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Behavioral Jurisprudence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Glendon Schubert
Glendon Schubert*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
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For over two thousand years, the science of law has been a dull esoteric subject, with traditional logic its long suit and the syllogism its ace in the hole. The erudite tended to empathize with Socrates, who could define justice only in metaphysical terms, and to scorn the occasional iconoclasts in the Thrasymachian tradition, who would have operationalized the concept of justice on the basis of political interrelationships of power and influence. Throughout these two millennia, jurisprudence was a “science” only in the sense of “moral science,” that is to say, it was a branch of philosophy. It was concerned with prescriptive norms rather than with descriptions of human action, and therefore it dealt almost exclusively with ideals for, rather than with the realities of, the behavior of judges, lawyers, jurors, and litigants.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , May 1968 , pp. 407 - 428
Copyright
Copyright © 1968 by the Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

Author's Note: The author thanks the Institute for Research in Social Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Social Science Research Institute of the University of Hawaii, for typing of various drafts of this article.

References

1. R. Pound, Jurisprudence, 8 Encyc. Soc. Sci. 477-92 (1935); and 1 R. Pound, Jurisprudence 27-68 (1959).

2. For a more sanguine appraisal of the methodological sophistication of the realists, see W. Rumble, Jr., Rule-Skepticism and the Role of the Judge: A Study of American Legal Realism, 15 J. Pub. L. 251-85 (1966).

3. R. Handy & P. Kurtz, A Current Appraisal of the Behavioral Sciences, ch. 6: Jurisprudence, 69-76 (1964).

4. G. Schubert, Behavioral Research in Public Law, 57 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 433-45 (1963), and Judicial Behavior, 8 Int. Encyc. Soc. Sci. 307-15 (1968).

5. M. Shapiro, Political Jurisprudence, 52 Ky. L. J. 294-345 (1964).

6. L. Loevinger, Jurimetrics, The Next Step Forward, 33 Minn. L. Rev. 455-93 (1949) ; Jurimetrics: Science and Prediction in the Field of Law, 46 Minn. L. Rev. 255-75 (1961); and Jurimetrics: The Methodology of Legal Inquiry, 28 Law & Contemp. Prob. 5-35 (1963).

7. D. Danelski, A Supreme Court Justice Is Appointed (1964).

8. The Third Branch of Government: 8 Cases in Constitutional Politics (C. H. Pritchett & A. Westin eds., 1963); and W. Murphy, Wiretapping on Trial: A Case Study in the Judicial Process (1965).

9. R. C Lawlor, What Computers Can Do: Analysis and Prediction of Judicial Decisions, 49 A.B.A.J. 337-44 (1963).

10. J. Stone, Legal System and Lawyers' Reasonings 209-12, 235-354 (1964).

11. W. Murphy, Elements of Judicial Strategy (1964); H. Eulau & J. D. Sprague, Lawyers in Politics (1964).

12. R. S. Brown, Jr., Legal Research: The Resource Base and Traditional Approaches, 7 Am. Beh. Sci. 3-6 (Dec. 1963) ; A. S. Miller, The Impact of Public Law on Legal Education, 12 J. Legal Ed. 483 (1960) ; G. Schubert, The Future of Public Law, 34 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 593-614 (1966) ; and L. Loevinger, Law and Science as Rival Systems, 19 U. Fla. L. Rev. 530-51 (1966-1967).

13. C. G. Haines, General Observations on the Effects of Personal, Political, and Economic Influences in the Decisions of Judges, 17 Ill. L. Rev. 96-116 (1922).

14. I recognize, of course, that other dimensions, such as those representing methodology and quantification, might also be deemed of equal significance as differentiating characteristics. See G. Schubert, Academic Ideology and the Study of Adjudication, 61 Amer. Pol. Sci. Rev. 120 (1967).

15. J. G. March, Sociological Jurisprudence Revisited, A Review (More or Less) of Max Gluckman, 8 Stan. L. Rev. 531-34 (1956).

