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Judges
Kinds of Judges Selected AbstractsTHE MULTILEVEL CONTEXT OF CRIMINAL SENTENCING: INTEGRATING JUDGE- AND COUNTY-LEVEL INFLUENCES,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 2 2006BRIAN D. JOHNSON This study extends recent inquiries of contextual effects in sentencing by jointly examining the influence of judge and courtroom social contexts. It combines two recent years of individual sentencing data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing (PCS) with data on judicial background characteristics and county court social contexts. Three-level hierarchical models are estimated to investigate the influence of judge and county contexts on individual variations in sentencing. Results indicate that nontrivial sentencing variations are associated with both individual judge characteristics and county court contexts. Judicial background factors also condition the influence of individual offender characteristics in important ways. These and other findings are discussed in relation to contemporary theoretical perspectives on courtroom decision making that highlight the importance of both judge and court contexts in sentencing. The study concludes with suggestions for future research on contextual disparities in criminal sentencing. [source] ONE CASE,ONE SPECIALIZED JUDGE: WHY COURTS HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO MANAGE ALIENATION AND OTHER HIGH-CONFLICT CASESFAMILY COURT REVIEW, Issue 1 2010Hon. Donna J. Martinson This article challenges the traditional approach to alienation and other high-conflict cases in which many different generalist judges deal with the case. The objectives of the judicial process, dealing with cases in a just, timely, and affordable way that instils confidence in the public and litigants, cannot be met unless high-conflict cases are actively managed by one specialist family law judge. Allowing parents in high-conflict cases to decide when and how often their case should come before the court exacerbates the negative effects of the litigation on children. This article concludes that, unless the litigation is properly managed by specialist judges, the justice system unintentionally causes harm to children. [source] POISSON VERSUS BINOMIAL: APPOINTMENT OF JUDGES TO THE U.S. SUPREME COURTAUSTRALIAN & NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF STATISTICS, Issue 3 2010Vassilly Voinov Summary The problem of discriminating between the Poisson and binomial models is discussed in the context of a detailed statistical analysis of the number of appointments of the U.S. Supreme Court justices from 1789 to 2004. Various new and existing tests are examined. The analysis shows that both simple Poisson and simple binomial models are equally appropriate for describing the data. No firm statistical evidence in favour of an exponential Poisson regression model was found. Two attendant results were obtained by simulation: firstly, that the likelihood ratio test is the most powerful of those considered when testing for the Poisson versus binomial and, secondly, that the classical variance test with an upper-tail critical region is biased. [source] WILLIAM H. REHNQUIST AWARD FOR JUDICIAL EXCELLENCE ADDRESSFAMILY COURT REVIEW, Issue 2 2009Hon. Jonathan Lippman The William H. Rehnquist Award is one of the most celebrated judicial honors in the country. It is given each year to a state court judge who demonstrates the "highest level of judicial excellence, integrity, fairness, and professional ethics." The 2008 recipient, Jonathan Lippman, was recently appointed and confirmed as Chief Judge of the State of New York. Chief Judge Lippman was previously the Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division of the First Judicial Department of the New York State Supreme Court. He was appointed New York's Chief Administrative Judge by Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye and served from January 1996 to May 2007 and was responsible for the operation of a court system with a $2.4 billion budget, 1300 state-paid judges, 2300 town and village judges, and 16,000 nonjudicial personnel. Among his numerous professional activities, Chief Judge Lippman served as president of the Conference of State Court Administrators from 2005 to 2006 and was the vice-chair of the National Center for State Courts from 2005 to 2006, where he was a member of the Board of Directors from 2003 to 2007. During his tenure, Chief Judge Lippman has been the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, including the 2006 Fund For Modern Courts Cyrus R. Vance Tribute for Vision, Integrity and Dedication to the Fair Administration of Justice Personified by Cyrus R. Vance (November 27, 2006); the New York County Lawyers' Association Conspicuous Service Award in Recognition of Many Years of Outstanding Public Service (September 28, 2006); and the Award for Excellence in Public Service of the New York State Bar Association's Committee on Attorneys in Public Service (January 24, 2006). Chief Judge Lippman