Court Management of AIDS Disputes: A Sociolegal Analysis

Historically, disease scares reveal contradictions in the social order. We postulate that courts focus on depoliticizing social tensions revealed by AIDS, legitimating the routines of dominant parties in the AIDS sociolegal network. At the same time, courts deviate from their normal practices try upholding the claims of subordinate parties in this network, particularly people living with AIDS (PWAs) and their allies. Our analysis of 36 AlDS-related court rulings, published during the formative years of AIDS litigation in the United States, supports the notion that courts operate as "double-edged" institutions. To explain the duality of judicial decision making, we concentrate on the powers of social and cultural factors rather than on the doctrinal judgments of the courts. We trace how relational attributes, evident in contestants' characteristics (e.g., plaintiff/defendant, status differentials) and the nature of claims (i.e., restrictive/expansive), combine to account for wins for dominant parties and how other combinations of these attributes define wins for subordinate parties. We also show how judges combine specific interpretational attributes in the text of their rulings (e.g., use of divisive AIDS metaphors, deference to medical authority) to justify wins. We consolidate these findings to discuss how PWAs and their allies might use the courts to their advantage and point out the ways in which the changing epidemiology of AIDS in the United States limits the use of courts.     

Exploring the Social Context of Instrumental and Expressive Homicides: An Application of Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Using data from the UCR's Supplementary Homicide Reports, the methodof qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is used to examine whetherinstrumental and expressive homicides are similar or unique in their socialcontext (i.e., combinations of offender, victim, and situationalcharacteristics). Instrumental and expressive homicides are found to haveboth common and unique social contexts, but the vast majority of homicideincidents involve combinations of individual and situational factors thatare common in both general types of homicides. Among subtypes ofinstrumental (like rape, prostitution, robbery murders) and expressivehomicides (like lovers' triangles, brawls, and arguments), there iswide variability in their prevalence of unique and common components. Afterdiscussing these results, the paper concludes with illustrations of how QCAmay be used in other areas within criminology.