16. T. Becker, Inquiry Into a School of Thought in the Judicial Behavior Movement, 7 Midw. J. Pol. Sci. 254-55, 262-64 (1963).

17. D. Danelski, Values as Variables in Judical Decision-Making: Notes Toward a Theory, 19 Vand. L. Rev. 721-40 (1966).

18. R. A. Wasserstrom, The Judicial Decision (1961).

19. G. Schubert, Dispassionate Justice: A Synthesis of the Judicial Opinions of Robert H. Jackson (1969, forthcoming).

20. See, e.g., P. Kurland, Foreword: Equal in Origin and Equal in Title to the Legislative and Executive Branches of the Government, 78 Harv. L. Rev. 143-76 (1964); The Court of the Union or Julius Caesar Revisited, 39 Notre Dame Law. 636-43 (1964), and the various annual volumes of the Sup. Ct. Rev. which Kurland has edited, beginning in 1960. Cf. D. Kommers, Professor Kurland, The Supreme Court, and Political Science, 15 J. Pub. L. 230-50 (1966).

21. G. Schubert, Judges and Political Leadership, in Political Leadership in Industrialized Societies 220-65 (L. Edinger ed. 1967).

22. E.g., H. Abraham, The Judicial Process chs. 2 & 6 (1968).

23. For discussion of the implications of premising analyses upon mechanical, biological, and configurational jurisprudential models, see M. Landau, On the Use of Metaphor in Political Analysis, 28 Soc. Res. 331-53 (1961), and Due Process of Inquiry, 9 Am. Beh. Sci. 4-10 (Oct. 1965) ; G. Schubert, The Rhetoric of Constitutional Change, 16 J. Pub. L. 16-50 (1967).

24. B. Berelson & G. Steiner, Human Behavior: An Inventory of Scientific Findings (1964).

25. B. N. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process 167-68 (1921):

I have spoken of the forces of which judges avowedly avail to shape the form and content of their judgments. Even these forces are seldom fully in consciousness. They lie so near the surface, however, that their existence and influence are not likely to be disclaimed. But … deep below consciousness are other forces, the likes and the dislikes, the predilections and the prejudices, the complex of instincts and emotions and habits and convictions, which make the man, whether he be litigant or judge. … There has been a certain lack of candor in much of the discussion of the theme, or rather perhaps in the refusal to discuss it, as if judges must lose respect and confidence by the reminder that they are subject to human limitations. I do not doubt the grandeur of the conception which lifts them into the realm of pure reason, above and beyond the sweep of perturbing and deflecting forces. None the less, if there is anything of reality in my analysis of the judicial process, they do not stand aloof on these chill and distant heights; and we shall not help the cause of truth by acting and speaking as if they do. The great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass the judges by.

Cf. also J. Frank, Are Judges Human? 80 U. Pa. L. Rev. 17-53, 233-67 (1931); J. Frank, Law and the Modern Mind (1930).

26. Cf. S. Ulmer, The Discriminant Function and a Theoretical Context for Its Use in Estimating the Votes of Judges, 5-9 (paper presented at the Shambaugh Conference on Judicial Research, University of Iowa, October 1967) ; to be published in The Frontiers of Judicial Research (J. Tanenhaus & J. Grossman eds. 1968, forthcoming).

27. G. Almond & J. Coleman, The Politics of the Developing Areas 17 (1960); and G. Almond & G. B. Powell, Jr., Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach chs. 4, 5, & 7 (1966).

28. As Cardozo pointed out in his introductory apologia to what remains a brilliant qualitative analysis of the subject, “We must apply to the study of judge-made law that method of quantitative analysis which Mr. [Graham] Wallas has applied with such fine results [in his Human Nature in Politics] to the study of politics. A richer scholarship than mine is requisite to do the work aright [, however].” The Nature of the Judicial Process 13 (1921).

