Showing papers on "Judicial opinion published in 1984"

The spiral of silence: Public opinion, our social skin

Abstract: In this work, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann examines public opinion as a form of social control in which individuals, almost instinctively sensing the opinions of those around them, shape their behaviour to prevailing attitudes about what is acceptable. For the second edition, Noelle-Neumann has added three new chapters: the first discusses new discoveries in the history of public opinion; the second continues the author's efforts to construct a comprehensive theory of public opinion, addressing criticisms and defences of her "spiral of silence" theory that have appeared since 1980; the third offers a concise and updated summary of the book's arguments.

Judicial Policies : Implementation and Impact

Abstract: Widely praised in its first edition fourteen years ago and now thoroughly updated in a new edition, "Judicial Policies" assesses the implementation, impact, and consequences of judicial rulings. It systematically explores the effects of judicial decisions on the people who carry them out, and the individuals and organizations who feel their impact. This second edition discusses and responds to the significant research that has been published since the first edition appeared. Arguing that judicial policies in the United States are substantially influenced by how the courts and other political actors respond, authors Canon and Johnson employ a heuristic model of different populations and their responses to judicial decisions as a means of: explaining the implementation of judicial policies as a political process, examining the events that usually follow judicial decisions, and organizing the literature in the field. The concluding chapter addresses the important question of whether the judiciary actually makes a difference in the American political system. Canon and Johnson delineate examples where the courts have clearly had an impact and those where they have had little influence.

Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation

Abstract: The 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade is a good time for us to pause and reflect. Our nationwide policy of abortion-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people nor enacted by our legislators— not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy in 1973. But the consequences of this judicial decision are now obvious: since 1973, more than 15 million unborn children have had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions. That is over ten times the number of Americans lost in all our nation's wars.

Clinical judgments in the decision to commit. Psychiatric discretion and the law.

Abstract: • Judicial decisions and statutory reforms point to a return to psychiatric discretion when clinical needs and patients' rights must be balanced. In seeking to commit patients, psychiatrists have been accused of contravening the legal rights of their patients by applying criteria other than those prescribed by law. This study examined the factors involved in the psychiatrists' decisions to seek commitment or to release 90 voluntarily hospitalized patients; we found psychiatrists' decisions to be appropriately correlated to legal criteria and legally relevant clinical and psychosocial factors. Interpersonal variables did not play a material role in the decision. Independent assessment of the patients' clinical status were consistent with clinicians' judgments of dangerousness. These findings indicate that this group of psychiatrists, faced with the decision to seek commitment, based their judgments on clinically relevant data rather than interpersonal factors and conformed to the dangerousness requirements of the commitment law.

Investigation and Responsibility: Public Responsibility in the United States, 1865–1900

Abstract: Investigation and Responsibility deals with the extension of social responsibility in the American states during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Lord Bryce questioned the reality of American belief in laissez faire, and recent work has reinforced these doubts. Professor Brock makes a substantial contribution to this reassessment, through an examination of the activities of the agencies established at a state level for the regulation of the social environment. Using the evidence provided by the published reports of the state agencies, he argues that these activities were far more extensive then has often been thought, and indicates the ways in which they laid the foundations for modern government activity in the fields of welfare, health, safety, labour law, and economic regulation. By a detailed examination of such agencies as boards of state charities and public health, bureaus of labour statistics, and railroad commissions, Professor Brock places the extension of state responsibility in a new perspective. The book also includes a reassessment of judicial opinion and closes with an examination of the way in which experience in the states influenced the development of national policy.

Individual Differences in Judicial Behavior: Personal Characteristics and Private Law Decision-Making

Abstract: 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.

Public opinion and the federal judiciary: Crime, punishment, and demographic constraints

Abstract: In this article the causal connection between public opinion and law is examined and the representative model of judicial behavior is reappraised. After a description of some of the important linkages between public sentiments and judicial behavior, the empirical relationship between public attitudes toward criminal punishment and the sentences imposed for different crimes by the federal district courts is assessed during the period from 1970 to 1980. Inconsistent responses by the judiciary are found, which lead to a revision of the representative model. It is argued that this model must take into account demographic and other constraints on judicial action, as well as the salience of political issues.

