When you cannot ask the judge: Using the case to explore judicial culture

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl.1745

Keywords:

Judicial culture, decided cases, data, artefacts

Abstract

Much of our understanding of the judicial role and culture is grounded in data gathered through interviews, surveys, and observations of judges.  However, in the UK access to the judiciary and the nature and form of questions you can ask of them is strictly controlled.  This paper argues that the case is an important artefact of judicial culture. The analysis of judicial decisions provides an insight into the factors that shape the decision-making culture and the influence of culture on individual decision makers. The analysis of cases raises important questions about the decision-making culture in the highest court.   

 

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

        Metrics

Views 375
Downloads:
13(S1)_Cahill_OCallaghan_OSLS 222
XML_13(S1)_Cahill_OCallaghan_OSLS 22


Author Biography

Rachel Cahill-O'Callaghan, Cardiff University

Rachel Cahill-O’Callaghan, Cardiff School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University. Email: Cahill-OCallaghanR@cardiff.ac.uk

References

Asch, S.E., 1956. Studies of independence and conformity: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological monographs: General and applied [online], 70(9) 1–8. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1037/h0093718

Baudenbacher, C., 1999. Some remarks on the method of civil law. Texas International Law Journal [online], 34, 333–355.

Bergman Blix, S., and Wettergen, Å., 2018. Professional emotions in court: A sociological perspective [online]. London: Taylor & Francis. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315306759

Braun, M.T., Kuljanin, G., and DeShon, R.P., 2018. Special considerations for the acquisition and wrangling of big data. Organisation Research Methods [online], 21(3), 633–659. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428117690235

Brennan, W., 1988. Reason, passion, and “The Progress of the Law”. Cardozo Law Review, 10(1), 3–25.

Cahill-O’Callaghan, R., 2021. Lord Kerr’s dissent: jewels in the crown of the Supreme Court. In: B. Dickson and C. McCormick, eds., The Judicial Mind: A Festschrift for Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore [online]. Oxford: Hart. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781509944811.ch-004

Chatman, J.A., and O’Reilly, C.A., 2016. Paradigm lost: Reinvigorating the study of organizational culture. Research in Organizational Behaviour [online], 36, 199–224. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2016.11.004

Chen, A.Y.S., Sawyers, R.B., and Williams, P.F., 1997. Reinforcing ethical decision making through corporate culture. Journal of Business Ethics [online], 16(8), 855–865. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1017953517947

Clark, T.S., 2009. Measuring ideological polarization on the United States Supreme Court. Political Research Quarterly [online], 62(1), 146–157. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912908314652

Collins, P.M., Manning, K.L., and Carp, R.A., 2010. Gender, critical mass, and judicial decision making. Law & Policy [online], 32(2), 260–281. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9930.2010.00317.x

Cotterrell, R., 2006. Law, culture and society: Legal ideas in the mirror of social theory. London: Routledge.

Cowan, D., and Wincott, D., 2016. Exploring the “legal” in socio-legal studies [online]. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-34437-3

Danziger, S., Levav, J., and Avnaim-Pesso, L., 2011. Extraneous Factors in Judicial Decisions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [online], 108(17), 6889–6892. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1018033108

Darbyshire, P., 2011. Sitting in judgment: the working lives of judges. London: Bloomsbury.

Dickson, B., and McCormick C., eds., 2021. The judicial mind: A Festschrift for Lord Kerr [online]. Oxford: Hart. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781509944811

Edwards, H.T., 2003. The effects of collegiality on judicial decision-making. University of Pennsylvania Law Review [online], 151(5), 1639–1690. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/3313001

Engel, D.M., 2010. The uses of legal culture in contemporary socio-legal studies: A response to Sally Engle Merry. Journal of Comparative Law [online], 5(2), 59–65.

Epstein, L., and King, G., 2002. The rules of inference. University of Chicago Law Review [online], 69(1), 1–133. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/1600349

Epstein, L., Landes, W.M., and Posner, R.A., 2012. Are even unanimous decisions in the United States Supreme Court ideological? Northwestern University Law Review, 106(2), 699–713.

Friedman, L.M., 1969. Legal culture and social development. Law & Society Review [online], 4(1), 29–44. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/3052760

Friedman, L.M., 1994. Is there a modern legal culture? Ratio Juris, 7(2), 117–131. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9337.1994.tb00172.x

Grossman, J.B., 1966. Social backgrounds and judicial decision-making. Harvard Law Review [online], 79(8), 1551–1564. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/1339008

Guthrie, C., Rachlinski, J.J., and Wistrich, A.J., 2000. Inside the judicial mind. Cornell Law Review [online], 86(4), 777–830. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.257634

Guthrie, C., Rachlinski, J.J., and Wistrich, A.J., 2007. Blinking on the bench: How judges decide cases. Cornell Law Review, 93(1), 1–44.

Hall, J.R., Neitz, M.J., and Battani, M., 2003. Sociology on culture. London: Psychology Press.

Hall, M.A., and Wright, R.F., 2008.Systematic content analysis of judicial opinions.California Law Review, 96(1), 63–122.

Hanretty, C., 2013. The decisions and ideal points of British Law Lords. British Journal of Political Science [online], 43(3), 703–716. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123412000270

Hanretty, C., 2020. A court of specialists: Judicial Behaviour on the UK Supreme Court [online]. New York: Oxford University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197509234.001.0001

Kahneman, D., 2003. A perspective on judgment and choice: Mapping bounded rationality. American psychologist [online], 58(9), 697–720. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.58.9.697

Kahneman, D., 2011. Thinking, fast and slow. London: Penguin.

