Chapter 2: The Legal System: Issues, Structure, and Players

The Adversarial System

• A legal system where two opposing parties present their case to an impartial judge or jury, which decides the outcome. This system emphasizes the role of each party in advocating for their interests.

• The exhibits, evidence, and witnesses are assembled by representatives (ex. attorneys) of each side to convince the judge or jury of their respective positions.

• In a jury trial, the evidence presented is decided by those involved in the litigation and their attorneys (judges rarley call witnesses or induce evidence)

• Used in the USA

• Lawyers try harder

Myside Bias

The tendency for individuals to favor information or arguments that support their pre-existing beliefs and opinions while dismissing or undervaluing perspectives that contradict these views. This cognitive bias can affect decision-making and judgment in legal contexts.

The Inquisitorial System

• A legal system where a judge plays an active role in investigating the case, gathering evidence, and questioning witnesses. Unlike the adversarial system, the focus is on the judge as the central figure in determining the truth.

• The two sides do not have separate witnesses (opposing parties are not allowed to prepare witnesses before trial).

• Used in Europe (but not in Great Britain)

Legality vs Morality

• Do laws always coincide with the public’s sense of justice and right or wrong?

• Euthanasia is a topic that can lead to not-guilty verdicts even when it is

  clear the law was broken, due to the public’s vision of what is moral and

  ethical.

  − Case Study of Lester Zygmanik—compassionate “murder” of his brother

  − Some states have laws which allow patient-choice euthanasia

  - Death with Dignity Law—Oregon

Black Letter Laws

Legal rules that are clear, unambiguous, and well-established, typically found in statutes and regulations. These laws are widely accepted and provide a solid foundation for legal analysis and decision-making.

Attribution Theory

A psychological theory that explains how individuals interpret and explain their own and others' behaviors, typically focusing on the causes assigned to actions and events.

Fundamental Attribution Error

A cognitive bias where individuals overemphasize personal characteristics and underestimate situational factors when explaining others' behavior.

Self - Serving Bias

A cognitive bias whereby individuals attribute their successes to internal factors while blaming external circumstances for their failures.

Lawrence Kohlberg’s Theory of Morality

• A psychological framework that categorizes the stages of moral development in humans, focusing on how individuals reason about ethical dilemmas and justice throughout their lives.

• The Dilemma - Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the medicine to save his wife's life? This scenario illustrates the struggles individuals face in determining right from wrong across different stages of moral reasoning.)

Carol Gilligan

• A feminist philosopher known for her work in ethics and moral development, which critiques traditional theories of morality by emphasizing the importance of relationships and care in ethical decision-making.

• Gilligan's work highlights how women often approach moral issues through a lens of care and responsibility, contrasting with more traditional justice-oriented perspectives.

Consequences of Citizens - Code Disagreements

• Can people simply ignore laws that they believe are immoral or excessive?

• The outcomes or repercussions that arise when citizens face differing interpretations or applications of laws and regulations, leading to conflicts and challenges in achieving justice and fairness.

Distributive Justice

• Individuals are accepting of decisions and believe disputes have been resolved appropriately if the outcomes seem just or equitable.

• Distributive justice refers to the perceived fairness of the distribution of benefits and burdens among individuals in a society, ensuring that resources are allocated in a manner that is considered equitable and just.

Procedural Justice

• If individuals view the procedures of dispute resolution as fair, they will view the outcome as just, regardless of whether it favors them

• Procedural justice emphasizes the importance of fairness in the processes that lead to outcomes, ensuring that all parties have a voice and are treated with respect.

Commonsense Justice: Everyday Intuitions about Fairness

Commonsense justice refers to ordinary citizens’ basic notions of what is just and fair.

• Three discrepancies between jurors’ intuitions and legal concepts:

− The commonsense context is typically wider than the law’s.

 Ordinary people tend to consider the big picture: Their assessment of the event in

question extends backward and forward in time.

− Commonsense perspectives on the actions of a defendant and victim are more

subjective than the law allows.

