Transnational Jihadism and the Role of Criminal Judges: An Ethnography of French Courts

Lower national courts are increasingly asked to perform a transnational role, being directly involved in major geopolitical issues such as conflicts, migration, and transnational terrorism. Based on an ethnography of French criminal courts, this article aims to examine this emerging role of national lower courts as transnationalized players. Through an examination of terrorism prosecutions in France and the positions of the different judicial actors, it is argued that lower criminal courts, acting within a transnational context, can offer more robust resistance to states’ policies than supreme courts. This is because of the routine and the banality of their function and the direct interaction with the accused persons coupled with the judges’ own professional ethos and notion of judicial independence. Unlike supreme courts, whose role is more visible, and thus under the constant scrutiny of the political branches of the state, lower courts can operate in a more distant, independent space.     

认罪认罚从宽制度疑难问题研究

完善刑事诉讼中的认罪认罚从宽制度,不仅需要从刑事实体法的角度对相关问题进行探讨,而且,也需要从刑事程序法的角度对此进行深入、系统的研究,对其中的疑难问题来说,更应当从刑事程序的独特情况出发,以程序公正为基本要求展开研究。完善刑事诉讼中的认罪认罚从宽制度,若只是局限于认罪认罚的实体法意义上的从宽、程序法意义上的从简,许多疑难问题解决不了。应当以认罪认罚在刑事程序中的证据价值为基础,坚持无罪推定、权利保障、职权规制等原则,研究解决完善刑事诉讼中的认罪认罚从宽制度之相关疑难问题,包括权利保障问题,刑事诉讼中的认罪认罚从宽制度所涉及的职权部门之间的制约问题,刑事证明要求在认罪认罚从宽制度中的问题等,以求有助于推动刑事诉讼中的认罪认罚从宽制度的完善,预防、避免刑事诉讼中的认罪认罚从宽制度中可能出现的问题。     

时间都去哪儿了——基层法院刑事法官工作时间实证研究

以法官工作时间分配为中心的实证研究显示,基层刑事法官的时间主要用于办案,而办案的时间主要耗费于大量的书面性工作,法官用于庭外活动、集体合议与讨论的时间有限,庭长确有相当长时间耗费于行政性的管理工作。这些发现与以往关于中国法官工作状态与工作内容的认识不尽一致,而有些发现则一定程度上印证了学界关于中国刑事审判制度运行的判断。实证研究的一些发现为中国法院改革提供了若干参考。     

Fairness, Justice, and Legitimacy: Experiences of People's Judges in South Russia

Which criteria do Russians use to evaluate the fairness of their judges, and how does perceived fairness of actual trials influence general beliefs about Russian courts? Lay assessors at courts in South Russia were asked about their experience serving on mixed courts. The justice of the verdicts rendered and the fairness of judges partly explain the respondents’ view of national courts. According to the results, the respondents are also using similar criteria for fairness as Americans or Germans. The social and psychological group effects in a Russian court of lay assessors exhibit a striking similarity to other Western tribunals.     

Transferring Pre‐Teens to Adult Criminal Courts: Searching for a Justification

This research examined the demographic and offense‐related characteristics of 1,488 children who were 12 years of age or younger when transferred by juvenile court judges to criminal courts in the United States from 1985 to 2009. Juvenile court statistics show a twofold increase in the number of these children transferred between 2005 and 2009, compared to the five‐year era between 1985 and 1989. Examination of the data revealed that the major offense that precipitated most of these transfers was a nonviolent act. Given these facts, a number of key questions emerged from this study: (1) Are these transfers desirable given the potential lifelong consequences of a criminal conviction for these youngsters; (2) Do these practices accomplish a legitimate crime control function; and (3) Are these transfers just and fair given the developmental status of these children?     

The Empire Strikes Back: Press Judges and Communication Advisers in Dutch Courts

Judges in many jurisdictions are today prepared to utilize the media to promote a better public understanding of their role. Understandably, they wish not to be perceived as 'spin doctors' intent on a cynical manipulation of public opinion. Judges' professional reputation, their public image, and public confidence in their role hinge on a belief in their neutrality and impartiality. Court communicators are also aware that their success in the media arena depends on a degree of skill and strategizing to ensure that the integrity and complexity of their message are preserved in media reports. This paper discusses how press judges (judges who also act as media spokesperson) and communication advisers in Dutch courts address this. It is argued that the media liaison function embraced by Dutch courts may be an expansion of law's empire or, at least, a possible attempt by law's empire to strike back against the pressures of an increasingly inquisitive media.     