Kahneman, D., Slovic, S.P., and Tversky, A., eds., 1982. Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases [online]. Cambridge University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511809477

Lady Hale, 2010. First anniversary seminar “Judgment writing in the Supreme Court”. 20 September.

Llewellyn, K.N., 1931. Some realism about realism: Responding to Dean Roscoe Pound. Harvard Law Review [online], 44(8), 1222–1264. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/1332182

Lord Hodge, 2020. Covid, continuity and change: The Courts’ response to the pandemic. Speech delivered to the British Irish Commercial Bar Association Annual Law Forum. 5 November.

Lord Hope, 2019. UK Supreme Court and Afterwards: Lord Hope’s Diaries. Edinburgh: Avizandum.

Lord Neuberger, 2014. Tweaking the Curial Veil. The Blackstone Lecture. Pembroke College, 15 November.

Lord Neuberger, 2015. Supreme Court Decisions on Private and Commercial Law: The Role of Public Policy and Public Interest. Lecture delivered to the Centre for Commercial Law Studies Conference, 4 December.

Lord Reed, 2019. The Supreme Court Ten Years On. The Bentham Association Lecture. University College London, 6 March.

Maroney, T.A., 2015. Why choose? A response to Rachlinski, Wistrich, & Guthrie’s “Heart versus head: Do judges follow the law or follow their feelings?” Texas Law Review, 93, 317–330.

Mears, D.P., et al., 2017. Culture and formal social control: The effect of the code of the street on police and court decision-making. Justice Quarterly [online], 34(2), 217–247. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2016.1149599

Merry, S.E., 2010. What Is legal culture - An anthropological perspective. Journal of Comparative Law, 5(2), 40–58.

Nelken, D., 2006. Rethinking legal culture. In: M Freeman, ed., Law and sociology [online]. Oxford University Press, 200–224. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199282548.003.0012

Nemeth, C.J., 1995. Dissent as driving cognition, attitudes, and judgments. Social Cognition [online], 13(3), 273–291. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.1995.13.3.273

Oliphant, H., 1928. A return to Stare Decisis. American Bar Association Journal, 14(2), 71–162.

Parsons, T., 1972. Culture and social system revisited. Social Science Quarterly, 53(2), 253–266.

Paterson, A., 1983. The Law Lords [online]. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06918-7

Paterson, A., 2013. Final judgment: the last Law Lords and the Supreme Court. London: Bloomsbury.

Paterson, A., 2021. Creating a group oriented Supreme Court – Lord Neuberger’s legacy. International Journal of the Legal Profession [online], 28(1), 107–126. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09695958.2021.1877716

Peer, E., and Gamliel, E., 2013. Heuristics and biases in judicial decisions. Court Review: The Journal of the American Judges Association, vol. 49, 422–445.

Peresie, J.L., 2004. Female matter: Gender and collegial decision making in the federal appellate courts. Yale Law Journal, 114(7), 1759–1790.

Riles A., 2005. A new agenda for the cultural study of law: Taking on the technicalities. Buffalo Law Review, 53(3), 973–1034.

Sale, H.A., 2001. Judging heuristics. UC Davis Law Review [online], 35(4), 903–944. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.262725

Schein, E.H. (with P. Schein), 2016. Organisational culture and leadership. 5th ed. Hoboken: Wiley and Sons.

Schulz-Hardt, S., et al., 2006. Group decision making in hidden profile situations: Dissent as a facilitator for decision quality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology [online], 91(6), 1080–1093. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.6.1080

Segal, J.A., and Cover, A.D., 1989. Ideological values and the votes of US Supreme Court Justices. American Political Science Review [online], 83(2), 557–565. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/1962405

Soysa, L., 2009. Triumph of culture, troubles for anthropology. Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, 55, 3–11.

Steffensmeier, D., and Britt, C., 2001. Judges’ race and judicial decision making: Do black judges sentence differently? Social Science Quarterly [online], 82(4), 749–764. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/0038-4941.00057

Tacha, D.R., 1995. The “C” word: On collegiality. Ohio State Law Journal, 56(2), 585–592.

Ulmer, S.S., 1963. Quantitative analysis of judicial processes: Some practical and theoretical applications. Law and Contemporary Problems [online], 28(1), 164–184. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/1190728

Valverde, M., 2009. Jurisdiction and scale: Using law’s technicalities as theoretical resources. Social & Legal Studies [online], 18(2), 139–157. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663909103622

van Oorschot, I., 2020. Culture, milieu, phenotype: Articulating race in judicial sense-making practices. Social & Legal Studies [online], 29(6), 790–811. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663920907992

Weber, E.U., and Morris, M.W., 2010. Culture and judgment and decision making: The constructivist turn. Perspectives on Psychological Science [online], 5(4), 410–419. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691610375556

Weick, K.E., 1995. Sensemaking in organizations. Vol. 3. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Williams, R., 1995. The sociology of culture. University of Chicago Press.

Wistrich, A.J., Rachlinski, J.J., and Guthrie, C., 2015. Heart Versus Head: Do Judges Follow the Law or Follow Their Feelings? Texas Law Review, 93(4), 855–923.

Yates, J.F., and De Oliveira, S., 2016. Culture and decision making. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes [online], 136(C), 106–118. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.05.003

Published

13-11-2023 — Updated on 20-12-2023

How to Cite

Cahill-O’Callaghan, R. (2023) “When you cannot ask the judge: Using the case to explore judicial culture”, Oñati Socio-Legal Series, 13(S1), pp. S121-S144. doi: 10.35295/osls.iisl.1745.