Are judicial rulings based solely on laws and facts? Legal formalism holds that judges apply legal reasons to the facts of a case in a rational, mechanical, and deliberative manner. In contrast, legal realists argue that the rational application of legal reasons does not sufficiently explain the decisions of judges and that psychological, political, and social factors influence judicial rulings. We test the common caricature of realism that justice is “what the judge ate for breakfast” in sequential parole decisions made by experienced judges. We record the judges’ two daily food breaks, which result in segmenting the deliberations of the day into three distinct “decision sessions.” We find that the percentage of favorable rulings drops gradually from ≈65% to nearly zero within each decision session and returns abruptly to ≈65% after a break. Our findings suggest that judicial rulings can be swayed by extraneous variables that should have no bearing on legal decisions.

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Extraneous factors in judicial decisions

Since the late 1940s, economic considerations relating to the globalisation of world markets have led an ever larger group of Western European countries to unite in the quest for a supra-national legal order which, in time, generated the European Community. Most of these countries' legal orders claim allegiance to what anglophones are fond of labelling the “civli law” tradition,1 although two common law jurisdictions joined the Community in the early 1970s. The European Community's early decision to promote economic integration (and, later, other types of integration) through harmonisation or unification has involved, at both Community and national levels (for the implementation of Community rules in the member States carries the adoption of national rules in all member States), a process of relentless “juridification”; law, in the guise of legislatively or judicially enacted rules, has assumed the role of a “steering medium”.2 This development was foreseeable: once the interaction among European legal systems had acted as a catalyst for the creation of a supra-system,3 the need to achieve reciprocal compatibility between the infra-systems and the supra-system naturally fostered the development of an extended network of interconnections (such as regulations and directives) which eventually raised the question of further legal integration in the form of a common law of Europe.4

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0020589300058656

European Legal Systems are not Converging

The nature of harm—and therefore moral judgment—may be misunderstood Rather than an objective matter of reason, we argue that harm should be redefined as an intuitively perceived continuum This r

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1088868317698288

The Theory of Dyadic Morality: Reinventing Moral Judgment by Redefining Harm:

We construct the complete network of 26,681 majority opinions written by the U.S. Supreme Court and the cases that cite them from 1791 to 2005. We describe a method for using the patterns in citations within and across cases to create importance scores that identify the most legally relevant precedents in the network of Supreme Court law at any given point in time. Our measures are superior to existing network-based alternatives and, for example, offer information regarding case importance not evident in simple citation counts. We also demonstrate the validity of our measures by showing that they are strongly correlated with the future citation behavior of state courts, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. In so doing, we show that network analysis is a viable way of measuring how central a case is to law at the Court and suggest that it can be used to measure other legal concepts.

/pdf/network-analysis-and-the-law-measuring-the-legal-importance-5eer3frb8i.pdf

Network Analysis and the Law: Measuring the Legal Importance of Precedents at the U.S. Supreme Court

Preface. What's in the Book. What's Not in the Book. Sixth Edition Revisions. Two Disclaimers. The Cast of Characters Acknowledgments. Chapter 1 Ethics in School Psychology: An Introduction. Quality Control in School Psychology. What and Why of Professional Ethics. Ethics Training and Competencies. Codes of Ethics. Four Broad Ethical Principles. Ethical and Legal Decision Making. Unethical Conduct. Concluding Comments. Study and Discussion. Chapter 2 Law and School Psychology: An Introduction. The U.S. Constitution. Statutes and Regulations. Case Law. Summary. Credentialing of School Psychologists. Civil Lawsuits against Schools and School Psychologists. Concluding Comments. Study and Discussion. Chapter 3 Privacy, Informed Consent, Confidentiality, and Record Keeping. Privacy. Informed Consent to Establish a School Psychologist-Client Relationship. Confidentiality. Privileged Communication. Record Keeping in the Schools. Concluding Comments. Study and Discussion. Chapter 4 Ethical-Legal Issues in the Education of Pupils with Disabilities under IDEA. Education of Children with Disabilities: A Historical Perspective. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities. Concluding Comments. Study and Discussion. Chapter 5 Section 504 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Section 504. Americans with Disabilities Act. Concluding Comments. Study and Discussion. Chapter 6 Ethical and Legal Issues in Psychoeducational Assessment. Testing versus Assessment. Pre-assessment Responsibilities. Assessment Planning. Information Gathering. Assessment Interpretation. Nonbiased Assessment. Personality Assessment. Professional Competence and Autonomy. Computers in Psychoeducational Assessment. Concluding Comments. Study and Discussion. Chapter 7 Ethical and Legal Issues in School-based Interventions. Interventions for Students Who Require Academic and Behavioral Support to Succeed in General Education. Therapeutic Interventions within the Context of a School Psychologist-Client Relationship. Duty to Protect. Competence and Responsibility. Psychopharmacologic Interventions in the Schools. Concluding Comments. Study and Discussion. Chapter 8 Indirect Services I: Ethical-Legal Issues in Working with Teachers and Parents. Consultation with Teachers. Special Issues in Working with Parents. Concluding Comments. Study and Discussion. Chapter 9 Indirect Services II: Special Topics in Systems-Level Consultation. Student Proficiency Assessment Programs. School Entry and Grade Retention Decisions. Instructional Grouping. School Discipline. School Violence Prevention. Harassment and Discrimination. Other Pupils with Special Needs. Concluding Comments. Study and Discussion. Chapter 10 Research in the Schools: Ethical and Legal Issues. Competence, Responsibility, and Welfare of Participants. Exposure to Stress or Harm and Denial of Beneficial Treatment. Post-Data-Collection Responsibilities. Concealment and Deception. Confidentiality of Data. Research with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations. Scientific Misconduct. Concluding Comments. Study and Discussion. Chapter 11 Ethical and Legal Issues in Supervision. Professional Standards for Supervision. Professional Disclosure Statement and Individualized Learning Plan. Ethical Principles and Supervision. Liability Issues. Concluding Comments. Study and Discussion. Epilogue: Ethics, Law, and Advocacy. Advocacy and an Uncertain Legal Landscape. Developing an Ethical Practice. Concluding Comments. Appendix A NASP's Principles for Professional Ethics. Appendix B APA's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. References. Table of Cases. Table of Federal Legislation. Author Index. Subject Index.

Leonard J. Clegg

Papers

The common law