Low-Level,but High Speed?: Assessing Pretrial Detention Effects on the Timing and Content of Misdemeanor versus Felony Guilty Pleas

Abstract

While numerous studies have examined pretrial detention and felony case outcomes, little empirical attention has been devoted to misdemeanor pretrial detention. We theorize that misdemeanants detained for a longer proportion of time will plead guilty quicker because the costs of fighting their charges in jail often outweigh the sanctions they face. Utilizing data on 165,630 felony and misdemeanor cases from Miami-Dade County, Florida, during a 4-year period (2012–2015) we assess whether the effects of pretrial detention length on the timing and content of guilty pleas differ across lower-level and upper-level courts. Survival analyses and multinomial logistic regressions indicate that misdemeanor cases overall and those involving lengthier pretrial detention are resolved faster, with most resulting in non-carceral sanctions such as credit for time served (CTS). Given that misdemeanors make-up the bulk of U.S. criminal cases, these findings reveal important insights about how pretrial detention impacts case-processing dynamics in lower courts.     

Female Defendants and Criminal Courts in Taiwan: An Observation Study

It has long been contended that the criminal justice system extends the influence of patriarchy in society. Feminist and critical criminologists have produced countless examples of the male domination in the criminal justice system. Critics of law and criminal justice point out that the system treats women the same way as does the mainstream society (MacKinnon 1989, 1991; Smart 1989). Therefore, criminal justice cannot be expected to remedy injustices legally before they are recognized as injustices socially. Sociological studies in crime and delinquency have also neglected gender issues. By employing the qualititaive research approach of field observation, this study focuses on how practitioners in three criminal courts in Southern Taiwan interact with female defendants. The findings point out that the court system was unbending in treating the observed defendants in a condescending manner, and expedited the trial process to pronounce the defendants’ guilt. The study aims to offer explicit and nuanced empirical evidence of how gender complicates courtroom interaction. Evidence from this study also forms the basis for policy recommendations and future reform in the criminal justice system.     

Courts,Criminal Process,and AIDS: The Institutionalization of Culture in Legal Decision Making*

This study views legal process as part of an interactive web of social and cultural relationships. While law may create public policy, its own creation is part of a complex system of institutional deference and subjective behaviors which reflect a larger cultural context. The fears engendered by AIDS help to highlight the underlying cultural biases and patterns of disease scare management ingrained in legal policymaking. These patterns are again enhanced when placed in a criminal context where the resident focus is one of controlling those who precipitate anxiety. Using a method of qualitative comparative analysis, this study concludes that the historical patterns of bias and institutional deference in disease scare management continues in modern criminal court process.     

Stateless Crimes,Legitimacy, and International Criminal Law: The Case of Organ Trafficking

Organ trafficking and trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ transplantation are recognized as significant international problems. Yet these forms of trafficking are largely left out of international criminal law regimes and to some extent of domestic criminal law regimes as well. Trafficking of organs or persons for their organs does not come within the jurisdiction of the ICC, except in very special cases such as when conducted in a manner that conforms to the definitions of genocide or crimes against humanity. Although the United States Code characterizes trafficking as “a transnational crime with national implications,” (22 U.S.C. § 7101(b)(24) (2010)), trafficking is rarely prosecuted in domestic courts. It has thus functioned in practice largely as what might be judged a “stateless” offense, out of the purview of both international and national courts. Yet these forms of organ trafficking remain widespread—and devastating to those who are its victims. In this article, we begin by describing what is known about the extent of organ trafficking and trafficking in persons for the purpose of removal of organs. We then critically evaluate how and why such trafficking has remained largely unaddressed by both international and domestic criminal law regimes. This state of affairs, we argue, presents a missed chance for developing the legitimacy of international criminal law and an illustration of how far current international legal institutions remain from ideal justice.     

