Factors Considered by Ohio Juvenile Court Judges in Judicial Bypass Judgments: A Policy-Capturing Approach

Sensibaugh, Christine Cregan; Allgeier, Elizabeth Rice

doi:10.1017/s0730938400019584

Cited by 7 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…It has also been used to investigate legal decisions made by judges in the American criminal justice system (e.g. Sensibaugh and Allgeier, 1996). Studies have typically investigated individuals' consistency in making decisions, agreement between different individuals' decisions on the same cases, their use of information, and their insight into their own policies.…”

Section: Judgment Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bailing and jailing the fast and frugal way

Dhami

Ayton

2001

Behavioral Decision Making

167

165

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Legal decisions such as the decision to bail upon adjourning a case have major consequences for both defendants and society. In the English system, magistrates, most of whom are lay people, are afforded considerable discretion and must work under constraints such as time pressure. Judgment analysis of the bail decision making policies of 81 magistrates from 44 courts throughout England and Wales revealed intra-and intermagistrate inconsistency in bail decisions, discrepancies between stated and elicited cue use, and high levels of post-decisional con®dence. Furthermore, magistrates' policies were better described and predicted by a fast and frugal model characterized by noncompensatory cue use, than by either of two compensatory integration models. The fast and frugal model portrays a picture of bail decision making that con¯icts with the ideal practice as de®ned by the due process model of justice. We discuss the implications of these ®ndings for judgment and decision making research and criminal justice policy. key words judgment analysis; fast and frugal; legal decision making; bail Decisions made in the criminal justice system are regularly criticized by organizations supporting victims, groups representing defendants and professional agencies such as the prosecution service. Criticism is directed both at existing legal rules and procedures and the individuals who are formally trained to apply them. The motivation for such scrutiny lies in the belief that crime and order are socially constructed and so can be reconstructed, and the realization that legal decisions have consequences for both the public purse and the lives of the public.Past psychological research on legal decision making includes studies investigating particular decisions made by judges (e.g. Ebbesen and Konecni, 1975;Sensibaugh and Allgeier, 1996) and studies of jury decision making (e.g. Klevorick et al., 1984;Pennington and Hastie, 1981). Although both types of research provide scope for challenging and changing existing legal rules and procedures, only the former can also critique the performance of individuals who are formally trained and entrusted to apply them on a regular basis.Many published studies of legal decisions made by judges have tended to focus on decisions made in the American criminal justice system. For example, Ebbesen and Konecni (1975) examined the information

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Section: Judgment Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ebbesen and Konecni, 1975;Sensibaugh and Allgeier, 1996) and studies of jury decision making (e.g. Klevorick et al, 1984;Pennington and Hastie, 1981).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Bailing and jailing the fast and frugal way

Dhami

Ayton

2001

Behavioral Decision Making

167

165

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“…Less commonly, but more appropriately, some researchers have followed the idiographic tradition and examined the decision-making of individual judges making decisions over multiple cases (e.g., Konečni & Ebbesen, 1984;Sensibaugh & Allegeier, 1996). However, when…”

Section: 'Researchers Analyzed Data Aggregated Over Groups Of Judges mentioning

confidence: 99%

On getting inside the judge’s mind.

Dhami¹,

Belton²

2017

Translational Issues in Psychological Science

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According to the scales of justice, the judge, in an unbiased way and directed by law, attends to all of the available information in a case, weighs it according to its significance, and integrates it to make a decision. By contrast, research suggests that judicial decision-making departs from the cognitive balancing act depicted by the scales of justice. Nevertheless, the research is often dismissed as irrelevant, and the judiciary, legal policymakers and the public remain largely unconvinced that the status quo needs improving. One potential rebuttal to the scientific findings is that they lack validity because researchers did not study judges making decisions on real cases. Another potential argument is that researchers have not pinpointed the psychological processes of any specific judge because they analyzed data over judges and/or used statistical models lacking in psychological plausibility. We review these 2 grounds for appeal against the scientific research on judicial decision-making, and note that it appears researchers' choices of data collection methods and analytic techniques may, indeed, be inappropriate for understanding the phenomena. We offer 2 remedies from the sphere of decision-making research: collecting data on judicial decision-making using representative design, and analyzing judicial decision data using more psychologically plausible models. Used together, we believe these solutions can help researchers better understand and improve legal decision-making. What is the significance of this article for the general public?We propose that researchers studying judicial decision-making ought to examine decisions made on real(istic) cases using a representative experimental design, and they should analyze individual judge or bench decision data using psychologically plausible models. This will make the research more relevant to the judiciary and thus make it more difficult for judges and legal policy-makers to ignore the findings.

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“…For instance, an experimental study of nine Ohio juvenile court judges used regression models to capture their decision policies. Results revealed that only two to four statistically significant cues (out of a possible six) were used in their decisions about judicial bypass (Sensibaugh & Allgeier, ). The implication for forensic report writers is that not all information presented in expert reports will be considered.…”

Section: Evidence‐based Approaches To Forensic Report Writingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Results of research comparing judgements by different judges have typically yielded low rates of inter‐individual consistency. For instance, Sensibaugh and Allgeier () found that their nine judges agreed on the decision outcome in only one third of the cases; Dhami and Ayton () found that legal decision‐makers in their sample disagreed with the modal decision in an average of 15 (out of 27) cases.…”

Section: Evidence‐based Approaches To Forensic Report Writingmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Forensic Examination of Court Reports

Goodman‐Delahunty

Dhami

2013

Australian Psychologist

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Advice to professionals who conduct forensic evaluations for courts on how to write an effective report has been driven by legal evidentiary principles and best practices in assessment. Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to how salient information is integrated within a report, and how non-informational aspects of reports (e.g., order and format of information) may impact the fact-finding process. Experts are required to integrate both qualitative and quantitative information from a variety of different sources, with varying degrees of reliability and validity. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the trier of fact relatively weights and integrates the relevant information contained in a report in order to form a conclusion, and that this conclusion is then itself weighted and integrated with other evidence in order to formulate the final decision in a case. We apply theories and findings from the field of decision science to critically evaluate these assumptions and extend their application to outcomes of empirical studies on forensic reports. By drawing together the findings from these two areas of research, we identify research gaps and provide some recommendations on ways to structure and format expert reports to enhance their appropriate impact on the trier of fact.

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Factors Considered by Ohio Juvenile Court Judges in Judicial Bypass Judgments: A Policy-Capturing Approach

Cited by 7 publications

References 22 publications

Bailing and jailing the fast and frugal way

Bailing and jailing the fast and frugal way

On getting inside the judge’s mind.

A Forensic Examination of Court Reports

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