Courtroom Environment Research Articles

Would Justice Be Better Served in the U.S. if More Supreme Court Judges Were Women?

This paper support that justice would be better served in the U.S. if Supreme Court judges included more women. Considering the powerful influence of the Supreme Court rulings, this paper focuses on the importance of diversity on the bench and females decision-making characteristics. Diversity on the bench could effectively enhance the fairness of verdicts and positively influence colleagues, as female judges would make decisions with different life experiences. Their presence creates a more fair and open courtroom environment. Also, a diverse bench would increase confidence in U.S. citizens of the Supreme Court. Compared to males, Females decision-making characteristics would provide a fresh perspective on the bench since these characteristics are essential and beneficial for courtroom decisions.

SPORTS TERMS IN AMERICAN JUDICIAL APPELLATE OPINIONS

Sports metaphor-terms are used in law journal article titles and published state and federal court cases (in judicial opinions) to describe the process of litigation, the actions of attorneys, trial strategies and goals, or the courtroom environment. Mostly only few sports metaphor-terms, bouncing around legal arenas in legal instruments, can be easily understood without prior background knowledge of sports, and consequently the unexpected clash between the source and the target domains sets new hurdles in the comprehension process of the complex nature of legal English.

Court Interpreters and the Political Economy of Bail in Three Arraignment Courts

Criminal courts in the United States engage defendants with Limited English Proficiency on a regular basis. However, we know little about how court‐appointed interpreters shape case‐level routines and dispositions, nor how these interpreters navigate their immediate courtroom environment. We draw on observations of bail hearings (N = 647) conducted in 2015–16 in three arraignment courts in New York and New Jersey to map the practice and consequences of language interpretation. More specifically, we examine whether the use of an interpreter relates to indicators of judicial treatment and case disposition by bail type/amount, and explore more broadly how the presence of interpreters shapes the casework of other courtroom actors. Results from multivariate regression models indicate that cases with interpreters are associated with a more limited judicial review, a lower likelihood of unconditional release, and higher cash bonds. We discuss these findings in terms of evolving mechanisms of social control and the criminalization of disadvantaged populations.

Recovery-oriented practices within the Dartmouth Wellness Court: The Wall of Hope

This paper describes the Wall of Hope art installation as a product of recovery-oriented practices within the Dartmouth Wellness Court that contributes to a culture and language of hope within the courtroom environment.

Foster parents’ experience of dependency court: Laying the groundwork for engagement

Foster parents play a critical role as adults responsible for the wellbeing of children who find themselves in care of the state. However, foster parent perspectives are often absent from policymaking and in court proceedings. The literature suggests that there are several barriers to foster parent engagement, including difficulties navigating a complex and often disorganized system. This exploratory focus group study examines foster parent perspectives on what facilitates and impedes their engagement in child welfare court processes. Findings from six focus groups held in diverse areas of Maryland with a total of 57 participants indicate that foster parents are often unsure of when and how to participate in the wake of scheduling and notification difficulties, and some sensed that their presence and participation may be unwelcome. Courthouse and courtroom environments add to their own and their foster children's stress and confusion. Others provided examples of interactions with child welfare personnel and judges that put them at ease and facilitated their participation. We recommend logistical and environmental modifications to enhance foster parent engagement, including flexible scheduling and the creation of child-friendly waiting spaces. We also recommend policy changes to enhance input from foster parents regarding their experiences with the courts.

Methodology on Trial

This article combines an adaptation of the Toulmin model of argument with a framework designed to analyze assertions of technology-related expertise in order to examine how expert witnesses fulfill the legal requirements for explaining the methodology underlying their testimony within the combative and sometimes prejudicial conditions of the courtroom environment. Its findings support previous claims about contributions technical communication scholars can make to the legal field.

Practising crime scene investigation: trace and contamination in routine work

The crime scene investigator (CSI) has a distinct professional profile within the police. It is the CSI who is tasked with identifying trace at crime scenes in order to inform police investigations. Despite this significant role, little is known sociologically about the CSI's routine work. This paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork completed at the National Policing Improvement Agency's Forensic Centre, observation of CSIs at real crime scenes and interview data to consider the CSI's practices surrounding trace at volume crime scenes. It foregrounds the work that takes place in transforming crime scene trace into admissible evidence or objects for laboratory analysis and the processes of identifying meaningful trace, central to CSI claims of unique expertise. Yet beyond the crime scene and police environment, it is the CSI's ability to record their adherence to prescriptive contamination avoidance procedures which is of paramount importance. This paper demonstrates the agency involved in making sense of crime scenes and the differing ways the CSI and CSI work are understood across police and courtroom environments.