 Stepping into the shoes of the offender and victim

− Observers take a proportional approach to punishment, whereas the law asks

them to consider the defendant in isolation.

 Want more severe punishment for those they find most blameworthy

• Individuals will perceive a decision-making process as fair if they believe that they have a voice in the process

Jury Nullification

When a jury refuses to convict a defendant who is legally guilty of the crime because they believe the law is unjust or incorrect or that the person does not deserve to be punished for the offense

Court Types

3.) Lower Courts - Small Claims, Civil

2.) Trial Courts - Criminal

1.) Appellate - Federal

These types vary from stste to state in terms of jurisdiction and function.

State Courts

Judicial bodies designated to adjudicate disputes under state laws, handling a wide range of cases including criminal, civil, and family matters.

Federal Courts

Specialized courts that handle cases involving constitutional and federal law, including district courts, circuit courts, and the Supreme Court. There are 13 federal courts of appeal, divided into regional circuits, each overseeing appeals from the district courts within their jurisdiction.

The U.S. Supreme Court

• 9 justices make up the supreme court, which are appointed by the U.S. President and confirmed by the Senate

• Have the authority to review all cases decided by the appellate courts

• Have the authority to review state court decisions involving federal laws

Influences on Judicial Judgement

• Factors that affect judges' decisions, including legal precedents, personal philosophies, societal values, and external pressures such as public opinion and political considerations.

• Influences that shape legal reasoning and outcomes in court decisions, encompassing a range of ideological and contextual elements.

Legal Formalism

A theory that emphasizes the strict application of legal rules and principles, asserting that legal decisions should be based solely on the written law and its interpretation, rather than personal beliefs or societal influences.

Legal Realism

A theory that asserts legal decisions should consider the actual context and social implications of the law, emphasizing the importance of real-world outcomes over strict adherence to written rules.

Lawyers

• The American Bar Association (ABA) reported that 2020 there were more than 1,300,000 attorneys in the United States, or roughly 1 per 250 citizens

• The legal field permeates the American economy. The work of lawyers influences everything from “automobile design to pharmaceutical research, from kindergarten field trip waivers to Fortune 500 companies’ earnings guidance” (Kiser, 2010, pp. 11–12).

Lawyer’s Work Setting

• The most likely place to find a lawyer is in private practice.

− Working either independently in a solo practice or as part of a larger team in a law firm

• Lawyers who work in law firms attend to the needs of the firm’s clients.

− Some of them specialize (e.g., on labor law), and others are generalists.

− Some lawyers work for corporations and have only one client—their corporate employers.

Law School and Legal Education

• Sheldon (2004) and Krieger (2007) have found that attending law school

tends to undermine students’ values, motivation, and mental health.

− They suggest that psychological dysfunction is related to changes in motivation that occur over the course of one’s law school career.

− Use Deci and Ryan’s (2000) self-determination theory of optimal motivation to explain the situational and personality factors that cause positive and negative motivation and, eventually, changes in subjective well-being

- They found that the increase in mental health symptoms in the first year of law school was correlated with a decrease in intrinsic motivation, or the desire to do something because of innate enjoyment in the activity.

− In the first year, students moved from pursuing their professional goals for reasons of intrinsic motivation to pursuing goals that would please and impress others, or extrinsic motivation, motivation which comes from external rewards outside the self.

Intrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation refers to the internal drive to engage in an activity for its own sake, due to personal interest or enjoyment, rather than for some separable consequence or external reward.

Extrinsic Motivation

Motivation driven by external rewards or outcomes, such as praise, money, or approval from others. It involves pursuing goals for recognition rather than personal satisfaction.

Gideon Case

A landmark Supreme Court case that established the right to counsel for defendants in criminal cases, regardless of their financial status, after Gideon was denied a lawyer after being on trial for committing theft and was denied a lawyer because he could not afford one. The case ruled that the Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to legal representation for all defendants, ensuring fair trial rights.