Civil Protection Orders and Their Courtroom Context

• In Event: Poster Session I

Abstract

When seeking a protection order, applicants rely on a variety of legal and informal actors to help them navigate through the civil system and ensure that their safety is achieved. Some of the courtroom actors that facilitate this process include: victim advocates, legal counsels, courtroom-employed translators, informal support people (e.g. family members, friends), and the hearing masters who oversee these hearings. These actors provide a myriad of services to applicants and function as “gatekeepers’ to a complex legal system. Using courtroom observational data from a large sample of protection order cases (n=303), the current study explores the impact of these legal and informal actors on civil protection order decisions. Several multivariate analyses were conducted to assess the net and context-specific effects of these variables on the likelihood and length of protection orders. The results of these analyses are then discussed in terms of their implications for future research on protection orders and the role of various courtroom actors in these legal decisions.

Authors

• Alexa Bejinariu, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

• Terance D. Miethe, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

• Emily Troshynski, University of Nevada, Las Vegas