Creating the Federal Judicial Database and Research Agenda

创建联邦司法数据库和研究议程

• 批准号: 2141551
• 负责人: Christina Boyd
• 金额: $ 48.31万
• 依托单位: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-03-01 至 2025-02-28
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2141551&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Creating; Federal; Judicial; Database; Research

Federal district court and circuit court judges serve as the face of law and justice for many citizens in the United States. Because of their importance, there is interest among scholars, students, the media, the public, and policymakers to understand who these judges are and what decisions they make as judges. In aid of improving societal understanding and perceptions of the federal judiciary, this project will develop, make public, and use the Federal Judicial Database. When complete, these data will include detailed background information on all federal district and circuit judges serving from 1789 to the present selected to their positions through presidential nomination and Senate confirmation. The data will be presented to the public through an interactive website designed to facilitate broad user accessibility.The Federal Judicial Database will provide detailed biographical, attribute, and background data on the thousands of federal district and circuit judges selected into their positions under Article III of the U.S. Constitution. Compiled from federal judges’ nomination documentation presented to the Senate, along with other congressional, judicial, and biographical sources and updates of prior data collection efforts, the Federal Judicial Database will include extensive data on each federal judge, including information on nomination, confirmation, departure, demographics, biography, prior judicial and legal employment, and pre-appointment writings and speeches. The Investigator will design, develop, and produce a public website for the consumption and distribution of the Federal Judicial Database. The website design will accommodate information about the research project and data (project background, codebooks, data sources, citations, and publications), interactive search and display abilities, and access to pre-prepared datasets for download. The public web interface will be designed to make the data attractive and accessible to a broad set of non-scholar users and will highlight both individual judge profiles and cross-judge profiles based on interactive searches conducted by the user. Using the newly collected Federal Judicial Database, the Investigator will undertake two research applications. The first of these is an examination of whether district court judges with different legal backgrounds manage civil cases in distinct ways (such as in holding settlement conferences) and whether they vary in their successful encouragement of case settlements. Relevant judge factors from the Federal Judicial Database will include, for example, a district judge’s prior experience as a civil litigator, arbitrator, or mediator and the number of cases she took to trial during her legal career. The second research project using the Federal Judicial Database will be a study of how much variation exists in federal courts of appeals judge professional backgrounds (for example, prior service as prosecutors, public defenders, and corporate lawyers) across time and whether these different judicial backgrounds affect decision making on the federal bench. Beyond these two research projects, the Federal Judicial Database will permit rigorous inquiry into the patterns and effects of judges’ writing, trial experience, education and training, group membership, and more.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

联邦地区法院和巡回法院的法官是美国许多公民的法律和正义的代言人。由于他们的重要性，学者、学生、媒体、公众和政策制定者都有兴趣了解这些法官是谁，以及他们作为法官做出什么决定。为了提高社会对联邦司法的理解和认知，该项目将开发、公开和使用联邦司法数据库。完成后，这些数据将包括1789年至今通过总统提名和参议院确认当选的所有联邦地区和巡回法官的详细背景信息。这些数据将通过一个互动网站提供给公众，以方便广大用户使用。联邦司法数据库将提供根据美国宪法第三条选出的数千名联邦地区和巡回法官的详细履历、属性和背景资料。联邦司法数据库根据提交给参议院的联邦法官提名文件，以及其他国会、司法和传记来源和先前数据收集工作的更新，将包括每位联邦法官的广泛数据，包括提名、确认、离职、人口统计、传记、之前的司法和法律工作，以及任命前的著作和演讲。调查员将设计、开发和制作一个供联邦司法数据库使用和分发的公共网站。网站设计将包含有关研究项目和数据的信息（项目背景、代码本、数据源、引文和出版物）、交互式搜索和显示能力，以及访问预先准备的数据集以供下载。公共网络界面的设计将使数据对广大非学者用户具有吸引力和可访问性，并将突出显示基于用户进行的交互式搜索的个人法官档案和交叉法官档案。使用新收集的联邦司法数据库，调查员将进行两项研究申请。其中第一项是审查具有不同法律背景的地区法院法官是否以不同的方式处理民事案件（例如召开和解会议），以及他们在成功鼓励案件和解方面是否有所不同。联邦司法数据库中的相关法官因素包括，例如，地区法官以前作为民事诉讼律师、仲裁员或调解员的经验，以及她在其法律职业生涯中审理的案件数量。使用联邦司法数据库的第二个研究项目将研究联邦上诉法院法官的专业背景（例如，之前担任检察官、公设辩护人和公司律师）在不同时期存在多大差异，以及这些不同的司法背景是否影响联邦法官的决策。除了这两个研究项目之外，联邦司法数据库还将允许对法官的写作模式和影响、审判经验、教育和培训、小组成员资格等进行严格的调查。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。