Judicial opinion

About: Judicial opinion is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5300 publications have been published within this topic receiving 64803 citations.

Predicting judicial decisions of the European Court of Human Rights: a Natural Language Processing perspective

Abstract: Recent advances in Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning provide us with the tools to build predictive models that can be used to unveil patterns driving judicial decisions. This can be useful, for both lawyers and judges, as an assisting tool to rapidly identify cases and extract patterns which lead to certain decisions. This paper presents the first systematic study on predicting the outcome of cases tried by the European Court of Human Rights based solely on textual content. We formulate a binary classification task where the input of our classifiers is the textual content extracted from a case and the target output is the actual judgment as to whether there has been a violation of an article of the convention of human rights. Textual information is represented using contiguous word sequences, i.e., N-grams, and topics. Our models can predict the court’s decisions with a strong accuracy (79% on average). Our empirical analysis indicates that the formal facts of a case are the most important predictive factor. This is consistent with the theory of legal realism suggesting that judicial decision-making is significantly affected by the stimulus of the facts. We also observe that the topical content of a case is another important feature in this classification task and explore this relationship further by conducting a qualitative analysis.

Playing Dice With Criminal Sentences: The Influence of Irrelevant Anchors on Experts’ Judicial Decision Making

Abstract: Judicial sentencing decisions should be guided by facts, not by chance. The present research however demonstrates that the sentencing decisions of experienced legal professionals are influenced by irrelevant sentencing demands even if they are blatantly determined at random. Participating legal experts anchored their sentencing decisions on a given sentencing demand and assimilated toward it even if this demand came from an irrelevant source (Study 1), they were informed that this demand was randomly determined (Study 2), or they randomly determined this demand themselves by throwing dice (Study 3). Expertise and experience did not reduce this effect. This sentencing bias appears to be produced by a selective increase in the accessibility of arguments that are consistent with the random sentencing demand: The accessibility of incriminating arguments was higher if participants were confronted with a high rather than a low anchor (Study 4). Practical and theoretical implications of this research are discussed.

Courts: The Lex Mundi Project

Abstract: In cooperation with Lex Mundi member law firms in 109 countries, we measure and describe the exact procedures used by litigants and courts to evict a tenant for non-payment of rent and to collect a bounced check. We use these data to construct an index of procedural formalism of dispute resolution for each country. We find that such formalism is systematically greater in civil than in common law countries. Moreover, procedural formalism is associated with higher expected duration of judicial proceedings, more corruption, less consistency, less honesty, less fairness in judicial decisions, and inferior access to justice. These results suggest that legal transplantation may have led to an inefficiently high level of procedural formalism, particularly in developing countries.

A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage

Abstract: With double the length and coverage of the original, this new edition of A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage marshals and analyzesthe modern legal vocabulary more thoroughly than any other contemporary reference work can claim to do. Since the 1987 first edition, Bryan A. Garner has drawn on his unrivaled experience as a legal editor to refine his positions on legal usage and to add a wealth of new material. Here's how Garner's revision makes DMLU, Second Edition indispensable: - Updates every existing entry, making this a second edition in the fullest sense - adds hundreds of new entries - adds hundreds of new sections within existing entries - adds over 3,000 new illustrative quotations from judicial opinions and leading lawbooks by prominent legal commentators - Reconsiders previously held positions, now saying, for example, that contractions are sometimes permissible in legal writing - Fully elaborates ideas only hinted at in the first edition - Takes into account numerous comments received from first edition users - Expands and updates cross-references to guide readers quickly and easily Features Functions both as a style guide and as a law dictionary Guides writers to distinguish between true terms of law and mere jargon Illustrates recommended forms of expression as well as common blunders with thousands of quotations and citations Explains the origins of expressions lawyers regularly use, such as "Know all men by these presents", or "party of the first part" Records and evaluates more than 100 twentieth-century neologisms, from "conclusory" to "farminor" Distinguishes American from British usage and refers to current practice among Australian, Canadian, and Scottish legal writers Solves editorial problems by dealing with practical writing issues Offers wit and erudition reminiscent of H.W. Fowler, author of the first so-called usage dictionary In short, in its Second Edition, DMLU remains, as one reviewer hailed it in 1987, "truly unique in the literature of law". It is an essential resource for practising lawyers, scholars of the law, and libraries of all sizes and types.

On the nature of supreme court decision making

Abstract: How does the U.S. Supreme Court reach decisions? Since the 1940s, scholars have focused on two distinct explanations. The legal model suggests that the rule of law (stare decisis) is the key determinant. The extralegal model posits that an array of sociological, psychological, and political factors produce judicial outcomes. To determine which model better accounted for judicial decisions, we used Supreme Court cases involving the imposition of the death penalty since 1972 and estimated and evaluated the models' success in accounting for decisional outcomes. Although both models performed quite satisfactorily, they possessed disturbing weaknesses. The legal perspective overpredicted liberal outcomes, the extralegal model conservative ones. Given these results, we tested another proposition, namely that extralegal and legal frameworks present codependent, not mutually exclusive, explanations of decision making. Based on these results, we offer an integrated model of Supreme Court decision making that contemplates a range of political and environmental forces and doctrinal constraints.