received a Bachelor of Arts in Government and International Relations from New York University, Washington Square College, where he graduated cum laude in 1965. He also received his J.D. from New York University in 1968. Below is the speech he delivered after accepting the William H. Rehnquist Award from U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts. [source] WILLIAM H. REHNQUIST AWARD ADDRESSFAMILY COURT REVIEW, Issue 4 2005Hon. Leonard Edwards The William H. Rehnquist Award is one of the most celebrated judicial honors in the country.1 It is given each year to a state court judge who demonstrates the "highest level of judicial excellence, integrity, fairness, and professional ethics."2 The 2004 recipient, Judge Leonard Edwards, is the Supervising Judge of the Santa Clara County, California juvenile dependency court.3 He is the first juvenile court judge to receive this prestigious award. During the 24 years he has held his position, Judge Edwards has worked extremely hard to improve how the juvenile court system serves troubled families. He has founded two organizations to achieve this end, the Juvenile Court Judges of California and the Santa Clara County Domestic Violence Council.4 Judge Edwards serves as a lead judge in San Jose's Model Court, which is one of twenty-five jurisdictions in the country which utilizes new ideas and techniques to improve adoption rates for children in foster care.5 Moreover, he has worked as president of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.6 Below is the speech he gave after accepting the award from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. The speech notes the importance of the award to everyone working in America's juvenile courts. [source] Embryo medley from the Woods Hole Embryology Course of 2008GENESIS: THE JOURNAL OF GENETICS AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 10 2008Article first published online: 17 OCT 200 Top edge: Body wall of the annelid Pristina leidya (Jesse Meik and Ian Swinburne). Right edge: Embryo of the grasshopper, Schistocerca americana (R'ada Massarwa). Bottom edge: Drosophila melanogaster embryo (Courtney Karner). Bottom left corner: Mouse embryo (Marie-Therese Noedl). Left upper row: Adult annelid Pristina leidyi (Michelle Collins and Stephanie Lepage). Middle upper row: Embryo of the squid Loligo pealii (Andrew Chervenak). Right upper row: larva of the colonial ascidian, Botrylloides (Jessica Gray). Left lower row: Chick embryo (Benjamin Schlager). Middle lower row: Xenopus laevis (Brooke Armfield and Zacharias Kontarakis). Right lower row: Third instar CNS and disks of Drosophila melanogaster (Jenna Judge). For more information on the Woods Hole Embrylology Course, visit http://www.mbl.edu/education/courses/summer/course_embryo.html [source] Babies Can't Wait: A Judicial ResponseJUVENILE AND FAMILY COURT JOURNAL, Issue 2 2004JUDGE SHARON S. TOWNSEND During my career as a Family Court Judge over the past 12 years, I was faced daily with the difficult task of deciding whether or not to remove a newborn infant from the care of her mother and place the child in foster care upon discharge from the hospital. In the huge majority of cases, removal was ordered based upon the mother's history of substance abuse and the subsequent positive toxicology of the infant at birth. I could not risk the health and safety of this often premature and vulnerable infant to a mother with such an addiction to drugs that she would expose her child in utero to these toxic substances. Such a mother was incapable of caring for the basic needs of this vulnerable infant, and therefore removal was ordered. This decision saddened me because, as a mother myself, I knew of the critical bond existing between infant and mother during those critical first days and weeks of a child's life. That bond must be nurtured and strengthened and is crucial to a child's development. [source] An Evaluation of a Delaware Teen CourtJUVENILE AND FAMILY COURT JOURNAL, Issue 3 2001ARTHUR H. GARRISON M.S. ABSTRACT The Kent County Teen Court Program (teen court) provides sanctions for juvenile delinquency from a panel of a juvenile's peers rather than from a Family Court Judge. Part of the concept behind teen peer courts is that the sanction from one's peers carries more weight than sanctions from adults. The Delaware Criminal Justice Council (CJC) awarded a grant to Delaware - Teen Courts, Inc. to support the operation of the Kent County Teen Court Program. The teen court program was designed to provide participants with hands-on education in the judicial process, to create a sanction pro- gram that will not create a permanent record for a juvenile, and to foster, a sense of community responsibility in the program participants. The teen court program is an adult model teen court in which all of the judicial actors are juveniles with the exception of the judge. This article reflects the results of an evaluation on the Kent County Teen Court program's first two years of operation (Garrison, 2001). [source] Proceeding to yes: A federal judge