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Full-Text Articles in Law

Finding Data And Statistics On Judges, Leslie A. Street Sep 2019

Finding Data And Statistics On Judges, Leslie A. Street

Leslie A. Street

No abstract provided.


The Effectiveness Of Measures To Increase Appellate Court Efficiency And Decision Output, Thomas B. Marvell, Carlisle E. Moody Sep 2019

The Effectiveness Of Measures To Increase Appellate Court Efficiency And Decision Output, Thomas B. Marvell, Carlisle E. Moody

Carlisle Moody

This Article will examine the effectiveness of measures commonly employed to increase appellate court productivity. Part I of the Article sets forth some common design problems and explains how the research technique employed in the present study avoids these problems by using a multiple time-series research design. Part II applies this design to state court data. Part II also describes the dependent variable, the number of appeals decided per judge, used in the regression analysis. Part III discusses the results of that analysis-the impact of each change listed above on judicial productivity. The Article, although not advocating the adoption of …


Alj Support Systems: Staff Attorneys And Decision Writers, Russell L. Weaver Jun 2019

Alj Support Systems: Staff Attorneys And Decision Writers, Russell L. Weaver

Russell L. Weaver

No abstract provided.


“But My Lease Isn’T Up Yet!”: Finding Fault With “No-Fault” Evictions, Eloisa Rodriguez-Dod Nov 2016

“But My Lease Isn’T Up Yet!”: Finding Fault With “No-Fault” Evictions, Eloisa Rodriguez-Dod

Eloisa C Rodríguez-Dod

Historically, tenants could be evicted when their actions put them “at-fault.” Grounds for “at-fault” eviction (i.e., evictions for cause) include a tenant’s failure to pay rent, a tenant’s holding over after termination of the lease, a tenant’s material noncompliance with the lease agreement, and a tenant’s failure to maintain the premises materially affecting health and safety. Recently, some landlords have been evicting tenants for no fault of their own. This article focuses on three reasons for attempted “no-fault” evictions: foreclosure of the premises, proposed sale of the premises, or intended re-occupancy by the landlord. Part II of this article provides …


Econometrics In The Courtroom, Daniel L. Rubinfeld Aug 2016

Econometrics In The Courtroom, Daniel L. Rubinfeld

Daniel L. Rubinfeld

No abstract provided.


Thinking Like A Statistician: The Report Of The American Statistical Association Committee On Training In Statistics In Selected Professions, David H. Kaye Mar 2016

Thinking Like A Statistician: The Report Of The American Statistical Association Committee On Training In Statistics In Selected Professions, David H. Kaye

David Kaye

In 1983, a subcommittee of the American Statistical Association composed of legal educators and one judge issued a report describing existing programs for educating law students in statistics and offering recommendations for improving these programs. This article summarizes that report.


Statistical Significance And The Burden Of Persuasion, David H. Kaye Mar 2016

Statistical Significance And The Burden Of Persuasion, David H. Kaye

David Kaye

In most endeavors concerned with the acquisition of knowledge, quantitative information is welcomed. In law, however, it appears sometimes that scientific or numerical evidence makes cases harder, not easier. Nevertheless, there are many cases and administrative proceedings, in such areas as environmental law, food and drug regulation, and civil rights, in which statistical data obtained by observation or experiment are readily accepted as assisting in the proper resolution of disputed issues of fact. When courts or administrators confront scientific and statistical evidence in these proceedings, they are not always certain of how to weigh the evidence or whether they should …


Common Law Judicial Decision Making: The Case Of The New York Court Of Appeals 1900-1941, Mark P. Gergen, Kevin M. Quinn Nov 2015

Common Law Judicial Decision Making: The Case Of The New York Court Of Appeals 1900-1941, Mark P. Gergen, Kevin M. Quinn

Mark P. Gergen

The article discusses common law judicial decision making by the New York Court of Appeals (NYCOA) between 1900 and 1941, focusing on the court's policy towards fairness in cases involving subjects such tort law, contract law, and constitutional law. The judicial acumen of former NYCOA justice such as Benjamin Cardozo is also addressed, along with an analysis of statistical data related to alleged patterned voting by justices.


Faculty Salary Compression: A Model For Response, Elizabeth Reilly, Chand Midha, Thomas Calderon, Richard Steiner Sep 2015

Faculty Salary Compression: A Model For Response, Elizabeth Reilly, Chand Midha, Thomas Calderon, Richard Steiner

Thomas Calderon

This paper describes a process used by The University of Akron to address salary compression. The process allocates salary adjustment resources to disciplines based on relative salary ratios derived from benchmarks. Amounts earmarked for specific disciplines are then distributed to departments for allocation to individual faculty based on merit. The process also invokes concepts of fairness and equity, and includes a component distributed to productive faculty members based on rank and experience. Outcomes, challenges, and implications of the process are examined.


