Published: June 2006

Cuban popular courts have been a subject of widespread interest among Western scholars. This paper analyzes the factors which led to the development of this judicial experiment as well as the reasons for its demise. The success or failure of this experiment was closely tied to long-term economic and political goals of the Cuban government, which eventually came to require an institutionalized bureaucratic cadre to operate its judicial system. This shift doomed the popular courts and led to the emergence of the legal profession as one of the most influential groups within Cuban society.