The Court Community Perspective: Investigating How the Structure of Professional Relations Influences Court Decisions

• In Event: Individual and Community Factors in Sentencing

Abstract

The court community perspective emphasizes the need to investigate court members’ professional relations in order to understand judicial decisions. This study builds on a two-mode network that link judicial actors to cases that were handled by the administrative tribunal mandated to enforce the Code of Ethics of Québec’ police officers. 54 actors –president of the tribunal, prosecutor, or defense attorney- were involved in a total of 340 cases finalized over a 5-year period (2009-2013). This study aims to investigate the influence of the underlying structure of judicial actors on two outcomes: 1) whether the two parties reached an agreement before the president settled the case and 2) whether the conduct of a police officer was considered derogatory by the tribunal. Controlling for case characteristics, we consider attributes of judicial actors (individual caseload and degree centrality of the president, the prosecutor and the defense attorney in the global network) and the frequency and quality of their professional relations. The results confirm that judicial decisions are collective actions: relationships between actors are stronger predictors of agreements and convictions than individual attributes. Analyses also suggest that a central position in the network of professional relations is more useful to prosecutors than defense attorneys.

Authors

• Chloé Leclerc, Université de Montréal

• Rémi Boivin, Université de Montréal