looks at ADR's futureALTERNATIVES TO THE HIGH COST OF LITIGATION, Issue 1 2007Joseph A. Greenaway Jr. A CPR News special: Two recent speeches discussing Alternatives' publisher's impact on ADR, and what the future may look like. First, the remarks of 2006 CPR Corporate Leadership Award dinner keynoter Joseph A. Greenaway Jr., a Newark, N.J., U.S. District Court Judge, focus on where ADR works and where its promise lies. CPR Senior Vice President F. Peter Phillips, in addressing the First African ADR Congress in Nigeria in November, provides a history of commercial conflict resolution. [source] How conflict resolution emerged within the commercial sectorALTERNATIVES TO THE HIGH COST OF LITIGATION, Issue 1 2007F. Peter Phillips A CPR News special: Two recent speeches discussing Alternatives' publisher's impact on ADR, and what the future may look like. First, the remarks of 2006 CPR Corporate Leadership Award dinner keynoter Joseph A. Greenaway Jr., a Newark, N.J., U.S. District Court Judge, focus on where ADR works and where its promise lies. CPR Senior Vice President F. Peter Phillips, in addressing the First African ADR Congress in Nigeria in November, provides a history of commercial conflict resolution. [source] Touchy-Feely or Hard-Core Medicine:Let the Patient Be the JudgeNURSING FORUM, Issue 1 2002Article first published online: 2 AUG 200 No abstract is available for this article. [source] Using Affective Attitudes to Identify Christian Fundamentalism: The Ten Commandments Judge and Alabama PoliticsPOLITICS & POLICY, Issue 5 2010THOMAS SHAW This article develops a new and useful indicator to aid in identifying Christian fundamentalism. "Affect" measures individuals' affective attitudes toward the role of Christian fundamentalists in Alabama politics. We demonstrate the analytic utility of this indicator by quantitatively comparing it to other more traditional and direct measures of fundamentalism, such as belief in the Bible as the literal word of God, self-identification as a fundamentalist, and whether one considers oneself to be "born again." We then compare the utility of these different measures of Christian fundamentalism in explaining electoral support for the archetype Christian fundamentalist political candidate, the "Ten Commandments Judge" Roy Moore, former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. We find that our affect indicator compares well to other measures of fundamentalism and actually outperforms all of the more traditional measures in explaining support for Moore. Data used in the analysis come from a public opinion poll conducted by the USA Polling Group in April 2006. Este artículo desarrolla un nuevo y útil indicador para ayudar a identificar el fundamentalismo cristiano. "Afecto" mide las actitudes afectivas de los individuos hacia el rol de los cristianos fundamentalistas en la política de Alabama. Demostramos la utilidad analítica de este indicador al compararlo cuantitativamente con otras medidas más tradicionales y directas del fundamentalismo, tales como la creencia de la Biblia como la palabra literal de Dios, auto-identificación como fundamentalista, y si uno se considera a uno mismo "nacido de nuevo." Después comparamos la utilidad de estas diferentes medidas del fundamentalismo cristiano para explicar el apoyo electoral al candidato político cristiano fundamentalista arquetípico: Roy Moore, "Juez de los Diez Mandamientos," ex-presidente del tribunal de la Corte Suprema de Alabama. Encontramos que nuestro indicador Afecto se equipara con otras medidas del fundamentalismo y en realidad supera a todas las más tradicionales mediciones que explican el apoyo a Moore. La información utilizada en el análisis proviene de una encuesta de opinión pública realizada por el USA Polling Group en Abril del 2006. [source] Treading with care: foot care, litigation and the expert witnessPRACTICAL DIABETES INTERNATIONAL (INCORPORATING CARDIABETES), Issue 1 2004JAS Foster BA (Hons) Barrister Abstract This is a practical introduction to acting as an expert witness. The expert's report is an integral part of all litigation concerning allegations of professional negligence. A well-written report, embodying principles of sound academic research, is less likely to be challenged in court than a badly-prepared one. An expert should not hesitate to question his terms of reference if they are unclear or require widening. It is crucial to remember that the report is written for the benefit of the court, not the instructing party. In the witness box, the oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is paramount. It should be assumed that the Judge can grasp difficult medical concepts but may require fuller explanation than a fellow medical practitioner. It is important to answer the question that has been asked , but it is in order to disagree with a false premise. Appropriate concessions are more likely to impress the court than posturing. Each question should be treated on its merits. In conclusion, the role of the expert witness is demanding but application of these principles should make it a less daunting experience. