State Courts Research Articles

Toward inclusive justice: Applying the Diverse Voices design method to improve the Washington State Access to Justice Technology Principles

Just court systems are enabled by inclusive justice practices. Toward creating conditions for more inclusive justice–specifically engaging with and enabling experiential experts–we applied the Diverse Voices method to improve the Access to Justice Technology Principles (ATJ-TPrinc) which guide court administration in Washington State, USA. We situate our work in literature on inclusive justice, public interest technology in the courts, value sensitive design, and experiential experts. Then we present our research context, the Washington State ATJ-TPrinc, and our method, the Diverse Voices. We provide details on our methods, including our project genesis and implementation of the Diverse Voices process. We conducted experiential expert panels with four stakeholder groups: legal professionals, currently/formerly incarcerated people, immigrant communities, and rural communities. We then report key concerns and insights that surfaced during the panels as well as the review process and adoption of the revised Principles by the Washington State Supreme Court. We document changes to the ATJ-Princ informed by feedback from the expert panelists, including two new principles – P11 Human Touch and P12 Language Access. The discussion focuses on evidence for success, skillful implementation of the Diverse Voices method, the need for complementary regulation, and benefits to inclusive justice efforts and public interest technology projects. Our contributions entail: (1) a case study demonstrating the use of the Diverse Voices method to improve a tech policy document for the Washington State court system; (2) for public interest technology, a model for public engagement around tech policy that foregrounds participation of experiential experts, as well as the conditions necessary to ensure concerns raised are both heard and acted upon; (3) facilitation techniques and skills for enabling diverse stakeholder groups to express their concerns around responsible computing systems; and (4) revised and expanded access to justice technology principles to support more inclusive justice.

Participant accounts of police violence during black lives matter protests in Chicago

ABSTRACT Black protest events in the United States have been characterised by police use of violence against protestors during periods, such as the widespread riots of the 1960s, when many white people and police see black people as posing a special danger to the status quo. It appears that the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd, which triggered widespread Black Lives Matter protests, is another such time. However, social scientific evidence that addresses the question of whether police responded with unnecessary violence to these black-led protests remains in short supply. In this study, we conducted a content analysis of protest participants’ federal court statements about their lived experience with police violence during Chicago, IL, protests. Their accounts suggest that police, rather than protestors, initiated violence and relied on it to control protestors in ways that violated Chicago Police Department policies and constitutional protections afforded citizens. Despite efforts to reform police management of protests over the last half century, our findings suggest that the historical pattern of police use of militaristic tactics and gratuitous violence to control black protest events persists today. We consider the implications of the findings for relations between the police and black communities.

재판업무 지원 AI 도입에 관한 헌법적 고찰

In the contemporary intelligence information society, artificial intelligence (AI) is being utilized in various sectors due to the advancement of science and technology. Amidst this trend, the legal technology (LegalTech) industry, which integrates technology with legal advisory and litigation services, has been experiencing a leap in growth. Furthermore, the application of artificial intelligence in the judicial duties of judges is garnering significant interest and expectation for speeding up legal proceedings and enhancing the efficiency of judicial administration. Artificial intelligence used in the judiciary can be broadly classified into two types. First, there is AI that entirely replaces human judgment, exemplified by the initiative in Estonia in 2019 to implement AI for conducting small claims trials. Second, there is AI designed to assist human judges, such as algorithms that help draft verdicts based on similar case precedents or provide appropriate sentencing recommendations for defendants in criminal trials. In this regard, some state courts in the United States have incorporated the COMPAS algorithm into sentencing procedures within criminal justice processes. This surge in AI development seems to have an international impact on judicial procedures, influencing the judicial policies of the courts in South Korea significantly. Specifically, National Court Administration has announced plans to alleviate the workload of judges and address the issue of trial delays through the introduction of what is referred to as the ‘Next-Generation Electronic Litigation System.’ However, while AI technology may assist in accelerating trial processes, there are considerable concerns regarding the protection of litigants' right to a fair trial and democratic legitimacy. Above all, the potential for data and algorithm errors in judicial-use AI could compromise the fairness of trials or lead to miscalculation due to biased legal decisions. This study examines the constitutional issues concerning the advent of AI judges in the era of artificial intelligence are explored, particularly the infringement of the litigants' right to a fair trial, the problems of restoring the original state following miscalculation, and the responsibilities of judges. Furthermore, the study examines legislative trends abroad concerning the use of AI in judicial tasks, and seeks legislative improvement strategies for the principles and premises that must be adhered to by AI utilized in the judiciary during the era of artificial intelligence.

