Showing papers on "Judicial opinion published in 1974"

Extra-Legal Attributes and Criminal Sentencing: An Assessment of a Sociological Viewpoint

Abstract: Obviously judicial decisions are not made uniformly. Decision are made according to a host of extra-legal factors, including the age of the offender, his race, and social class. Perhaps the most obvious Pxanple of jidicial discretion occurs in the handling of cases of peisonl from minority groups Negroes, in comparison to whites, are convicted with lesser evidence and sentenced to more severe pulnishments.

Formal Judicial Recruitment and State Supreme Court Decisions

Abstract: a system of selection within the state legislature, while still others utilize either a partisan or nonpartisan election. Finally, a movement has emerged in the past few decades which blends aspects of the election and appointment systems. Under the Missouri Plan, named for the state in which it was first adopted, the governor selects supreme court judges from a list of nominees compiled by a committee of legal and nonlegal community leaders. These appointed judges must subsequently run for reelection on their record at some specified time in the future and must continue to do so for the remainder of their

Policy Goals, Strategic Choice, and Majority Opinion Assignments in the U.S. Supreme Court: A Replication

Abstract: This research note is a replication of David W. Rohde's study entitled "Policy Goals, Strategic Choice and Majority Opinion Assignments in the U.S. Supreme Court." In the original, Rohde offered a theory of the assignment of majority opinions, the primary hypothesis of which held that the opinion assigner will assign the majority opinion to himself or to the Justice whose position is closest to his own on the issue in question. Using all civil liberties cases decided by the Warren Court as the data set, Rohde found the hypothesis to be supported in the aggregate,, across issue areas and across individual assignees. This replication is undertaken to determine whether Rohde's primary hypothesis is supported when tested in a different empirical universe. The data used to test the primary hypothesis in this report are all economics cases decided by the Warren Court from 1959 to 1969. In this study, unlike the original, the primary hypothesis is found not to be supported. This result is consistent whether following Rohde's replication precisely or using a methodological variation described in the text.

Judicial Decisions and Organizational Change in Public Schools

Abstract: Since the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education' in 1954 there has been a marked increase in the activity of individuals and groups committed to using the judicial process as an instrument of planned change in public school organizations. Student and teacher rights, curriculum, community involvement, finance, and classification of students by race, geography, and ability are some of the salient educational issues which continue to be tried in the courtroom. Many of these lawsuits against public schools are, in fact, designed to change the defendant school organization, not merely to establish and vindicate an individual plaintiffs rights. Organizations such as the Harvard Center for Law and Education and legal aid offices funded in part through the federal government have been established and operate for the specific purpose of bringing about reform in school organizations through litigation, as well as through research and legislation. Law reform units have been charged to select cases for litigation which, if successful, will have a significant impact on the lives of the poor and the community at large, particularly in the area of the individual's relation to governmental agencies.2 These test cases are designed to challenge and change some school policy, practice, or procedure which the plaintiff and his attorney believe to be wrong.

Communications research and the rule of law: An opportunity for access to judicial decision making

Abstract: This essay argues that students of communication should become more immediately involved in legal decision making by targeting behavioral research at topics under litigation and by pressing their studies as friends of the courts. The judiciary is the component of the American political system most receptive to institutional reform. Yet, communications research input is virtually non‐existent in at least two critical areas of First Amendment legal theory. The means whereby scholarship from our field can be brought to bear on the judiciary are easily attainable if the Supreme Court's long standing challenge is accepted.

The Authority of International Judicial Practice in Domestic Courts

Abstract: IT is probably no exaggeration to say that reliance on past decisions is a constant and fundamental feature in almost any orderly decisionmaking process. Whether this is done overtly or without reference to previous determinations of like or similar kind, a decision-maker will invariably find it useful to find out what others before him have thought and decided. Obviously the thoroughness of such an examination of past practice will, apart from purely subjective elements, vary greatly with the significance of the decision to be made and the availability of information. But there can be little doubt that the utilisation of past experience and its meaningful application to new circumstances is a key element to any stability or progress. The great importance attributed to judicial proceedings as a means for conflict settlement and the high degree of publicity that usually goes with it make courts of law particularly susceptible to this pressure for examining the past. Drawing on the experience of previous decisions moreover plays an important role in securing the necessary uniformity and stability of the law as well as contributing to its flexibility where past solutions are considered unsatisfactory or new circumstances call for new remedies. It may therefore seem odd that two of today's leading systems of law-the civil and the common law-have apparently taken such different courses in their treatment of past judicial decisions for the purpose of guiding a court of law in a subsequent case. Taken at their face-value the doctrine of binding precedent and the civil law principle of the judge's subjection only to the letter of the code seem to stand in marked contrast. As soon as one leaves the realm

Some Reflections on the State Taxation of a Nonresident's Personal Income

Abstract: THE doctrinal ferment that permeated the constitutional law of state taxation in the 1930's1 evoked an impressive outpouring of scholarly commentary.2 Detailed consideration was given to questions of situs, domicile, and jurisdiction to tax;3 to distinctions between subject, rate, and measure;4 and to the nature of tangibles, intangibles, and income.5 Judicial opinions were dissected,6 legal fictions were discredited,7 and ameliorative proposals, theoretical and practical, were advanced.8 The Supreme Court signaled the end to much of this conceptual unrest and commentary by resolving many of the issues in definitive,9 if somewhat inequitable,l0 terms. With

The Prosecution View of Dental Evidence

Abstract: This paper deals firstly with some of the more obvious considerations facing the Crown in Scotland in the preparation of a criminal prosecution in which dental evidence is material—liaison between Police, Procurator Fiscal, Dental Experts and other expert witnesses and preparation of reports and statements. It then looks at the legal position of the assailant who is to be examined to afford dental data, in so far as that position is crucially affected by passing through different stages from initial suspicion to arrest. It reviews some of the significant judicial decisions on this topic and offers an assessment of recent trends, including drawing some conclusions from the famous Hay Case in 1968.