Judging Law and Policy

Judging Law and Policy PDF Author: Robert M. Howard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136887601
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
To what extent do courts make social and public policy and influence policy change? This innovative text analyzes this question generally and in seven distinct policy areas that play out in both federal and state courts—tax policy, environmental policy, reproductive rights, sex equality, affirmative action, school finance, and same-sex marriage. The authors address these issues through the twin lenses of how state and federal courts must and do interact with the other branches of government and whether judicial policy-making is a form of activist judging. Each chapter uncovers the policymaking aspects of judicial process by investigating the current state of the law, the extent of court involvement in policy change, the responses of other governmental entities and outside actors, and the factors which influenced the degree of implementation and impact of the relevant court decisions. Throughout the book, Howard and Steigerwalt examine and analyze the literature on judicial policy-making as well as evaluate existing measures of judicial ideology, judicial activism, court and legal policy formation, policy change and policy impact. This unique text offers new insights and areas to research in this important field of American politics.

Judging Law and Policy

Judging Law and Policy PDF Author: Robert M. Howard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136887601
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Get Book Here

Book Description
To what extent do courts make social and public policy and influence policy change? This innovative text analyzes this question generally and in seven distinct policy areas that play out in both federal and state courts—tax policy, environmental policy, reproductive rights, sex equality, affirmative action, school finance, and same-sex marriage. The authors address these issues through the twin lenses of how state and federal courts must and do interact with the other branches of government and whether judicial policy-making is a form of activist judging. Each chapter uncovers the policymaking aspects of judicial process by investigating the current state of the law, the extent of court involvement in policy change, the responses of other governmental entities and outside actors, and the factors which influenced the degree of implementation and impact of the relevant court decisions. Throughout the book, Howard and Steigerwalt examine and analyze the literature on judicial policy-making as well as evaluate existing measures of judicial ideology, judicial activism, court and legal policy formation, policy change and policy impact. This unique text offers new insights and areas to research in this important field of American politics.

Judges on Judging

Judges on Judging PDF Author: David M. O'Brien
Publisher: CQ Press
ISBN: 150634027X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
Thoroughly revised and updated for this Fifth Edition, Judges on Judging offers insights into the judicial philosophies and political views of those on the bench. Broad in scope, this one-of-a-kind book features “off-the-bench” writings and speeches in which Supreme Court justices, as well as lower federal and state court judges, discuss the judicial process, constitutional interpretation, judicial federalism, and the role of the judiciary. Engaging introductory material written by David M. O’Brien provides students with necessary thematic and historical context making this book the perfect supplement to present a nuanced view of the judiciary.

The Battle for the Court

The Battle for the Court PDF Author: Lawrence Baum
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813940354
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Once largely ignored, judicial elections in the states have become increasingly controversial over the past two decades. Legal organizations, prominent law professors, and a retired Supreme Court justice have advocated the elimination of elections as a means to choose judges. One of their primary concerns is interest group involvement in elections to state supreme courts, which they see as having negative effects on both the courts themselves and public perceptions of these judicial bodies. In The Battle for the Court, Lawrence Baum, David Klein, and Matthew Streb present a systematic investigation into the effects of interest group involvement in the election of judges. Focusing on personal-injury law, the issue that has played the most substantial role in spurring interest group activity in judicial elections, the authors detail how interest groups mobilize in response to unfavorable rulings by state supreme courts, how their efforts influence the outcomes of supreme court elections, and how those outcomes in turn effectively reshape public policies. The authors employ several decades’ worth of new data on campaign activity, voter behavior, and judicial policy-making in one particularly colorful, important, and representative state—Ohio—to explore these connections among interest groups, elections, and judicial policy in a way that has not been possible until now.

Appeal to the People's Court

Appeal to the People's Court PDF Author: Vincent Luizzi
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004365710
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
In Appeal to the People’s Court: Rethinking Law, Judging, and Punishment, Vincent Luizzi turns to the goings on in courts at the lowest level of adjudication for fresh insights for rethinking these basic features of the legal order. In the pragmatic tradition of turning from fixed and unchanging conceptions, the work rejects the view of law as a set of black and white rules, of judging as the mechanical application of law to facts, and of punishment as a necessary, punitive response to crime. The author, a municipal judge and philosophy professor, joins theory and practice to feature the citizen in rethinking these institutions. The work includes a foreword by Richard Hull, special Guest Editor for this volume in Studies in Jurisprudence.

Reflections on Judging

Reflections on Judging PDF Author: Richard A. Posner
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674184645
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
For Richard Posner, legal formalism and formalist judges--notably Antonin Scalia--present the main obstacles to coping with the dizzying pace of technological advance. Posner calls for legal realism--gathering facts, considering context, and reaching a sensible conclusion that inflicts little collateral damage on other areas of the law.