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The First Chirstians in the Roman World: Augustan and New Testament Essays , By E. A. JudgeRELIGIOUS STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 3 2009Richard S. Ascough No abstract is available for this article. [source] USING RANDOM JUDGE ASSIGNMENTS TO ESTIMATE THE EFFECTS OF INCARCERATION AND PROBATION ON RECIDIVISM AMONG DRUG OFFENDERS,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 2 2010DONALD P. GREEN Most prior studies of recidivism have used observational data to estimate the causal effect of imprisonment or probation on the probability that a convicted individual is rearrested after release. Few studies have taken advantage of the fact that, in some jurisdictions, defendants are assigned randomly to judges who vary in sentencing tendencies. This study investigates whether defendants who are assigned randomly to more punitive judges have different recidivism probabilities than defendants who are assigned to relatively lenient judges. We track 1,003 defendants charged with drug-related offenses who were assigned randomly to nine judicial calendars between June 1, 2002 and May 9, 2003. Judges on these calendars meted out sentences that varied substantially in terms of prison and probation time. We tracked defendants using court records across a 4-year period after the disposition of their cases to determine whether they subsequently were rearrested. Our results indicate that randomly assigned variations in prison and probation time have no detectable effect on rates of rearrest. The findings suggest that, at least among those facing drug-related charges, incarceration and supervision seem not to deter subsequent criminal behavior. [source] Parents and Practitioners Are Poor Judges of Young Children's Pain SeverityACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 6 2002Adam J. Singer MD Objective: Visual analog pain scales are reliable measures in older children and adults; however, pain studies that include young children often rely on parental or practitioner assessments for measuring pain severity. The authors correlated patient, parental, and practitioner pain assessments for young children with acute pain. Methods: This was a prospective, descriptive study of a convenience sample of 63 emergency department patients aged 4-7 years, with acute pain resulting from acute illness or painful invasive procedures. A trained research assistant administered a structured pain survey containing demographic and historical features to all parents/guardians. Children assessed their pain severity using a validated ordinal scale that uses five different faces with varying degrees of frowning (severe pain) or smiling (no pain). Each face was converted to a numeric value from 0 (no pain) to 4 (severe pain). Parents and practitioners independently assessed their child's pain using a validated 100-mm visual analog scale (VAS) marked "most pain" at the high end. Pairwise correlations between child, parent, and practitioner pain assessments were performed using Spearman's or Pearson's test as appropriate. The association between categorical data was assessed using ,2 tests. Results: Sixty-three children ranging in age from 4 to 7 were included. Mean age (±SD) was 5.7 (±1.1); 42% were female. Fifty-seven successfully completed the face scale. The distribution of the children's scores was 0-17%, 1-9%, 2-30%, 3-14%, and 4-30%. Mean parental and practitioner scores (±SD) on the VAS were 61 (±26) mm and 37 (±26) mm, respectively (maximal = 100 mm). Correlation between child and parent scores was 0.47 (p < 0.001). Correlation between child and practitioner scores was 0.08 (p = 0.54). Correlation between parent and practitioner scores was 0.04 (p = 0.001). Conclusions: There is poor agreement between pain ratings by children, parents, and practitioners. It is unclear which assessment best approximates the true degree of pain the child is experiencing. [source] National Judges, Community Judges: Invitation to a Journey through the Looking-glass,On the Need for Jurisdictions to Rethink the Inter-systemic Relations beyond the Hierarchical PrincipleEUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 6 2008Florence Giorgi The historical conflict between the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the national constitutional courts regarding primacy is a misunderstanding. In going through the looking-glass, we can understand that, on the contrary, the ECJ and the national constitutional courts adopt comparable solutions in their treatment of legal pluralism, and that they see the negation of pluralism as essential for the survival of their own legal orders. Therefore, these judges must be offered a new theoretical context to help them reconcile their role as supreme guardian with the taking into account of the pluralist context. Finally, practical proposals must be made to give judges the instruments and techniques that are capable of reflecting this plural structure. [source] The European