Introduction to Public Trust and Confidence in the Courts

This special issue is fortunate in its timing. The topic of public perceptions of the courts is having a rare moment in the limelight thanks to the drama of Florida’s ballots and what can count as a vote (or what opportunities there are for recounting ballots) in the U.S. Presidential election. The outcome of the political election seemed to rest on successive decisions by the judicial system: in particular, Florida’s trial and appellate courts, the federal court of appeals, and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court. Each of these courts addressed the propriety of electoral ballot counts for Presidential candidates in various Florida counties. The apparent political nature of the legal decisions in virtually each case fueled concern about the solidity of public support for the judiciary. In particular, claims were made that the results were partisan and would cause an abrupt decline in public support for the courts and in the value given to the judiciary’s independence of other branches of government. Our initial call for papers for this special issue preceded the Florida events by more than a year. Nonetheless, the resulting issue is very relevant to the questions raised in news reports and debated in list-serves of social scientists and legal professionals interested in the law and legal institutions. What do the articles have in common? All seven articles are empirical. Six of the seven rely on data from surveys conducted in the United States and analyze opinion on “state and local courts” or “courts in your community” or “the courts of State X”. The U.S. Supreme Court, the staple of political science and sociological examination of American courts, is rarely mentioned. This may, in part, reflect, the availability of new data. Fifteen states have commissioned opinion surveys since 1995. In addition, in recent years three national surveys focused on state, but not federal, courts. There are other similarities among the articles. All seven studies refer to racial and ethnic diff erences in opinions about the courts and legal institutions, and four of the seven explicitly seek to explain those diff erences, including the sole non-U.S. study, a consideration of ethnic differences in Israel

Ultraviolet Spectroscopy of Comet 9P/Tempel 1 with Alice/Rosetta during the Deep Impact Encounter

We report on spectroscopic observations of periodic comet 9P/Tempel 1 by the Alice ultraviolet spectrograph on the Rosetta spacecraft in conjunction with NASA's Deep Impact mission. Our objectives were to measure an increase in atomic and molecular emissions produced by the excavation of volatile sub-surface material. We unambiguously detected atomic oxygen emission from the quiescent coma but no enhancement at the 10% (1-sigma) level following the impact. We derive a quiescent water production rate of 9 x 10^27 molecules per second with an estimated uncertainty of 30%. Our upper limits to the volatiles produced by the impact are consistent with other estimates.Comment: 11 pages, 4 postscript figures. Accepted for publication in Icarus special issue on Deep Impac

Implications for therapeutic judging (TJ) of a psychoanalytical approach to the judicial role — Reflections on Robert Burt's contribution

Robert Burt in, “The Yale School of Law and Psychoanalysis, from 1963 Onward”, in this issue, explains and laments a decline in influence of psychoanalytic ideas in legal thinking. He notes “the fundamental similarity that both litigation and psychotherapy involve recollections of past events”, buttressing his argument with eight parallels between the two. In this article we take up Burt's theme, first noting the relationship between therapeutic jurisprudence and psychoanalytic concepts before presenting an outline for a psychoanalytical understanding of the judicial role. We then consider the litigation process from the linked perspectives of therapeutic jurisprudence and psychoanalysis before closing with a reflection on the eight parallels elaborated by Burt

Public Trust and Confidence in the Courts: What Public Opinion Surveys Mean to Judges

In August 1998 a comprehensive national survey added to the growing mass of information on how the public perceives the state courts. The “Perceptions of the U.S. Justice System,” commissioned by the American Bar Association, relied on telephone interviews of 1,000 American adults selected at random. The respondents were asked for their opinions about “the justice system,” lawyers, judges, law enforcement and the courts. The findings from the ABA survey were optimistic relative to most of the previous surveys. Public confidence in the courts relative to other major institutions seemed higher, and experience with courts appeared to promote higher rather than lower levels of confidence. For the most part, however, there was more continuity than change in the 1998 survey. The public retained rather stereotypical views of how courts and judges work. Over twenty years of surveys, the same negative and positive images of the judiciary recurred with varying degrees of forcefulness across all of the national and state surveys. The negative images centered on perceived inaccessibility, unfairness in the treatment of racial and ethnic minorities, leniency toward criminals, and a lack of concern about the problems of ordinary people. There was concern that the courts are biased in favor of the wealthy and corporations. Indeed, the perception of economic- based unfairness in civil cases seemed to rival the perception of judicial leniency in criminal cases as a source of public dissatisfaction. There also was strong evidence of public concern that political considerations, and especially campaign fundraising, exerted an undue influence on the judiciary. The surveys also uncovered positive images of the courts. There were perceptions that judges are honest and fair in case decisions and well-trained, that the jury system works, and that judges and court personnel treat members of the public with courtesy and respect. While the surveys between 1977 and 1998 reveal the contours of a relatively consistent public image of courts, it remained a broad-brush portrait. In particular, we lack a body of data that can measure the extent to which the image of the courts is the same when viewed from the perspective of different social groups. In this article, we use findings from a new survey to explore differences in perceptions of the courts among racial and ethnic groups and other issues that, in our view, deserve urgent attention by the judiciary in a period of reexamination of what the courts are doing and need to do better to secure the public’s trust and confidence

Topics in d-1 dimensional statistical mechanics: 1. Statistical mechanics of equilibrium crystal shapes: Interfacial phase diagrams and phase transitions; 2. Symmetry classifications of two-dimensional phase transitions

U of I OnlyThesi

The Verdict Is In: Judge and Administrator Perceptions of State Court Governance

The court unification movement has progressed in fits and starts over the decades. Recent proposals have been put forth that attempt to continue the move toward a state court structure that utilizes a more coherent approach to governance. Drawing on a survey of court personnel who were asked about a set of proposed governance principles, this article examines how state court judges and administrators view their roles and responsibilities in the court system, the current need for court reform, the importance of future trends, and whether they are confident in the performance of their respective court system. Three hundred and seventy-five judges and administrators answered sixty-two questions regarding principles governing state court procedures and measures of their confidence in the court system. Participants overwhelmingly agreed that changes in court governance are necessary, although the degree of change for specific principles and trends was moderated by career, age, and time working for the courts. Results indicate that perceptions of court performance are not uniform among court professionals, perhaps signifying that current court governance emphases should be reexamined