ANALYSIS OF THE CONCLUSION OF THE PLENUM OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT IN RELATION TO THE VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION BY THE PRESIDENT OF GEORGIA AND INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE

From 2013 until the present, the dispute on the separation of competencies between the leaders of the state government has been ongoing in political life, as well as on an international scale in the field of foreign relations. The field of foreign relations is of national importance and is directly related to the state’s image and foreign policy. The conclusion of the international treaties, as well as the appointment of the ambassadors and representation of the state, has become the subject of dispute at various times. State representation by the President in foreign relations has led to a Constitutional Reference submitted by the Parliament of Georgia to the Constitutional Court of Georgia, alleging a violation of the Constitution by the President for the first time in the country’s history. As a result, according to the conclusion of the Constitutional Court of Georgia dated October 16, 2023, President Ms. Zurabishvili violated the Constitution of Georgia by exercising representation powers without the consent of the Government. Based on the above, this thesis will analyze the meaning of the representation power in foreign relations, the President’s constitutional status, and the President’s role in foreign relations, acting as the socalled “neutral arbitrator”. This thesis will include a discussion on the roles of the Parliament and the Constitutional Court of Georgia in the political-legal process of Presidential impeachment proceedings. It will also examine the conclusions and decisions of Constitutional Courts in various states regarding alleged constitutional violations by Presidents and disputes over competence.

THE STATE AND FEDERAL HIGH COURTS’ JURISDICTION OVER BANKER-CUSTOMER DISPUTE FROM THE PRISM OF DECIDED CASES: WHITHER THE MAGISTRATE COURT’S JURISDICTION

The Magistrate Court Law of most States in Nigeria, (including Oyo State) gives themjurisdiction over tortious acts of which detinue is one. Thus, where a bank customer, mistakenly makes an intra or interbank transfers to a wrong account whereof the money is withheld by the bank, and the withheld amountis within the monetary jurisdiction of the Magistrate Court, the customer, usually brings an action in detinue for the bank to release the money to him/her. This is usually donenotwithstanding that both the Supreme Court of Nigeria (SCN) and Court of Appeal (CA) have held that the State and Federal High Courts’ have concurrent jurisdiction over banker-customer disputes.This paper, adopts desk-based method in interrogating the jurisdiction of the Magistrate Court of Oyo State under the Oyo State Magistrate Court Law, 2011 vis-à-vis the jurisdiction of the State and Federal High Courts over banker-customer dispute based on decided cases to determine whether there is any conflict. It argues that the cases in which the SCN and CA have held that the State and Federal High Courts have and exercises concurrent jurisdiction over banker-customer disputes, were decided without reference to the jurisdiction of other equally competent courts including the Magistrate Court of Oyo State (and other States as well).It found that there is not jurisdictional conflict between these courts in relation to banker-customer disputes but symbiotic. The paper makes vital recommendations before concluding.

Litigation in access to universal health coverage for children and adolescents in Brazil.