Court, National Judges, and Legal Integration: A Researcher's Guide to the Data Set on Preliminary References in EC Law, 1958--98EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 2 2000Alec Stone Sweet We hope to stimulate more systematic research on all areas of legal integration by making available for free and open use a comprehensive data base on preliminary references in EC law. The Data Set, which has been under construction since 1996, is now online at various websites. The data are not publicly accessible elsewhere. In this article, we provide a brief summary of the data base and its potential uses. We begin by introducing the main features of the Data Set. We then discuss some of the dynamics of legal integration in light of our analyses of the data. [source] WILLIAM H. REHNQUIST AWARD ADDRESSFAMILY COURT REVIEW, Issue 4 2005Hon. Leonard Edwards The William H. Rehnquist Award is one of the most celebrated judicial honors in the country.1 It is given each year to a state court judge who demonstrates the "highest level of judicial excellence, integrity, fairness, and professional ethics."2 The 2004 recipient, Judge Leonard Edwards, is the Supervising Judge of the Santa Clara County, California juvenile dependency court.3 He is the first juvenile court judge to receive this prestigious award. During the 24 years he has held his position, Judge Edwards has worked extremely hard to improve how the juvenile court system serves troubled families. He has founded two organizations to achieve this end, the Juvenile Court Judges of California and the Santa Clara County Domestic Violence Council.4 Judge Edwards serves as a lead judge in San Jose's Model Court, which is one of twenty-five jurisdictions in the country which utilizes new ideas and techniques to improve adoption rates for children in foster care.5 Moreover, he has worked as president of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.6 Below is the speech he gave after accepting the award from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. The speech notes the importance of the award to everyone working in America's juvenile courts. [source] STRATEGIES AND NEED FOR SYSTEMS CHANGEFAMILY COURT REVIEW, Issue 2 2000Improving Court Practice for the Millennium Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye of New York delivered the following address to the Millennium Conference of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges in Washington, D.C., on November 15, 1999. In it, she describes the development of the philosophy of the family court in the past century. Judge Kaye describes the family court's transition from reliance on social science to the incorporation of procedural due process guarantees in the Gault decision. She suggests that a further transformation is required to meet the needs of children and families in the 21st century. Judge Kaye proposes that in the next millennium the family court abandon the "remote adjudicator" judge who evolved after Gault to a "problem-solving model of judging, a judge who looks at the issues that are driving the caseload, who looks at the results that are being achieved, and who uses a hands-on style to figure out how we might do better both in individual cases and on a systemic level." The New York Times described Chief Justice Kaye as, "A dedicated and effective reformer of the state's sprawling court system. Each of her hard won changes has had a positive impact." Chief Judge Kaye recently received the National Center for State Courts' William H. Rhenquist Award for Judicial Excellence in November 1999. On the occasion of the award, Roger K. Warren, president of the National Center, observed about her,"There are many who are working hard to better process the many cases that come before the state courts, but there are few working an harder or more successfully to better serve the people who use the state courts." [source] Improving judgement with prepaid expert adviceJOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DECISION MAKING, Issue 3 2004Janet A. Sniezek Abstract Decision makers ("Judges") often make decisions after obtaining advice from an Advisor. The two parties often share a psychological "contract" about what each contributes in expertise to the decision and receives in monetary outcomes from it. In a laboratory experiment, we varied Advisor Experitise and the opportunity for monetary rewards. As expected, these manipulations influenced advice quality, advice taking, and Judge post-advice decision quality. The main contribution of the study, however, was the manipulation of the timing of monetary rewards (before or after the advising interaction). We found, as predicted, that committing money for expert,but not novice,advice increases Judges' use of advice and their subsequent estimation accuracy. Implications for advice giving and taking are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Judges' Use of Examinee Performance Data in an Angoff Standard-Setting Exercise for a Medical Licensing Examination: An Experimental StudyJOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL MEASUREMENT, Issue 4 2009Brian E. Clauser Although the Angoff procedure is among the most widely used standard setting procedures for tests comprising multiple-choice items, research has shown that subject matter experts have considerable difficulty accurately making the required judgments in the absence of examinee performance data. Some authors have viewed the need to provide performance data as a fatal flaw for the procedure; others have considered it appropriate for experts to integrate performance data into their judgments but have been concerned that experts may rely too heavily on the data. There have, however, been relatively few studies examining how experts use the data. This article reports on two studies that examine how experts modify their judgments after reviewing data. In both studies, data for some items were accurate and data for other items had been manipulated. Judges in both studies substantially modified their judgments whether the data were accurate or not. [source] EVALUATION OF IDEAL WINE AND CHEESE PAIRS USING A DEVIATION-FROM-IDEAL SCALE WITH FOOD AND WINE EXPERTSJOURNAL OF FOOD QUALITY, Issue 3 2005MARJORIE KING ABSTRACT Most information regarding the suitability of wine and cheese pairs is anecdotal information. The objective of this research was to provide recommendations based on scientific research for the most desirable "wine & cheese pairs" using nine award-winning Canadian cheeses and 18 BC wines (six white, six red and six specialty wines). Twenty-seven wine and food professionals rated the wine and cheese pairs using a bipolar structured line scale (12 cm). The "ideal pair," scored at the midpoint of the scale, was defined as a wine and cheese combination where neither the wine nor the cheese dominated. For each cheese, mean deviation-from-ideal scores were determined and evaluated by analysis of variance. Scores closest to six were considered "ideal," while higher or lower scores represented pairs where the "wine" or the "cheese" dominated, respectively. In general, white wines had mean scores closer to six ("ideal") than either the red or specialty wines. The late harvest, ice and port-type wines were more difficult to pair . Judges varied considerably in their individual assessments reflecting a high degree of personal expectation and preference. [source] Impact of Label Information on Consumer Assessment of Soy-enhanced Tomato JuiceJOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE, Issue 9 2004C.D. Goerlitz ABSTRACT: The impact of label information on the liking and closeness to ideal of tomato juice beverages was examined by having 100 judges assess 3 tomato juice beverages (Campbell's tomato juice, V8 juice, and an experimental tomato juice enhanced with soy) either with or without labeling information. Judges rated overall liking of each product and then rated appropriateness of various attributes (saltiness, tomato flavor, thickness, texture, red color, orange color, and brown color) on 5-point just-right scales. Only half of the judges were presented with product-related label information during evaluation. Overall liking scores were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA, whereas different attribute ratings were analyzed using Thurstonian Ideal Point modeling and Chi-square. Product-associated label information did not significantly alter overall liking ratings (P > 0.05), although a significant difference in liking was found between products (P < 0.05). Similarly, the label information did not impact comparison of product attribute levels to ideal attribute levels. Both V8 and Campbell's were significantly different from the ideal for 3 of the attributes (P < 0.05). For the soy-enhanced tomato juice, all 7 attributes were significantly different from the ideal (P < 0.05). In this instance, labeling information had no notable impact on assessments. [source] Women Judges: Gendering Judging, Justifying DiversityJOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 4 2008Dermot Feenan The under-representation of women in judicial office has led to calls for greater female representation based on an argument that women offer a different voice from that of men. This argument has largely foundered, and a more recent rationale rests on the need for diversity in the judiciary. However, the disadvantage experienced by women applicants to judicial office is rooted in deeply entrenched structural discrimination and exclusion, imbricated in the constitution of the judge, judging, and judicial authority as male, masculine, white, heterosexual, able-bodied, and class-privileged. Arguments for wider representation in judicial office need to address more effectively how the judge, judging, and judicial authority are constituted. A survey of women holders of judicial office in Northern Ireland confirms this exclusion. While few respondents in the survey support the concept of a different voice, many identify distinctive approaches which can potentially enrich notions of judging and judicial authority. [source] District