Drawing upon data interviews with Chinese judges who were involved in the decision-making process, we develop two variables for analyzing the influence of social ties, or guanxi, in the judicial setting. The first differentiates the strength of guanxi – whether it is strong or weak. The second...

Despite its age, the longstanding debate surrounding corporate rights and duties remains unresolved. Until today, the type and scope of corporate rights and duties, as well as the manner by which they are assigned, are both contested and evolving. The questions at stake are manifold. For...

This paper analyzes the influence of political and institutional factors on the enactment of sentencing guidelines and truth-in-sentencing legislation by US states. First, we develop a model of strategic interaction among the judiciary, parole boards and state legislators, to analyze the...

Criminal procedure is organized as a tournament with predefined roles. We show that assuming the role of a defense counsel or prosecutor leads to role induced bias even if people are highly motivated to give unbiased judgments. In line with parallel constraint satisfaction models for legal...

This paper examines the impact of jury racial composition on trial outcomes using a unique dataset of all felony trials in Sarasota County, Florida between 2004 and 2009. We utilize a research design that exploits day-to-day variation in the composition of the jury pool to isolate quasi-random...

Legal proceedings often involve multiple stages: U.S. civil litigation allows motions to dismiss and for summary judgment before reaching a trial; government agencies as well as prosecutors employ investigative and screening processes before initiating formal adjudication; and many Continental...

Traditional justice in the rural areas of South Africa is dispensed by official traditional courts, where they are presided over by traditional leaders. The Black administration Act 38 of 1927 currently makes provision for two types of courts depending on the nature of the facts before the...

In the United States, the 1970 Supreme Court decision Williams v. Florida 399 U.S. 78 (1970) reduced from twelve to six the minimum number of jurors required under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. In the hope of improving the legal process with faster deliberation and fewer mistrials, eleven...

Evidence has repeatedly shown that disparities in crime sentences can be attributed to certain variables considered outside the legal dimensions of the case. The majority of research that investigates factors that contribute to such disparities has primarily focused on crimes of varying...