Reconceptualising security strategies for courts: developing a typology for safer court environments

There have been heightened concerns about security in courts in recent years, prompting a strong response that has largely been focussed on perimeter security. This paper draws on recent research conducted in Australian on court user’s safety needs, to propose a typology for designing safer courtroom environments that moves beyond the entry point to the court, and incorporates consideration of process and design elements.

Technology Corner: Visualising Forensic Data: Evidence Guidelines (Part 2)

Visualisation is becoming increasingly important for understanding information, such as investigative data (for example: computing, medical and crime scene evidence) and analysis (for example, network capability assessment, data file reconstruction and planning scenarios). Investigative data visualisation is used to reconstruct a scene or item and is used to assist the viewer (who may well be a member of the general public with little or no understanding of the subject matter) to understand what is being presented. Analysis visualisations, on the other hand, are usually developed to review data, information and assess competing scenario hypotheses for those who usually have an understanding of the subject matter. Courtroom environments are morphing into cinematic display environments, the media consumed by an audience who are increasingly visually literate and media savvy (Heintz, 2002). There are a number of fundamental implications inherent in the shift from oral to visual mediation and a number of facets of this modern evidence presentation technology needs to be investigated and analysed. One of the primary issues of visualisation is that no matter how coherent the data, there will always be conjecture and debate as to how the information is/has-been visualised and, is it presented in an acceptable and meaningful way. This paper presents a range of examples of where forensic data has been visualised using various techniques and technology, the paper then examines aspects of the visual courtroom evidence presented and discusses some of the benefits and potential problems of implementing this technology. This paper is part two of a two-part series that aims to describe the use of, and provide guidelines for, the use of graphical displays in courtrooms.

Roles and Power within Federal Problem Solving Courtroom Workgroups

Problem solving (PS) courts (e.g., drug, family, gang, prostitution, reentry) are becoming more commonplace. Today, PS courts exist or are planned in nearly all of the ninety‐four U.S. federal districts. These courts focus on integrating therapeutic jurisprudence into the courtroom environment while emphasizing group decision‐making processes among courtroom workgroup members. In this legal setting, courtroom workgroup teams, regularly consisting of judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation officers (POs), and treatment providers engage a collective, case management approach to decision making with shared power among team members. However, despite the court's therapeutic and collaborative design, we find that POs wield powerful influence in decision making. Informed by sixteen months of qualitative fieldwork, including semistructured interviews, observation of courtroom workgroup meetings, and court observations in five federal PS courts in three federal districts, we find that POs exert undetected informational, technical, and relational power within the PS courtroom workgroup. This role and its accompanying power transforms POs into key decision makers, regardless of PS court type, workgroup dynamics, and decision‐making style. The POs' role makes them critical contributors to the outcomes in federal PS courts with important implications for punishment decisions in the federal justice system. With an increasing number of PS courts currently in the planning stages at the federal level, our study has implications for the structure and decision outcomes in these growing courtroom workgroups.

Playing with evidence: Using video games in the courtroom

Courtroom environments, which have been one of the last bastions of the oral tradition, are slowly morphing into cinematic display environments [1]. The persuasive oral rhetoric of lawyers is increasingly being replaced by compelling visual media displays presenting a range of digital evidence in a convincing and credible manner [2,3]. There are a number of fundamental implications inherent in the shift from oral to visual mediation and a number of facets of this modern evidence presentation technology need to be investigated and analysed. Recently, a number of courtrooms around the world have seen the presentation of forensic evidence within reconstructed virtual environments powered by real-time game engines. At first glance, these graphical reconstructions may be seen as potentially useful in many courtroom situations, and they are often treated like any other form of digital evidence regarding their admissibility [4]. However, perhaps this specific form of digital media warrants special care and attention due to its inherently persuasive nature, and the undue reliance that the viewer may place on the evidence presented through a visualisation medium [5,6]. This paper describes a range of examples of where evidence has been presented in courtrooms using video games technology (particularly forensic animation and virtual crime scene reconstructions) (The author acted as an expert witness in all of the cases discussed, responsible for the preparation of the virtual reconstructions used as case studies in this paper. Most of the work was undertaken through the author’s own company in the UK, Aims Solutions Ltd., < www.aims-solutions.co.uk>). The paper then describes experiments undertaken to assess the impact of the technology on jurors and describes some of the issues raised by the results. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential benefits and problems of implementing this technology in courtroom settings.

Graphical evidence: forensic animations and virtual reconstructions

Courtroom environments, which have been one of the last bastions of the oral tradition, are slowly morphing into cinematic display environments1. The persuasive oral rhetoric of lawyers is increasingly being replaced by compelling visual media displays presenting a range of digital evidence in a convincing and credible manner2. The digital age has brought a plethora of novel evidence forms, evidence detection methods, and new means of evidence presentation. In particular, three-dimensional reconstructions of evidence offer great potential in the field of forensic science, they can potentially help in the presentation of complex scientific, spatial and temporal data to a non-technical audience3. This paper outlines the forensic process in terms of the tasks and phases involved, specifically relating to the presentation of evidence represented in a digital media form. A range of examples of where evidence has been presented in courtrooms using digital media (particularly forensic animation and virtual reconstruction technology) are described.a There are a number of fundamental implications inherent in the shift from oral to visual mediation, and a number of facets of this modern evidence presentation technology need to be investigated and analysed. aThe author acted as an expert witness in all the cases discussed, was responsible for the preparation of the virtual reconstructions described in this paper. Most of the work was undertaken through the author's company in the UK, Aims Solutions Ltd4.

Testifying in an International War Crimes Tribunal: The Experience of Witnesses in the Special Court for Sierra Leone

The research described in this article investigates the extent to which witnesses who testified in the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) report the experience as positive or negative. It also seeks to identify the factors that contribute to these evaluations. It reports the results of structured interviews conducted with 171 witnesses who testified in the SCSL. The finding that emerges most strongly is that the experience of testifying was positive for the majority of witnesses. The courtroom environment was experienced as supportive, and witnesses rated the experiences of both examination-in-chief and cross-examination as being more positive than negative, with examination-in-chief being the more positive of the two. The findings suggest that a positive testimony experience can be predicted when a witness does not feel worried at the prospect of testifying, feels respected by court staff and, to a lesser extent, has a positive experience of cross-examination.

Improving the reliability of child witness testimony in court: The importance of focusing on questioning techniques

Considerable discussion during recent years has focused on ways to increase the reliability of child witness evidence, and reduce the negative impact of the courtroom environment on children's credibility and their psychological well-being. A large proportion of this discussion has focused on removing child witnesses from the courtroom and developing alternative arrangements by which children can give evidence (e.g., videotaped statements used as evidence-in-chief, closed-circuit television). There is no doubt that these arrangements have played a major role in reducing children's feelings of uncertainty and intimidation, and they have increased the ability of children to tell their stories and answer questions reliably (Cashmore 2002; Eastwood & Patton 2002). However, there are many other factors, apart from the physical environment in which a child's evidence is elicited, that impact on the quality and accuracy of a child witness's evidence. Considerable discussion during recent years has focused on ways to increase the reliability of child witness evidence, and reduce the negative impact of the courtroom environment on children's credibility and their psychological well-being. A large proportion of this discussion has focused on removing child witnesses from the courtroom and developing alternative arrangements by which children can give evidence (e.g., videotaped statements used as evidence-in-chief, closed-circuit television). There is no doubt that these arrangements have played a major role in reducing children's feelings of uncertainty and intimidation, and they have increased the ability of children to tell their stories and answer questions reliably (Cashmore 2002; Eastwood & Patton 2002). However, there are many other factors, apart from the physical environment in which a child's evidence is elicited, that impact on the quality and accuracy of a child witness's evidence.

The Effects of the Courtroom Context on Children's Memory and Anxiety

Modifications of the courtroom environment have been proposed to enhance the ability of child witnesses to offer complete and accurate testimony and reduce system-induced stress. However, these interventions have often been conceived without the benefit of empirical data demonstrating intervention efficacy. The present study examines the effects of the courtroom context on children's memory and anxiety. Eighty-one eight- to ten-year-olds participated in a staged event involving bodily touch, and two weeks later their memory for the event was tested. Half of the children were questioned in a mock courtroom in a university law school, and half were questioned in a small, private room adjacent to the courtroom. Children's heart rate was monitored throughout questioning. Results indicated that children questioned in the courtroom showed impaired memory performance and greater heart rate variability, indicative of a stress response, when compared with children interviewed in the small, private room.

Strategy for Alcohol Abuse Education: A Service Learning Model within a Course Curriculum

Drug abuse education, particularly on a college level, should involve students with their college and local community to establish a more fundamental understanding of the consequences of drug abuse. Therefore, we proposed a student court monitoring of driving while intoxicated (DWI) cases utilizing a service learning strategy. As a requirement for a chemical and substance abuse class, students took part in court monitoring of DWI cases within a judicial district. Students also provided a reflective paper in which they could share their subjective feelings, opinions, and overall observation of the courtroom environment. The court-monitoring of DWI cases has been implemented by Mothers Against Drunk Driving and has served as an effective tool designed to increase the likelihood of convictions, decrease the likelihood of dismissals, and in the case of a repeat offender, increase the length of jail sentence. This article examines the service learning strategy's initiation, developmental process implementation, specific outcomes, and offers suggestions for future implementation and duplication within other college drug abuse courses.

The importance of nonverbal communication in the courtroom

This essay reviews the empirical research on nonverbal communication in the courtroom environment and introduces a functional model that explicates the process whereby various nonverbal signals of courtroom participants combine to influence the deliberation of a jury. Although a relatively new area of scientific study, findings are available pertaining to the role of nonverbal communication in five key areas: voire dire and jury analysis; opening and closing statements; client demeanor and direct examination; cross‐examination; and judge demeanor and communication. Conclusions based on this body of research are presented in the form of several propositions but should be qualified in view of the fact that few studies have been done in the courtroom context

Children's testimony and their perceptions of stress in and out of the courtroom

Modifications of the courtroom environment have been proposed to reduce stress and enhance truth-telling of child witnesses. The present study examines the premise that courtroom environment affects the quality of children's evidence and children's perceptions of their own stress. Thirty-four 8- to 10-year-olds participated in an activity and 2 weeks later, their memory for the activity was tested. Half the children were questioned in a mock courtroom in the law school of a major university, and half at their school, both by the same interviewer. Children questioned at court showed impaired memory performance when compared with agemates questioned at school. They also rated certain court-related experiences as more stressful than peers interviewed at school. Furthermore, children's perceptions of courtroom stress were negatively correlated with completeness of accurate free recall, suggesting a relation between court-related stress and eyewitness memory worthy of further study.

Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom: Justice and Judgment in American Culture

Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom explains what makes stories believable and how ordinary people connect complex legal arguments and evidence presented in trials to assess guilt and innocence. The explanation takes the core elements of narrative--the who, what, where, when, how, why--and shows how average people who hear hundreds of stories every day use the connections between these elements to assess credibility. A series of simple experiments outside the courtroom provides evidence for the explanation, showing that there is little relationship between the actual truth of a story and the degree to which the story is believed to be true by an audience of random listeners not familiar with the teller. So, how do jurors make a particular legal judgment? Based on courtroom observation, trial transcripts, and credibility experiments, Bennett and Feldman create a method of diagramming stories that shows exactly what makes some stories more believable than others. Prosecutors and defense attorneys can use this method of analyzing stories to weigh the strategies and tactics available to them; scholars can use it to assess the process of legal judgment. Now in its Second Edition, this much-cited resource adds a new preface by the authors, as well as new forewords from divergent perspectives. From his experience in law practice, William S. Bailey notes that the authors adapt a broad structural framework of storytelling to the criminal trial context, making it come alive in the dynamic real world courtroom environment. Law-and-society scholar Anna-Maria Marshall writes that the book's emphasis on storytelling will resonate with scholars studying legal consciousness, where narrative plays an important theoretical and methodological role. ... This new edition will be a welcome addition to the Law and Society community.