Law Commons^™

What Is A Reasonable Attorney Fee? An Empirical Study Of Class Action Settlements, Theodore Eisenberg, Geoffrey P. Miller

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Determining an appropriate fee is a difficult task facing trial court judges in class action litigation. But courts rarely rely on empirical research to assess a fee’s reasonableness, due, at least in part, to the relative paucity of available information. Existing empirical studies of attorney fees in class action cases are limited in scope, and generally do not control for important variables. To help fill this gap, we analyzed data from all state and federal class actions with reported fee decisions from 1993 to 2002 in which the fee and class recovery could be determined with reasonable confidence.

We find …

Virginia's Capital Jurors, Stephen P. Garvey, Paul Marcus

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Next to Texas, no state has executed more capital defendants than Virginia. Moreover, the likelihood of a death sentence actually being carried out is greater in Virginia than it is elsewhere, while the length of time between the imposition of a death sentence and its actual execution is shorter. Virginia has thus earned a reputation among members of the defense bar as being among the worst of the death penalty states. Yet insofar as these facts about Virginia's death penalty relate primarily to the behavior of state and federal appellate courts, they suggest that what makes Virginia's death penalty unique …

The Government As Litigant: Further Tests Of The Case Selection Model, Theodore Eisenberg, Henry Farber

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

We develop a model of the plaintiff's decision to file a lawsuit that has implications for how differences between the federal government and private litigants translate into differences in trial rates and plaintiff win rates at trial. Our case selection model generates a set of predictions for relative trial rates and plaintiff win rates, depending on the type of case and whether the government is defendant or plaintiff. To test the model, we use data on about 474,000 cases filed in federal district court between 1979 and 1994 in the areas of personal injury and job discrimination, in which the …

Victim Characteristics And Victim Impact Evidence In South Carolina Capital Cases, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey, Martin T. Wells

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The use of victim impact evidence (VIE) has been a standard feature of capital trials since 1991, when the Supreme Court lifted the previously existing constitutional bar to such evidence. Legal scholars have almost universally condemned the use of VIE, criticizing it on a variety of grounds. Yet little empirical analysis exists that examines how VIE influences the course and outcome of capital trials. We analyze the influence of VIE based on interviews with over two-hundred jurors who sat on capital trials in South Carolina between 1985 and 2001.

First, we describe the VIE introduced at sentencing trials, using a …

How Employment-Discrimination Plaintiffs Fare In The Federal Courts Of Appeals, Kevin M. Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg, Stewart J. Schwab

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Employment-discrimination plaintiffs swim against the tide. Compared to the typical plaintiff, they win a lower proportion of cases during pretrial and after trial. Then, many of their successful cases are appealed. On appeal, they have a harder time in upholding their successes, as well in reversing adverse outcome.

This tough story does not describe some tiny corner of the litigation world. Employment-discrimination cases constitute an increasing fraction of the federal civil docket, now reigning as the largest single category of cases at nearly 10 percent.

In this article, we use official government data to describe the appellate phase of this …

Victim Characteristics And Victim Impact Evidence In South Carolina Capital Cases, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey, Martin T. Wells

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article is available at:

http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/facpub/290/.

The use of victim impact evidence (VIE) has been a standard feature of capital trials since 1991, when the Supreme Court lifted the previously existing constitutional bar to such evidence. Legal scholars have almost universally condemned the use of VIE, criticizing it on a variety of grounds.

Yet little empirical analysis exists that examines how VIE influences the course and outcome of capital trials. Moreover, the handful of empirical analyses that do exist rely on data gathered in simulation studies. Although valuable contributions have emerged from these experimental studies, such studies have often-rehearsed …

Nullification At Work? A Glimpse From The National Center For State Courts Study Of Hung Juries, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In recent years, the criminal justice community has become increasingly concerned about the possibility that jury nullification is the underlying motivation for increasing numbers of acquittals and mistrials due to jury deadlock in felony jury trials. In this Article, the authors discuss the inherent difficulty in defining jury nullification and identifying its occurrence in actual trials. They review the evolution in public and legal opinion about the legitimacy of jury nullification and contemporary judicial responses to perceived instances of jury nullification. Finally, the authors examine the possible presence of jury nullification through empirical analysis of data collected from 372 felony …