Art of Judging

Art of Judging PDF Author: James. E Bond
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351316265
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 79

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Book Description
The single most important issue in American constitutional law is the role the Supreme Court should play in interpretation of the constitution. This issue has been a source of controversy since at least 1803, when Chief Justice John Marshall proclaimed that the Supreme Court could declare acts of Congress unconstitutional. But public attention has been refocused by the recent debate between Attorney General Edwin Meese and Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. The Attorney General admonished the Justices to confine themselves to strict construction of the Constitution-to apply the Constitution as the framers intended. Justice Brennan rejected this as errant and arrogant because the framers had certainly not thought about the specific problems facing the country today.

Women, Judging and the Judiciary

Women, Judging and the Judiciary PDF Author: Erika Rackley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136225889
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Awarded the 2013 Birks Book Prize by the Society of Legal Scholars, Women, Judging and the Judiciary expertly examines debates about gender representation in the judiciary and the importance of judicial diversity. It offers a fresh look at the role of the (woman) judge and the process of judging and provides a new analysis of the assumptions which underpin and constrain debates about why we might want a more diverse judiciary, and how we might get one. Through a theoretical engagement with the concepts of diversity and difference in adjudication, Women, Judging and the Judiciary contends that prevailing images of the judge are enmeshed in notions of sameness and uniformity: images which are so familiar that their grip on our understandings of the judicial role are routinely overlooked. Failing to confront these instinctive images of the judge and of judging, however, comes at a price. They exclude those who do not fit this mould, setting them up as challengers to the judicial norm. Such has been the fate of the woman judge. But while this goes some way to explaining why, despite repeated efforts, our attempts to secure greater diversity in our judiciary have fallen short, it also points a way forward. For, by getting a clearer sense of what our judges really do and how they do it, we can see that women judges and judicial diversity more broadly do not threaten but rather enrich the judiciary and judicial decision-making. As such, the standard opponent to measures to increase judicial diversity – the necessity of appointment on merit – is in fact its greatest ally: a judiciary is stronger and the justice it dispenses better the greater the diversity of its members, so if we want the best judiciary we can get, we should want one which is fully diverse. Women, Judging and the Judiciary will be of interest to legal academics, lawyers and policy makers working in the fields of judicial diversity, gender and adjudication and, more broadly, to anyone interested in who our judges are and what they do.

Judging in Good Faith

Judging in Good Faith PDF Author: Steven J. Burton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521477406
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
This book offers an original theory of adjudication focused on the ethics of judging in courts of law. It offers two main theses. The good faith thesis defends the possibility of lawful judicial decisions even when judges have discretion. The permissible discretion thesis defends the compatibility of judicial discretion and legal indeterminacy with the legitimacy of adjudication in a constitutional democracy. Together, these two theses oppose both conservative theories that would restrict the scope of adjudication unduly and leftist critical theories that would liberate judges from the rule of law.

Judges and Judging in the History of the Common Law and Civil Law

Judges and Judging in the History of the Common Law and Civil Law PDF Author: Paul Brand
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139505572
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
In this collection of essays, leading legal historians address significant topics in the history of judges and judging, with comparisons not only between British, American and Commonwealth experience, but also with the judiciary in civil law countries. It is not the law itself, but the process of law-making in courts that is the focus of inquiry. Contributors describe and analyse aspects of judicial activity, in the widest possible legal and social contexts, across two millennia. The essays cover English common law, continental customary law and ius commune, and aspects of the common law system in the British Empire. The volume is innovative in its approach to legal history. None of the essays offer straight doctrinal exegesis; none take refuge in old-fashioned judicial biography. The volume is a selection of the best papers from the 18th British Legal History Conference.

Judging Judges

Judging Judges PDF Author: Jason E. Whitehead
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781602585256
Category : Judges
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The "rule of law" stands at the heart of the American legal system. But the rule of law does not require judges slavishly to follow the letter of the law, unaffected by political or social influences. Because following the rule of law absolutely is impossible, it is dismissed by the public as a myth and judges are vilified. Judging Judges refocuses and elevates the debate over judges and the rule of law by showing that personal and professional values matter. Jason E. Whitehead demonstrates that the rule of law depends on a socially constructed attitude of legal obligation that spawns objective rules. Intensive interviews of judges reveal the value systems that uphold or undermine the attitude of legal obligation so central to the rule of law. This focus on the social practices undergirding these value systems demonstrates that the rule of law is ultimately a matter of social trust rather than textual constraints. Whitehead's unique combination of philosophical and empirical investigation is a major advance because it moves beyond the dichotomy of law or politics and shows that the rule of law is a shared social enterprise involving all of society--judges, politicians, scholars, and ordinary citizens alike. Judging Judges' attention to judicial values establishes judges' true worth in a liberal democracy.