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Adjudication and Sentencing in A Misdemeanor Court: The Outcome is the Punishment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2024

John Paul Ryan
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Abstract

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A description and analysis of the Columbus (Ohio) Municipal Court is presented in the context of comparison with Malcolm Feeley's recent study of the New Haven lower court. The findings suggest that the Columbus court is much more severe in the sanctions imposed upon convicted defendants. These differences are attributed, in part, to contrasting local political cultures whose influence upon courts is mediated by police department orientations, police-prosecutor relationships, and methods of judicial assignment.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , 1981 , pp. 79 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

*

I wish to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Jim Alfini in designing and conducting this research, the help of Jeff Huff and Tom Graham in collecting data from the Franklin County Municipal Court files, and the cooperation of Ron Horcher, the Assignment Commissioner of the Municipal Court. I also wish to thank Milt Heumann, Russ Wheeler, and the anonymous referees of the Review for their comments. This study was funded under Grant No. 78-NI-AX-0072 from the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice (LEAA) to the American Judicature Society. Analyses and conclusions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the official positions of the U.S. Department of Justice or the American Judicature Society.

References

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Cases Cited

Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25, 1972.CrossRefGoogle Scholar