29. F. Kort, Quantitative Analysis of Fact-Patterns in Cases and Their Impact on Judicial Decisions, 79 Harv. L. Rev. 1595-1603 (1966) ; D. Danelski, Values as Variables in Judicial Decision-Making: Notes Toward a Theory, 19 Vand. L. Rev. 721-40 (1966).

30. J. Tanenhaus, M. Schick, M. Muraskin, & D. Rosen, The Supreme Court's Certiorari Jurisdiction: Cue Theory, in Judicial Decision-Making (G. Schubert ed. 1963); G. Schubert, Policy Without Law: An Extension of the Certiorari Game, 14 Stan. L. Rev. 284-327 (1962).

31. Cf. T. Becker, Political Behavioralism and Modern Jurisprudence 11 (1964): “the judicial process is verily a vehicle by which revealed truth is discovered through skill in legal logic.”

32. See C. G. Howard & R. S. Summers, Law, Its Nature, Functions, and Limits (1965).

33. H. D. Lasswell, Power and Personality (1948).

34. As Almond and Coleman have noted,

political socialization produces the basic attitudes in a society toward the political system, [and the] political recruitment function takes … members of the society out of particular subcultures … and inducts them into the specialized roles of the political system, trains them in the appropriate skills, provides them with political cognitive maps, values, expectations, and affects.

The Politics of the Developing Areas 31 (1960); and cf. G. Almond & G. B. Powell, Jr., Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach ch. 3 (1966).

35. W. Murphy, Courts as Small Groups, 79 Harv. L. Rev. 1565-72 (1966).

36. J. Herndon, The Role of the Judiciary in State Political Systems, in Judicial Behavior: A Reader in Theory and Research 153-61 (G. Schubert ed. 1964) ; D. Jaros and Robert I. Mendelsohn, “The Judicial Role and Sentencing Behavior,” 11 Midw. J. Pol. Sci. 471-88 (1967) ; and K. N. Vines, The Judicial Role in American States: An Exploration (paper presented at the Shambaugh Conference on Judicial Research, University of Iowa, October 1967) ; to be published in The Frontiers of Judicial Research (J. Tanenhaus & J. Grossman eds. 1968, forthcoming). More generally see Role Theory: Concepts and Research (Bruce J. Biddle and Edwin J. Thomas eds. 1966).

37. K. M. Dolbeare, Trial Courts in Urban Politics: State Court Policy Impact and Functions in a Local Political System (1967); and The Federal District Courts and Urban Public Policy: An Exploratory Study (1960-1967) (paper presented at the Shambaugh Conference on Judicial Research, University of Iowa, October 1967) ; to be published in The Frontiers of Judicial Research (J. Tanenhaus & J. Grossman eds. 1968, forthcoming).

38. L. Guttman, A New Approach to Factor Analysis: The Radex, in Mathematical Thinking in the Social Sciences 216-348 (P. Lazarsfeld ed. 1954).

39. The Shambaugh Conference on Judicial Research, convened at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, October 5-7, 1967.

40. C. E. Vose, Litigation as a Form of Pressure Group Activity, 319 Annals 20-31 (1958), and Caucasians Only: The Supreme Court, the NAACP, and the Restrictive Covenant Cases (1959).

41. N. Hakman, Business Influence in the Judicial Process, W. Bus. Rev. 124-30 (1957) ; Lobbying the Supreme Court—An Appraisal of “Political Science Folklore,” 35 Fordham L. Rev. 15-50 (1966) ; and The Supreme Court's Political Environment: The Sponsorship and Management of Supreme Court Non-Commercial Litigation (paper presented at the Shambaugh Conference on Judicial Research, University of Iowa, October 1967) ; to be published in The Frontiers of Judicial Research (J. Tanenhaus & J. Grossman eds. 1968, forthcoming).

