Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, Dec., 2008. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Although federal circuit and district court judges are placed within a federal hierarchy, and receive legal and judicial training that emphasizes the importance of the judicial framework and its structure, such judges are also subjected to other pressures such as the types of litigants within the courtrooms as well as their local political environment. Furthermore, such judges are apt to form their own views about politics and legal policy and are often appointed by presidents who approve of their ideological leanings. Thus, federal courts are caught between competing goals such as their willingness to maximize their preferred legal policy, and their place within the judicial hierarchy. This dissertation applies hierarchy and impact theory to assess the importance of the judicial framework and its socialization, by analyzing both the judicial opinions and votes of federal circuit and district court judges in obscenity cases during a four-decade period (1957-1998). The research presented here finds the influence of higher court precedent to correspond in part with the conception of a judicial hierarchy. An analysis of citations of Supreme Court precedent (Roth v. United States (1957) and Miller v. California (1973)) in lower court majority opinions suggests low levels of compliance: lower courts at the circuit and district court level do not signal to the Supreme Court their acceptance of High Court doctrine; thus, except for 'factual' cases, most circuit and district court decisions do not comply formally with higher court precedent. An analysis of judicial votes, however, suggests that a Supreme Court doctrinal shift (to Miller v. California) influences lower court decisions only at the circuit court level. Further investigation suggests that Supreme Court precedent has a greater influence in circuit courts than in district courts: not only is the magnitude greater for circuit (versus district) court decisions, such results occur when controlling for such factors as the appointing president, regional variations, various constitutional claims and types of litigants. Thus, it appears that the influence of Supreme Court doctrine is much stronger in the circuit courts (only one step removed from the Supreme Court) than in district courts yet the hierarchy is influential nonetheless.

In this study I analyzed the 1089 desegregation outcomes in federal district courts that occurred between 1994 and 2004 in order to identify a) the legal and non-legal factors in the litigation process that predict pro-desegregation outcomes and b) the judicial patterns that impact the future of desegregation policy. Twenty-one legal and non-legal variables were analyzed via logistic regression analysis to identify factors that predict pro-desegregation outcomes. Only three predictor variables were statistically significant: Government Litigants; Region 3 (West) and Region 4 (Northeast.) Descriptive analyses of the data identified two trends in the pattern of litigation: The percentage of defendant wins increased after 1991 at a lesser rate than has been previously reported. I conclude that based on the results of both the quantitative and qualitative analyses the federal district courts are not a barrier to desegregation and can still be a part of a comprehensive desegregation strategy.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2008. / "May, 2008." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-69). Library also has microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [2009]. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm. Online version available on the World Wide Web.

Previous research found gender to be a primary consideration of judges in terms of actions towards defendants. Blameworthiness, the combined effect of criminal history, offense severity, and the defendant's role in the criminal event, is also known to impact judge's actions. Little, though, is known about how gender and blameworthiness, combined, may be related to judges' actions towards white-collar defendants. The purpose of this case study, therefore, was to explore whether defendant gender and blameworthiness impact judicial actions towards defendants charged with white-collar crime(s) in a federal district court of New York. The theoretical framework was Demuth and Steffensmeier's theory of focal concerns. Research questions focused on the impacts of defendants' gender and blameworthiness in general and with regard to bail and restitution decisions. Data consisted of published court case summaries for 1,162 criminal cases heard by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York between 2009 and 2015. These data were analyzed via an inductive coding process and then subjected to content analysis. Themes that emerged revealed that all facets of blameworthiness impacted restitution while only the seriousness of the offense impacted bail decisions. Further, gender was found to impact judge's actions in subtler ways than in prior research. For example, analysis revealed slight modifications in word choice in the case summaries that appeared to be connected to the gender of the defendant, particularly related to restitution decisions. The results of this study may be used to courts and Congress to enhance existing statutes and guidelines directed at decreasing the impact of gender and blameworthiness on defendants by the justice system.