Formalities for Trusts of Land, and the Doctrine in Rochefoucauld v. Boustead

Abstract: In 1677 the Statute of Frauds1 introduced2 formalities for the creation of trusts of land. Section 7 required that,… all declarations or creations of trusts or confidences of any lands, tenements or hereditaments, shall be manifested and proved by some writing signed by the party who is by law entitled to declare such trust, or by his last will in writing, or else they shall be utterly void and of none effect.This requirement (or something like it) has been adopted in most common law jurisdictions and remains applicable today in England in the form of section 53(1) of the Law of Property Act 1925. Despite the provision's apparently comprehensive and drastic effect, judicial decisions have reduced its impact. Of most importance is the doctrine which I shall name after the case, Rochefoucauld v. Boustead, in which it was authoritatively described by Lindley L.J. He said this:

Discovery and Justification in Science and Law

Abstract: In this paper I propose to discuss a certain account of the nature of judicial decision-making by bringing to bear on it a distinction that was long held to be canonical in the philosophy of science, namely, the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification. In recent years this distinction has come under attack from two rather different directions. Although I shall not be able, here, to evaluate the validity of these attacks as far as the philosophy of science is concerned, I think that they provide useful perspectives from which to study the judicial process. The particular account of judicial decisionmaking is associated in Anglo-American countries with the disparate group of thinkers known as Legal Realists. I am not sure as to how widely this view is still held, but for a reason that will later become apparent, I suspect that it has more proponents than is openly admitted.

Paradigms of Justifying Legal Decisions

Abstract: In contemporary language the term “legal decision” has many meanings. The core meaning seems to be that a decision is legal if it has some legal consequences and, therefore, is made by an authorized or competent agency.

Preliminary Injunctions: The Varying Standards

Abstract: The Author undertakes a survey in this Article which shows that the Supreme Court and the courts of appeals have not articulated or applied consistent criteria for preliminary injunctive relief. Their decisions have described a sinuous path through primary standards, alternative tests, and sliding scale variations. Part of the difficulty may be because the Supreme Court has not taken a firm hand in resolving conflicts between and among the circuits on critical issues involving interlocutory injunctions. In addition while the courts of appeals make reference to each others' opinions, they have not demonstrated a desire to achieve uniformity in their approaches to interim relief. In some cases, the non-uniformity is intra-circuit as well as inter-circuit. Because there are so many currently applicable tests and variations, a moving party asserting the same facts and legal principles in different circuits could easily secure different results on motions for preliminary relief. While non-uniformity of decisions may serve a creative purpose in the short run, over time it tends to breed disrespect for and discontent of the law and advance the perception that judicial decision making is largely arbitrary. Furthermore from a practical perspective, non-uniformity, especially of the intra-circuit variety, tends to undermine the goal of predictability which is vital for lawyer and client in ordering their affairs to conform with established legal norms. If the principles are uncertain, both counseling and compliance become chancy at best.

Interlocutory Review in California—Practical Justice Unguided by Standards

Abstract: The thrust of the "Restatement" which is the centerpiece of this issue of Law and Contemporary Problems-synthesizing the complex body of case law into an orderly scheme of appeal, certified appeal, and restricted interlocutory appealsurely moves in the right direction. Yet the experience of state appellate courts suggests consideration of a more open-ended system of interlocutory review, one that would give the United States courts of appeal broad discretionary power to issue writs or orders to supervise trial court action. Flexible schemes of civil appellate review have been successfully implemented in some jurisdictions; their workings are discussed elsewhere.1 In California, a nominally restricted and formal procedure has in fact evolved into a flexible scheme of interlocutory review: a formerly rigorous final judgment requirement has been eroded by a few legislative exceptions and, more significantly, by judicial decisions gradually broadening the prerogative writs to permit discretionary review of interlocutory orders. Resort to writ practice for interlocutory review is particularly inviting to the appellate courts of California because nonpriority civil appeals are heavily backlogged-time lapse between completion of briefing and calendaring for hearing is two years or more in some districts. Appellate motivation to tolerate the growth of writ practice may be influenced also by the circumstance that, although California Constitution article 6, section 14 requires that appellate decisions "that determine causes shall be in writing with reasons stated," a writ proceeding does not become a "cause" unless an alternative writ is issued placing the matter on calendar for argument. Thus, the appellate courts economize their labor by writing no opinions where writs are summarily denied. This emerging system of interlocutory review would be more serviceable if it were articulated in statutes or rules. Yet in its half-concealed state it shows that