Judges and Possession ProceedingsJOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 4 2006Dave Cowan In this article, we draw on data obtained in interviews with District Judges about the factors which they say influence the exercise of their discretion in possession proceedings. Analysing the data set enabled us to create three ideal types of judicial decision,making which we have labelled ,liberal', ,patrician', and formalist'. We discuss the differences between each ideal type across five different variables: the District Judge role; approach; view of occupiers; the problem; behaviour of occupiers. Our data demonstrate a set of reasons to explain different approaches and outcomes between different District Judges (as well as the perhaps unlikely identification of a ,maverick' or ,idiosyncratic' style of judging). We conclude by suggesting on the basis of our data that, despite calls to structure or remove the discretion from District Judges, any such changes are unlikely to have much effect. [source] THE EFFECTIVE USE OF ENACTMENTS INFAMILY THERAY: DISCOVERY-ORIENTED PROCESS STUDYJOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY, Issue 2 2000Michael P. Nichols In this investigation we examine the elements of enactments-in-session dialoguse used to observe and modify family interactions in sturctrual family therapy. Twenty-one videotaped segments of 18 therapy sessions with differnt familes were used to compile detailed descriptions of therapist techniques and client responses. Enactments were analyzed as consisting of three distinst phases-initiation, facilitation, adn closing-each of which required more numerous and complex interventions than are usually described in the clinical literautre. Judges were able to reliable describe therapist interventions that led to successful enactments as well as what therapists did or failed to do that led to unproductive outcomes. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed. [source] High Conflict Divorce, Violence, and Abuse: Implications for Custody and Visitation DecisionsJUVENILE AND FAMILY COURT JOURNAL, Issue 4 2003CLARE DALTON ABSTRACT Today, judges are faced with the daunting task of determining the best interests of the child and making appropriate custody awards to that end. The best interests of children becomes a critical question when domestic violence is involved; yet, determining what constitutes domestic violence is often debated. Research is often divided on what constitutes domestic violence. One body of research focuses on conflict, another focuses on domestic violence. What the first group identifies as intense emotional distress and disagreement, the other identifies as abuse. Judges making custody determinations in such cases are faced with the difficult challenge of distinguishing between a divorce with "high conflict" and a domestic violence case with ongoing abuse. This article will summarize the legal, philosophical, and historical understandings of the "high conflict" family and its potential impact on children. It will also provide practical judicial guidelines for making the important distinction between high conflict and domestic violence and subsequently crafting appropriate and safe child custody awards. [source] Forensic Methods and Procedures Applied to Child Custody Evaluations: What Judges Need to Know in Determining a Competent Forensic Work ProductJUVENILE AND FAMILY COURT JOURNAL, Issue 3 2000JONATHAN W. GOULD PH.D. ABSTRACT Judges are seeing an increase in the number of forensic reports in the area of child custody. This increase in forensic mental health involvement suggests that judges need to better understand the application of current forensic mental health methodology to assist them in determining a competent forensic work product. Recent literature has argued that child custody evaluators need to craft their reports consistent with scientific methods and procedures as well as legal standards governing admissibility of scientific evidence. This paper provides a framework for judges to assist in determining whether a child custody evaluation has been crafted consistent with current behavioral science literature pertaining to use of forensic mental health methods and procedures. [source] Fairness, Justice, and Legitimacy: Experiences of People's Judges in South RussiaLAW & POLICY, Issue 2 2003Stefan Machura Which criteria do Russians use to evaluate the fairness of their judges, and how does perceived fairness of actual trials influence general beliefs about Russian courts? Lay assessors at courts in South Russia were asked about their experience serving on mixed courts. The justice of the verdicts rendered and the fairness of judges partly explain the respondents' view of national courts. According to the results, the respondents are also using similar criteria for fairness as Americans or Germans. The social and psychological group effects in a Russian court of lay assessors exhibit a striking similarity to other Western tribunals. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||