The Persuasive Powers Of Dna: An Experimental Study In Perceptions Of Expert Evidence, Robyn Lincoln, Adam Southerland, Madeleine Jarrett-Luck Apr 2015

The Persuasive Powers Of Dna: An Experimental Study In Perceptions Of Expert Evidence, Robyn Lincoln, Adam Southerland, Madeleine Jarrett-Luck

Robyn Lincoln

This article presents the results of an experimental study where mock-jurors were tasked with interpreting the presentation of DNA evidence. The 200 university student participants were exposed to one of five murder scenarios where the information about the DNA evidence was manipulated. The results showed that participants were more likely to convict when the DNA match statistic was presented as a probability (0.1%) and focused on the defendant, less likely to convict when it was presented as a frequency (1 in 1,000) and focused on a broader reference group, and even less likely in the control scenario with no DNA …


Probability And Chance In Contract Law, Melvin Aron Eisenberg Mar 2015

Probability And Chance In Contract Law, Melvin Aron Eisenberg

Melvin A. Eisenberg

No abstract provided.


Quiet Rebellion? Explaining Nearly A Decade Of Declining Federal Drug Sentences With Michael Heise, Frank O. Bowman Iii, Michael Heise Feb 2015

Quiet Rebellion? Explaining Nearly A Decade Of Declining Federal Drug Sentences With Michael Heise, Frank O. Bowman Iii, Michael Heise

Michael Heise

The Article begins with an examination of three primarily empirical questions. First, is the trend real? In other words, is the apparent decrease in federal drug sentences merely a species of statistical hiccup, a random fluctuation that could move easily and rapidly in the other direction? Or is the decline in average drug sentences large enough, and the trend prolonged enough, that we can safely conclude that something meaningful is occurring?


Rate Of False Conviction Of Criminal Defendants Who Are Sentenced To Death, Samuel Gross, Barbara O'Brien, Chen Hu, Edward Kennedy Dec 2013

Rate Of False Conviction Of Criminal Defendants Who Are Sentenced To Death, Samuel Gross, Barbara O'Brien, Chen Hu, Edward Kennedy

Edward H. Kennedy

The rate of erroneous conviction of innocent criminal defendants is often described as not merely unknown but unknowable. There is no systematic method to determine the accuracy of a criminal conviction; if there were, these errors would not occur in the first place. As a result, very few false convictions are ever discovered, and those that are discovered are not representative of the group as a whole. In the United States, however, a high proportion of false convictions that do come to light and produce exonerations are concentrated among the tiny minority of cases in which defendants are sentenced to …


Avoiding The Subject: The Opium War, Opium-Markets, And The Exclusion Of Chinese Laborers In The United States, Canada, And Mexico, Olivia L. Blessing Dec 2013

Avoiding The Subject: The Opium War, Opium-Markets, And The Exclusion Of Chinese Laborers In The United States, Canada, And Mexico, Olivia L. Blessing

Olivia L Blessing

The 19th century saw significant increases in the number of Chinese immigrants entering North America, most significantly on the west coast of the United States. Already facing increasing divide amongst the American population over the issue of the Opium Wars and the resulting Opium-addiction amongst the Chinese, the United States found itself now confronting the problem in the form of immigrant workers. Although the Opium Wars and the issue of the Chinese Opium Dens were highly disputed outside the courts, the State and Federal courts surprisingly avoided discussing the topic in their legislative discussions surrounding the Chinese Exclusion Act of …


Race, Crime, And Institutional Design, Erik Luna Jan 2013

Race, Crime, And Institutional Design, Erik Luna

Erik Luna

Minorities are gravely overrepresented in every stage of the criminal process--from pedestrian and automobile stops, to searches and seizures, to arrests and convictions, to incarceration and capital punishment. While racial data can provide a snapshot of the current state of affairs, such information rarely satisfies questions of causation, and usually only sets the scene for normative theory.


Pages Per Term In The United States Reports And Converting Supreme Court Citations To Term Announced: A Statistical Research Tool, Donald J. Kochan Dec 1997

Pages Per Term In The United States Reports And Converting Supreme Court Citations To Term Announced: A Statistical Research Tool, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

This short article presents a valuable statistical research tool for those involved in analysis of U.S. Supreme Court opinions. Researchers are made available the data regarding the number of pages that the Supreme Court has written each term and provides an easier basis for identifying this page count with the term announced, which is not otherwise immediately evident from the volume number of the U.S. Reports.