Collaborative Research: Judicial Diversity and Appellate Decision Making

合作研究：司法多元化和上诉决策

• 批准号: 1655159
• 负责人: Laura Moyer
• 金额: $ 10.57万
• 依托单位: University of Louisville Research Foundation Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-06-01 至 2021-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1655159&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Judicial; Diversity; Appellate

By the end of 2016, over one-third of the federal appeals court bench was made up of women and over one-fifth were racial minorities. These figures stand in stark contrast to forty years earlier when the same appellate courts counted just one woman and three minority judges on active service. This study uses social science theories and methods to examine how this historic demographic transformation of the federal bench affects deliberations, opinion writing, and organizational practices on the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals. These findings will offer new and important insights on the intermediate appellate courts that serve a vital role in the administration of justice in the federal court system. Data are collected from published judicial opinions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, biographical materials, and publicly available transcribed oral arguments, to test competing perspectives from social science theories about the effects of diversity on judicial decision making. One set of theories focuses on the way in which differing perspectives of individuals linked to race and gender affect small group decision making. Another set of theories predicts that interactions during oral argument and subsequent citations to opinions will reflect on societal processes that generalize stereotypes about gender, race, status, and power. Finally, theories on gender and racial identity predict that women and minority judges will bring new approaches to oral argument, collaboration, and opinion drafting. To test these various expectations, this study leverages recent advances in linguistic software and automated methods of content analysis to produce a novel dataset of opinion content and extend an existing public resource, the Multi-User Database of U.S. Courts of Appeals Decisions.

截至2016年底，超过三分之一的联邦上诉法院法官由女性组成，超过五分之一的人是少数民族。这些数字与40年前形成了鲜明对比，当时同一上诉法院只有一名妇女和三名少数民族法官在职。 本研究使用社会科学的理论和方法，以探讨如何这一历史性的人口转变的联邦板凳影响审议，意见写作，和组织的做法，对美国巡回上诉法院。 这些调查结果将为中级上诉法院提供新的重要见解，这些法院在联邦法院系统的司法行政中发挥着至关重要的作用。数据收集自美国上诉法院发表的司法意见、传记材料和公开转录的口头辩论，以测试社会科学理论关于多样性对司法决策影响的相互竞争的观点。 一套理论集中在与种族和性别有关的个人不同观点影响小群体决策的方式上。另一套理论预测，在口头辩论和随后引用意见的过程中的互动将反映出社会过程，这些社会过程概括了关于性别、种族、地位和权力的刻板印象。最后，关于性别和种族认同的理论预测，女性和少数族裔法官将为口头辩论、合作和意见起草带来新的方法。为了测试这些不同的期望，本研究利用语言软件和内容分析的自动化方法的最新进展，产生一个新的意见内容数据集，并扩展现有的公共资源，美国上诉法院判决的多用户数据库。

项目成果

Diversity, consensus, and decision making: evidence from the U.S. Courts of Appeals

多样性、共识和决策：来自美国上诉法院的证据

• DOI: 10.1080/21565503.2020.1782950
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: and Identities
• 作者: Moyer, Laura P.;Szmer, John;Haire, Susan;Christensen, Robert K.
• 通讯作者: Christensen, Robert K.