Brazil's Unified Health System (SUS) ensures universal, equitable, and excellent quality health coverage for all. The broad right to health, supported by the Constitution, has led to excessive litigation in the public sector. This has negatively impacted the financial stability of SUS, created inequality in children and adolescents' access to healthcare, and affected communication between the healthcare system and the judiciary. The enactment of Law Number 13.655 on 25 April 2018, proposed significant changes in judicial decisions. This study aimed to investigate decision-making changes in health litigation involving children and adolescents following the implementation of the new normative model. The study is cross-sectional, analyzing 3753 national judgment documents from all State Courts of Brazil, available on their respective websites from 2014 to 2020. It compares regional legal decisions before and after the promulgation of Law Number 13.655/2018. Data tabulation, statistical analysis, textual analysis, coding, and counting of significant units in the collected documents were performed. The results of data cross-referencing are presented in tables and diagrams. The majority (96.86%) of legal claims (3635 cases) received partial or total provision of what was prescribed by the physician. The Judiciary predominantly handled these cases individually. The analysis indicates that the decisions made did not adhere to the norms established in 2018. Regional heterogeneity in health litigation was observed, and there was no significant variability in decisions during the studied period, even after the implementation of the new normative paradigm in 2018. Technical-scientific support was undervalued by the magistrates. Prioritizing litigants undermines equity in access to Universal Health Coverage for children and adolescents.

Análise dos índices de transparência pública dos municípios do estado do Ceará

The objective of this paper was to calculate the transparency index of municipalities in the state of Ceará over the last five years through reports released by the State Court of Auditors (TCE), which evaluates the periodic disclosure of planning instruments, the Fiscal Management Report and Budget Execution Summary Report, the government's accountability and verifies the real-time availability of revenues and expenses. A methodology was used with qualitative procedures, consulting the legislation and reports released by the TCE, and quantitative procedures, through the calculation of indices. As a result, the municipalities of Ceará have a high transparency index of 0,83. However, it is important to highlight that only two municipalities achieved 100% regularity results. As a result, there is a need for improvement in other city halls regarding the disclosure of public information, with the aim of achieving the maximum level of transparency. Faced with these issues, this work makes a social contribution through research data, influencing citizens to analyze transparency reports and seek to pressure governments to expand measures to disseminate public transparency data. Furthermore, it is worth highlighting the importance of deeper studies on the topic, which evaluate, for example, the factors that impact the lack of disclosure of public data.

The influence of the race of defendant and the race of victim on capital charging and sentencing in California

AbstractThe California Racial Justice Act of 2020 recognized racial and ethnic discrimination as a basis for relief in capital cases, expressly permitting several types of statistical evidence to be introduced. This statewide study of the influence of race and ethnicity on the application of capital punishment contributes to this evidence. We draw on data from over 27,000 murder and manslaughter convictions in California state courts between 1978 and 2002. Using multiple methods, we found significant racial and ethnic disparities in charging and sentencing decisions. Controlling for defendant culpability and specific statutory aggravators, we show that Black and Latinx defendants and all defendants convicted of killing at least one white victim are substantially more likely to be sentenced to death. We further examined the role that race and ethnicity have in decision‐making at various points in the criminal justice system. We found that prosecutors were significantly more likely to seek death against defendants who kill white victims, and that juries were significantly more likely to sentence those defendants to death. The magnitude of the race of the defendant and race of the victim effects is substantially higher than in prior studies in other states and in single‐jurisdiction research. The results show an entrenched pattern of racial disparities in charging and sentencing that privileges white victim cases, as well as patterns of racial disparities in who is charged and sentenced to death in California courts that are the natural result of California's capacious statutory definition of death eligibility, which permits virtually unlimited discretion for charging and sentencing decisions. This pattern of racial preferences illustrates the social costs of California's failure to follow the Supreme Court's directive in Furman v Georgia to narrow the application of capital punishment over 50 years ago.

National Mentality and Its Role in Resolving Legal Conflicts (On the Example of Courts of Aksakals of the Kyrgyz Republic)

This article is devoted to the issues of national mentality in resolving legal conflicts. The article examines the theoretical aspects of the national mentality and its content. The main part of the article is devoted to the Kyrgyz mentality and the peculiarities of the attitude of its bearers to the forms of resolving legal conflicts. At the same time, special attention is paid to the courts of aksakals as bodies for resolving legal conflicts in the Kyrgyz Republic. The peculiarity of the courts of aksakals is defined in the article by the fact that they do not belong to the state justice system, i.e. they are not part of the judicial system of the Kyrgyz Republic and are public bodies. The article analyzes the principles and procedures underlying the courts of aksakals, as well as their role and impact on dispute resolution and conflict resolution. Special attention is paid to the importance of these courts in maintaining social stability and respecting traditional norms and values. It is determined that the courts of aksakals have a positive impact on the unloading of state courts, thereby indirectly affecting the quality of decisions made by the latter. The article shows the differences in the national mentality in resolving legal conflicts within the framework of the courts of aksakals, depending on the region of the country, gender issues and categories of cases. The main directions of reforming the institute of courts of elders according to the latest changes in legislation are outlined. It has been established that despite the fact that there are some positive changes in the legislation concerning the courts of aksakals, the attitude of citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic towards the courts of aksakals currently remains ambiguous.

Судебная доктрина «привлекающего источника опасности» в теории и практике американских судов

The author explores the conceptual foundations of the attractive nuisance doctrine, which is applied by the American courts of most US states. At the same time, the judicial doctrine is defined by the author as a complex of legal positions generated on the basis of a number of precedent decisions, consisting of the main thesis (theses) as a substantial core (principle, idea), and developing its «peripheral» provisions of a substantive and procedural nature. The paper concludes that attractive nuisance doctrine is recognized as an integral part of US tort law.

Legal Protection of Auction Winners Against the Execution of Dependent Rights

According to Article 14 of the Law on Dependency Rights, dependency right enforcement can be executed through a parate of execution or a fiat execution by State courts. However, legal certainty is not absolute; if a debtor fails to repay the debt, the creditor's liability is settled by selling the secured object through a public auction. This study investigates the legal consequences of the auction process, particularly the transfer of auctioned property rights to the winner. Using empirical juris and analytical descriptive research, primary and secondary data were gathered through library research and qualitatively analyzed. Auction winners may request the local state court to vacate the object if possession is unattainable under the law. An auction letter, as an authentic act, protects auction winners against normative enforcement of dependency rights. Nonetheless, the law lacks explicit protection for third parties and auction winners regarding possession, resulting in legal uncertainty.

Authentication and verification in arbitration proceedings

The extensive and intensive development of digital technologies is a constant process that co-occurs with the same steady increase in the level of social significance of the justice process. One of the cornerstones in integrating individual technological solutions into the justice administration ecosystem is the development of technologies that can carry out many procedures remotely. These problems indicate a real need to develop a comprehensive scientific understanding of verification and authentication. This study aims to analyze the concepts of verification and authentication in the context of modern arbitration proceedings in Russia and define issues arising from the digitalization of procedural relations. The authors concluded on the possibility of convergence of arbitration institutions and state courts, the creation of a unified information system aimed at increasing the accessibility of arbitration proceedings, which correlates with the reduction of judicial workload in state courts, as well as the prospects of integration of authentication and verification mechanisms in arbitration proceedings.

Electronic Surveillance in Immigration Court: Evidence from the CalGang Database

Through a mixed-methods approach that draws on over 4000 pages of organizational documents and two quantitative data sets from federal and state entities, the authors ask, has the growth of electronic surveillance by local criminal justice agencies, with corresponding database interoperability and information sharing, changed how federal agencies—specifically immigration agencies—operate? We focus on the CalGang Database, California’s statewide gang intelligence database, to document how, since its inception in 1998, CalGang has grown both in the number of individuals under surveillance and the number of what we call adjacent users, which we define as people who can access CalGang data but were not initially intended as users and who, in pre-digital surveillance eras, would have a much more difficult time obtaining the information. In this paper we focus specifically on adjacent users in the immigration system who determine the detention and deportation of noncitizens by leveraging an information sharing agreement that gave U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to Calgang between January 2006 and October 2016. Using a two-way “difference in differences” approach, we estimate the impact of CalGang interoperability on federal adjacent users by comparing outcomes across immigration cases that began before or after the data sharing agreement ended. Our qualitative and quantitative analyses both demonstrate that immigration adjudicators’ access to local electronic surveillance information is associated with an increase in the number of immigrants facing criminal immigration charges that do not necessarily require a formal criminal conviction in state court, and that deportation rates are higher when ICE has access to local electronic surveillance.

United States Court Of Appeals For The Ninth Circuit

United States Court Of Appeals For The Ninth Circuit

Will the football agents’ service fee cap survive the current legal attacks?

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) has set a service fee cap for football agents in its new FIFA Football Agent Regulations (FFAR). The respective regulations came into force on 1 October 2023. The article examines the question—in the negative—of whether this service fee cap is compatible with EU antitrust law. Following an overview of the relevant case law of various German state courts and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the legal issues associated with the initial problem are analysed in detail.

Legal remedies for energy injustice in the ECOWAS sub-region: the role of the ECOWAS Court

The concept of energy justice has been of much scholarly interest in applying justice principles to energy policy, energy production and systems, energy consumption, political economy of energy and climate change, among other areas. However, legal remedies for energy injustice have not been seriously examined; nor has the topic been considered from the perspective of the Global South. Therefore, this article seeks to examine legal remedies for energy injustice in the ECOWAS sub-region and the role that the Economic Community of West African States Court of Justice, otherwise known as ECOWAS Court, can play in granting these remedies. It finds that the concept of energy justice is an evolving one and that at its current level of evolution, the concept has somewhat incorporated the idea of distributional justice, recognition-based justice and procedural justice. Against the backdrop of these findings, the article argues that energy justice in a distributional, recognition-based and procedural sense can be couched in terms of human rights law under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and can be actualised before the ECOWAS Court. It concludes that energy justice, in its present state of evolution, can be substantially actualised in terms of human rights law before the ECOWAS Court.

Annulment of The Arbitration Decision Accordin to The Legislation and Practice

Objective: The study of the work has a comprehensive approach, based on current legislation and practice. Based on the fact that the arbitration procedure is an alternative procedure for the resolution of disputes, it is quite demanded, and that there are deficiencies in the literature as well as in the knowledge of the subjects of the law. Thus, when it came to the decisions made in the arbitration procedure, we say that they have the same legal force as the decisions made by the regular courts of the state, and also the annulment of the decision requires special clarification, since there are cases that the decision made in the arbitration proceedings are required to be set aside as the reason that the agreement to arbitrate is void. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to clarify in short points that it is possible to annul an arbitration decision in the event that the arbitration agreement was invalid. Method: The work is formulated on the basis of appropriate scientific methods. The methods that are included in the paper are scientific methods, historical methods, comparative methods, deduction methods, induction methods, and other methods without which the paper could not be formulated! Result: The decision made in the arbitration procedure must be made in accordance with the law on arbitration as well as with the principles defined in the law on arbitration, whether domestic or international. If it is found that the arbitration decision is illegal, or not based on evidence, then the same can be annulled. This annulment can be done by the regular state courts, but always in case the party that has a legal interest addresses the court and requests the annulment of the arbitration decision because it is contrary to the law on arbitration or contrary to the agreement on arbitration. or other reasons which the parties may present in the action for annulment of the arbitration award. We will talk more about the annulment of the arbitration decision in the content of this paper. Conclusion: As a conclusion of the paper, in the general sense of this paper, I have mentioned that the parties during the terms of the agreement must be careful not to conflict with any reason that leads to the invalidity of the arbitration agreement, since this invalidity will have consequences in in the event that an arbitration award has been given by this agreement, as from the regular courts this award will be annulled because the arbitration agreement has been invalid since the beginning of the criminal offense of this agreement or may become invalid and with the passage of time. So, during any action taken by the parties who claim to resolve their dispute through arbitration, they should be careful that everything is in order with the arbitration agreement, as the invalidity of the agreement may lead to the annulment of the award. of arbitration and this would be to the detriment of the party.