42. D. R. Bowen, The Explanation of Judicial Voting Behavior from Sociological Characteristics of Judges (Ph.D. dissertation in political science, Yale University, 1965; Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms No. 65-15,014) ; and S. Goldman, Politics, Judges, and the Administration of Justice: The Backgrounds, Recruitment, and Decisional Tendencies of the Judges on the United States Courts of Appeals, 1961-1964 (Ph.D. dissertation in political science, Harvard University, 1965; Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms No. 65-9924) ch. 8.

43. S. Warkov, Lawyers in the Making (1965); and D. C. Lortie, Laymen to Lawmen: Law School, Careers, and Professional Socialization, 29 Harv. Educ. Rev. 352-69 (1959).

44. J. Grossman, Lawyers and Judges (1965) ; and H. Jacob, The Effect of Institutional Differences in the Recruitment Process: The Case of State Judges, 13 J. Pub. L. 104-19 (1964).

45. H. M. Blalock, Causal Inferences, Closed Populations, and Measures of Association, 61 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 130-36 (1967); Hayward R. Alker, Jr., Causal Inference and Political Analysis, in Mathematical Applications in Political Science, II, 7-43 (J. L. Bernd ed. 1966).

46. G. Schubert, Judicial Behavior: A Reader in Theory and Research 447 (1964); and G. Schubert, A Causal Model of the High Court of Australia, in Comparative Judicial Behavior: Cross-Cultural Studies in Political Decision-Making in the East and West (G. Schubert & D. Danelski eds. 1968, forthcoming).

47. P. Selznick, The Sociology of Law, in Sociology Today ch. 4 (R. Merton et al. eds. 1959) ; and J. Skolnick, The Sociology of Law in America: Overview and Trends, 13 Soc. Prob. (Supp.) 4-39 (Summer 1965).

48. Affect, Cognition, and Personality (S. S. Tomkins & C. E. Izard eds. 1965); A. L. Knutson, The Individual, Society, and Health Behavior (1965); B. Campbell, Human Evolution: An Introduction to Man's Adaptations (1966).

49. G. Schubert, Constitutional Politics: The Political Behavior or Supreme Court Justices and the Constitutional Policies That They Make 218 (1960); R. C. Lawlor, supra note 9.

50. S. S. Ulmer, Toward a Theory of Sub-Group Formation in the United States Supreme Court, 27 J. Pol. 133-52 (1965) ; and Subset Behavior in the Supreme Court, in Coalition Behavior (Groennings, A. Leiserson, & E. W. Kelley eds. 1968, forthcoming) .

51. E.g., G. Patric, The Aftermath of a Supreme Court Decision, 6 J. Pub. L. 455-63 (1957) ; F. Sorauf, Zorach v. Clauson: The Impact of a Supreme Court Decision, 53 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 777-91 (1959) ; S. Wasby, Public Law, Politics, and the Local Courts: Obscene Literature in Portland, 14 J. Pub. L. 105-30 (1965) ; Robert H. Birkby, The Supreme Court and the Bible Belt: Tennessee Reaction to the “Schempp” Decision, 10 Midw. J. Pol. Sci. 304-19 (1966).

52. W. F. Murphy and J. Tanenhaus, Public Opinion and the United States Supreme Court: A Preliminary Mapping of Some Prerequisites for Court Legitimation of Regime Changes (paper presented at the Sharabaugh Conference on Judicial Research, University of Iowa, October 1967); to be published in The Frontiers of Judicial Research (J. Tanenhaus & J. Grossman eds. 1968, forthcoming).

53. H. D. Lasswell, Current Studies in the Decision Process: Automation versus Creativity, 8 W. Pol. Q. 381-99 (1955); and cf. G. Schubert, The Importance of Computer Technology to Political Science Research in Judicial Behavior, 8 J. of Jurimetrics (1968, forthcoming).

54. Dolbeare, supra note 37.

55. W. F. Murphy and J. Tanenhaus, Constitutional Courts, Public Opinion, and Political Representation (paper presented at the Seventh World Congress, International Political Science Ass'n., