NCJ Number
131453
Date Published
1989
Length
179 pages
Annotation
This study uses a literature review of sociological analyses of legal decisionmaking to show the significance of the sociological characteristics of cases and case participants in determining case outcomes.
Abstract
The discussion first contrasts the jurisprudential model of the legal system with the author's sociological model. The traditional jurisprudential model holds that case processing and decisionmaking are based entirely on objective legal rules, such that all cases are governed by the same legal parameters. Under this model, the sociological characteristics of a case have no significance for case outcome. The sociological model, on the other hand, assumes that case processing and decisionmaking will vary according to the sociological characteristics of the case and its participants. In support of the sociological model, the author (a legal sociologist) documents the fact that blacks who kill a white person are much more likely to receive the death penalty than if they killed a black. Whites convicted of killing blacks rarely receive the death penalty. Discriminatory case processing, however, extends far beyond issues of race. Other sociological characteristics that determine case outcome include social status (regardless of race); the degree of intimacy between perpetrator and victim (offenders against family members receive more lenient treatment than offenders against strangers); speech; and organization. Such factors significantly influence whether a complaint will be filed in court, who will win the case, and the nature of the punishment. Moreover, case sociological characteristics encompass not only the litigants but also the lawyers, the jurors, and the judge. The author urges the adoption of a new sociological jurisprudence having a new morality of law that explicitly addresses the social relativity of justice. Chapter notes, 352 references, and a subject index