Data protection and appropriate measures: too many uncertainties in the judicial applications?

The present paper analyses, from a comparative perspective, the accountability rules outlined in the GDPR and their practical application by the courts of Member States. The first part of the article highlights the influence of the GDPR on Third Countries, with specific attention to Chinese legislation regarding data protection. The second part is mainly focused on the obligations relating to accountability and the notion of appropriateness of measures to be adopted by Data Controllers, as well as its connection with liability rules stated in Article 82 of the GDPR. The analysis considers the application of these rules, emphasising the different interpretations made by Data Protection Authorities, national courts, and more recently, by the Court of Justice of the European Union.

The Assessment of the nature of national law provisions which set the rules for the compensation for harm caused by the death of the closest person in the light of Art. 16 of the Rome II Regulation – comments in the context of a preliminary question submitted to the Court of Justice of the EU following the decision of the

Despite the fifteen-year period of validity of the “Rome II” Regulation, its application by the courts of the Member States is still, in some respects, a source of serious controversy. It manifests itself with particular intensity in Art. 16, devoted to overriding mandatory rules. This should be attributed to two factors. The first one is the resignation from including therein a legal definition of this category of norms, in contrast to Art. 9 section 1 of the “Rome I” regulation. The other is the phenomenon of a kind of “inflation” of the concept of overriding mandatory provisions, observed in the PIL. It manifests itself in the attempts to attribute such qualification to binding rules of national law, the nature of which do not indicate a conflict of laws element inherent in them, implying the need to apply them in addition to or instead of the applicable law. The case C-86/23 pending before the CJEU, as a result of a request for a preliminary ruling submitted in the decision of the Bulgarian Supreme Court of Cassation of February 7, 2023, gives an excellent opportunity to bring up once again the issue of the proper way of understanding the concept of overriding mandatory rules in the context of Art. 16 of the Rome II Regulation, using as an example the norms applicable in Bulgarian substantive law, which regulate the principles of granting compensation for harm caused by the death of a close relative. Looking at the matter in question from the perspective of the fifteenth anniversary of the regulation’s validity, the author recommends particular caution in applying Art. 16 and, at the same time, makes an attempt to formulate a proposal of an answer to the question referred to in a preliminary ruling.

The impact of the #MeToo movement on language at court A text-based causal inference approach.

This study assesses the effect of the #MeToo movement on the language used in judicial opinions on sexual violence related cases from 51 U.S. state and federal appellate courts. The study introduces various indicators to quantify the extent to which actors in courtrooms employ language that implicitly shifts responsibility away from the perpetrator and onto the victim. One indicator measures how frequently the victim is mentioned as the grammatical subject, as research in the field of psychology suggests that victims are assigned more blame the more often they are referred to as the grammatical subject. The other two indices designed to gauge the level of victim-blaming capture the sentiment of and the context in sentences referencing the perpetrator. Additionally, judicial opinions are transformed into bag-of-words and tf-idf vectors to facilitate the examination of the evolution of language over time. The causal effect of the #MeToo movement is estimated by means of a Difference-in-Differences approach comparing the development of the language in opinions on sexual offenses and other crimes against persons as well as a Panel Event Study approach. The results do not clearly identify a #MeToo-movement-induced change in the language in court but suggest that the movement may have accelerated the evolution of court language slightly, causing the effect to materialize with a significant time lag. Additionally, the study considers potential effect heterogeneity with respect to the judge's gender and political affiliation. The study combines causal inference with text quantification methods that are commonly used for classification as well as with indicators that rely on sentiment analysis, word embedding models and grammatical tagging.