司法成本与司法效率——中国法院的财政保障与法官激励

我国司法改革进程中,法院的财政保障构成了司法成本的主要问题。从长远的观点看应建立中央统一的司法财政与决算制度。此外,为了有效遏制司法腐败和从根本上提高司法公信力,通过渐进和配套的制度改革,将法官从一般公务员系列里独立出来并给予相对高的报酬仍应作为司法改革的一个努力方向。     

Gender,Indigeneity, and the Criminal Courts: A Narrative Exploration of Women's Sentencing in Western Australia

Ethel Rosenberg's prison letters illustrate women's prison writing at a transitional point. Preceding her work are prison writings that focus on self-justification and autobiography; afterward come texts that assert the writer's pride and challenge the penal system and society. Rosenberg's correspondence includes elements of both traditional and contemporary women's prison literature. Along traditional lines, her letters focus on family matters and her own mental state as she attempts to adapt to imprisonment. In their outright assertions of pride in self and anger at perceived injustice, Rosenberg's letters point ahead to the writing of women inmates today.     

Patronage and Rationalization: Reform to Criminal Procedure and the Lower Courts in Chile

This article analyzes how the lower criminal courts in Chile transitioned from an inquisitorial to an adversarial justice system between 2000 and 2005 as part of the Criminal Procedure Reform. Drawing on the frame analysis of the street‐level bureaucracy and judicial ethnography, I examine the transition between two different types of judicial bureaucracy from the perspective of the actors who implemented the reform. The study is based on in‐depth interviews with officials and judges of both inquisitorial and adversarial courts, administrative managers of the new courts, and actors who designed the administrative reorganization of lower criminal courts. The study involved a three‐month, weekly observation in an inquisitorial court in Santiago de Chile. The article emphasizes the specificity of the Chilean judiciary, where both inquisitorial and adversarial criminal courts still coexist.     

“Blue” Morality and the Legitimacy of the State—Ed Rubin's Soul,Self, and Society: The New Morality and the Modern State

Ed Rubin's provocative new book, Soul, Self, and Society: The New Morality & the Modern State (2015), attempts to capture the relationship between morality and the state. It maintains that that there are three comprehensive moral systems: the morality of honor that characterized feudal relationships and survives today in failed states and urban gangs, the morality of higher purposes that linked individual self‐worth and state legitimacy to a shared belief system, and the morality of self‐fulfillment that entrusts development of a moral code to each individual and sees the role of the state as creating the conditions for individual flourishing. This review essay argues that Rubin's work is critically important in explaining that the idea of self‐fulfillment combines public tolerance with private discipline, and rests on obligation as well as freedom. It suggests, however, that if the new morality were to truly take hold, it would weaken the links between citizen and state that make the system possible.     

Appearance Without Counsel: Self-Representation in the Criminal Courts of the United States and Canada

Previous attempts to ground structural effects have averaged the responses of individuals in survey research and consequently equate properties of the respondent with attributes of the system itself. This technique (Blau, 1960; 1974) generates philosophical controversy which can only be avoided by measuring properties of criminal justice agencies having no counterpart at the individual level (offenders, police, correctional workers) of analysis. Sampling designs must subsume both organizations and individuals to formulate generalizations about interorganizational processes. Applying conventional multivariate statistical models, we are able to examine one type of characteristic while simultaneously adjusting for the effects of the other.     

Beyond Therapy: Problem‐Solving Courts and the Deliberative Democratic State

Problem‐solving courts (drug courts, community courts, domestic violence courts, and mental health courts), unlike traditional courts, attempt to get at the root of the individual and social problems that motivate criminal behavior. Theoretical understandings of problem‐solving courts are mostly Foucauldian; proponents argue that these new institutions employ therapeutic techniques that encourage individuals to self‐engineer in ways that subtly increase state power. The Foucauldian approach captures only some elements of problem‐solving courts and does not fully theorize the revolution in justice that these courts present. Problem‐solving courts, domestic violence courts in particular, orient not just around individual change but also around social change and cultural transformation. Combining the Foucauldian idea of a therapeutic state (as developed by James Nolan) with an understanding of the deliberative democratic mechanisms of larger‐scale structural transformation (found in Habermas and others) leads to a more balanced and empirically open orientation to the actual motivations, goals, and achievements of problem‐solving courts.