Law and Society: Project and Practice

Abel, Richard

doi:10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-102209-152851

Cited by 37 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…But the presumption that legal policy is translated into practice in a uniform and orthodox manner is belied by a long line of law and society scholarship. Indeed, the question of whether there is a gap between "law on the books" and "law in action" has long ago been asked and answered (Abel 2010); more fruitful questions interrogate the specificities of translating formal law into practice. In the context of criminal courts, now-classic scholarship has demonstrated the impact of proximate and distal contexts on how cases are adjudicated (see Ulmer 2012 for a full review).…”

Section: Sentencing In Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Legal Change and Sentencing Norms in the Wake of Booker: The Impact of Time and Place on Drug Trafficking Cases in Federal Court

Lynch

Omori

2012

SSRN Journal

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The federal sentencing guidelines have lost some authoritative force since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a series of recent cases that the guidelines are advisory, rather than presumptive, in determining criminal sentences. While these court decisions represent a dramatic legal intervention, sociolegal scholarship suggests that organizational norms are likely to change slowly and less dramatically than the formal law itself. The research reported here looks specifically at the consequences of such legal transformations over time and across locale, using multilevel analysis of U.S. Sentencing Commission sentence outcome data from 1993 to 2009. Our findings suggest that districts vary considerably from each other in sentencing practices over the time period studied, and that there is relative within-district stability of outcomes within districts over time, including in response to the Supreme Court's mandates. We also find that policy change appears to influence the mechanisms by which cases are adjudicated in order to reach normative outcomes. Finally, we find that the relative district-level reliance upon mandatory minimums, which were not directly impacted by the guidelines changes, is an important factor in how drug trafficking cases are adjudicated. We conclude that local legal practices not only diverge in important ways across place, but also become entrenched over time such that top-down legal reform is largely reappropriated and absorbed into locally established practices.We would like to thank

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Section: Sentencing In Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Legal Change and Sentencing Norms in the Wake of Booker: The Impact of Time and Place on Drug Trafficking Cases in Federal Court

Lynch

Omori

2012

SSRN Journal

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“…He qualitatively tracked the tendency during the first 13 years to study the impacts of law on social behavior and the behavior of legal institutions, such as courts and police. In the last 13 years, he detected a cultural turn towards legal narrativity, an inequality turn toward legal mobilization by subordinated groups, and a legal pluralism turn (Abel : 13). Silbey and Abel piqued my curiosity about how LSR authors over the years positioned law vis‐à‐vis society, and what this tells us about how the field, through the journal, has conceptualized law and society .…”

Section: Change Disguised As Continuity In Studying Law and Society? mentioning

confidence: 99%

Discussion Law & Society Review at Fifty: A Debate on the Future of Publishing by the Law & Society Association

et al. 2016

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This contribution presents a series of statements on the future of publishing by the Law & Society Review and the Law & Society Association generally. Framed by the first author's introductory and concluding comments are contributions by Halliday, Liu, Morrill, Seron, and Silbey. This debate, based on a LSR 50th anniversary panel held at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the LSA, is intended to open up a broader conversation among members of the Association. Positions by individual contributors can only be linked to them and not to the group of contributors.

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“…Answering that requires certain spontaneity." 10 [Field notes, interview with a chair judge, October 25, 2010] More than 50 years ago, legal sociologists close to the Law and Society movement (see Abel 2010) clearly demonstrated that not all judges judge in the same way. The different attitudes of the court adjudicators in dealing with cases were, therefore, neither a novelty nor an exception.…”

Section: Embarrassing Intimaciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Judging Intimacies at the French Court of Asylum

Kobelinsky

2015

PoLAR

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Some legal scholars have asserted that rigid notions of homosexual identity shape adjudicators' approach when evaluating asylum claims based on sexual orientation. Recent ethnographic research at the French Court of Asylum, in charge of reviewing appeals on decisions from the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons, shows indeed that adjudication is based on particular gender stereotypes. However, my analysis centers on an unexplored but related issue: the relationship between the problems raised by adjudicators when facing what they call "intimacy cases," specifically regarding the administration of proof and stereotyped performances. Through ethnographic data drawn from encounters with adjudicators and asylum seekers at the French Court of Asylum; through interviews with judges, rapporteurs (reporters), interpreters, and lawyers; and by examining 60 court rulings, I argue that sexual orientation-based cases crystallize the importance of intimacy in the politics of asylum, helping to seize the new shapes of the refugee as well as the growing difficulties for judges in relying on material evidence. [asylum, sexual orientation, intimacy, proof, France]One morning in July 2010, in the Cour nationale du droit d'asile (French Court of Asylum) in Montreuil near Paris, the last case to be heard was that of a Kosovar claimant of Albanian origin. The courtroom had been cleared as the claimant's lawyer requested a hearing in camera, behind closed doors. The asylum seeker and the three judges allowed me to remain in the room, seated in the public gallery, in my capacity as researcher. The rapporteur (reporter), a civil servant of the court in charge of examining the case in detail, was seated sideways between the board of judges and the claimant.She provided a summary of the facts: The applicant, whom I call here Mr. Afrim, 1 claimed to have been persecuted in Kosovo owing to his sexual orientation; he stated that he became aware of his homosexuality and had a sporadic secret relationship with a neighbor; that he always hid his sexual orientation from his family; that he was the victim of insults and mockery on the part of the villagers due to his celibacy; that his parents put pressure on him to marry as soon as possible; that at a family gathering he was violently cast out by a cousin who publicly accused him of being homosexual and threatened to kill him in order to preserve the family's honor; that in

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Law and Society: Project and Practice

Abstract: This review analyzes four decades of law-and-

Cited by 37 publications

References 58 publications

Legal Change and Sentencing Norms in the Wake of Booker: The Impact of Time and Place on Drug Trafficking Cases in Federal Court

Legal Change and Sentencing Norms in the Wake of Booker: The Impact of Time and Place on Drug Trafficking Cases in Federal Court

Discussion Law & Society Review at Fifty: A Debate on the Future of Publishing by the Law & Society Association

Judging Intimacies at the French Court of Asylum

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