Within the framework of the traditional sociological question, how the legal system is related to the society, the aim of this study is to treat the legal system as a conflict resolver. More specifically, the following questions will be treated:1.Which categories of people and which categories of organizations are as parties using the court for settling conflicts and in what types of conflicts do they act in this way?2.Howdoes the legal utilization vary over time? May socio-economical, demographical, and legal conditions explain these variations?This study only deals with conflict resolution in courts of first instance, so called district courts.One aim has been to get a general view over to what extent Swedish courts are utilized as conflict resolvers, and how this utilization varies over time. The discussion is mainly based upon official statistics. To complete this discussion, an empirical study has been realized. This study is comparative. The conflict solving activities between 1940 and 1969 has been examined in the town courts of Umeå and Luleå. The data basis consists of official statistics and collected informations from cases finally dealt with in the two courts. A stratified random sample out of these cases has been made. As a result of theoretical and methodological considerations the sample consists of only certain types of disputes and crimes.As a general conclusion, one can state that disputes before the courts nowadays as earlier are concerning socially and economically strong persons. However one must notify that this study is just a case study with its limitations.Concerning criminal cases, expected results from the study are that the proportion of workers among the prosecuted is bigger than the proportion of prosecuted business leaders. Interesting however, is that the unskilled are well represented in the data material. This means a different picture compared to the distribution of plaintiffs in civil cases. The changes in character of the conflict constellations occured in the two towns at the same time as summary legal processes were introduced in criminal cases at the end of the 1940's. A bigger proportion of workers as prosecuted party is observed after that processual simplification. Pro-cessual simplifications of that kind seem to strengthen rather than to weaken the occupational bias among the prosecuted persons, at least in crime cases with an injured person involved.Concerning criminal cases, we have finally assumpted that during phases of social and economical stagnation both the number of prosecuted workers and the number of theft and drunkeness cases increases in the type of industrialized community that Luleå belongs to. In more socially and economically differentiated communities, like Umeå, the same type of development is more linked to phases of economical expansion. While increases in the pressure of temptation are widening the economical conditions for people, this may be the reasonable explanation to the variations in the conflict resolving activities in the courts between different local communities. Explanations, close to those used to explain criminal activity caused by poverty, may refer to local communities dominated by industry. / digitalisering@umu

For his study, the author determines whether the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) and the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) are sovereign entities, or if they are pawns of the Democratic and Republican parties (Political Duopoly) aimed to prevent smaller candidates from participating in the CPD’s Presidential Debates. The author’s rationale for his research is based on the fact that, despite a large majority of American voters want to hear other voices in the CPD debates, the CPD has not allowed other voices to participate in the debates since 1992, through use of the CPD’s fifteen-percent support requirement. Every time an entity questions the CPD’s requirements, the FEC dismiss the challenges. This has led to lawsuits against the commissions from Level the Playing Field (LPF) and Gary Johnson. The author completed a literature review and case view analysis related to this matter, introduces the Marketplace of Ideas Theory, and the theory’s fallacies. Results from research indicates that both the CPD and FEC have behaved questionably, keeping the threshold at a level that outside candidates cannot breach, and that the lawsuits against the commissions are valid. In conclusion, the American voters are largely limited to the status quo parties despite increasingly looking for other options. This thesis will elaborate upon the misdeeds of the Political Duopoly have also reduced other freedoms and liberties once protected by the United States Constitution

This thesis consists of two self-contained empirical essays. Essay I investigates the impact of labor subsidies on TFP, and profit per employee is included as a second outcome. Coarsened exact matching (CEM) is performed on the key variables. After matching, a difference-in-difference (DID) model is applied. The study shows that firms employing workers with wage subsidies experience negative and significant effects on both TFP and profit per employee. Heterogeneity is, however, observed; the only sector to show a deficit in both TFP and profit per employee is wholesale. During the second year with a subsidy, a negative impact can be observed on the profit per employee but not on TFP. The policy conclusion from the analysis is that subsidizing individuals from particular groups is necessary to induce firms to hire workers from these groups. However, the time period for which a single firm is subsidized should be considered. Essay II (with Jonas Månsson from Linnaeus University and the Swedish National Audit Office (SNAO), Christian Andersson from SNAO and Fredrik Bonander from SNAO) measures TFP of the Swedish district courts by applying data envelopment analysis (DEA) to calculate the Malmquist productivity index for 48 Swedish district courts from 2012 to 2015. This study uses a fully decomposed Malmquist index. A bootstrapping approach is further applied to compute confidence intervals for each decomposed factor of TFP as well as for TFP. The study shows an average annual of TFP by 0.7%. However, a substantial variation between years is observed both with regards to the number of statistically significant courts below and above unity. The negative impact is mainly driven by pure technical regress. Large variations are also observed over time where the small courts have the largest volatility. The TFP change is positively correlated with the rate of change in the caseload. Two recommendations are: 1) that district courts with negative TFP growth could learn from those with positive TFP growth and 2) that a back-up force could be developed to enhance flexibility.

Every year, children are subjected to sexual and/or physical abuse or rape, by relatives and/or strangers. We know that it happens in society but due to a large number of unreported cases nobody knows the exact number. Once the children report sexual crimes, professionals argue about the child's credibility. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the district court's (tingsrättens) arguments in order to understand how girls' credibility is presented in relation to other evidence, after they are suspected of having been subjected to sexual abuse. The material we used was twenty-five court cases from district courts in Sweden, where children under the age of fifteen where suspected of having been subjected to sexual abuse. This essay is based on a qualitative method. The collected material has then been analyzed based on Hällgren Graneheim, Lindgren and Lundman's (2023) qualitative content analysis. We have also used Christie's (2001) theory of the Ideal Victim to analyze the children's role as victims. The result showed that most of the children in the court cases were considered credible by the district court. In contrast, the results showed that the defendants who did not receive a conviction lacked corroborating evidence, such as DNA-evidence, witnesses to corroborate their story, messages, photos or video clips. At last, the result showed that when the defendants admitted to the crime, the district court did not argue in quite as much detail about the plaintiff's credibility as in the other court cases.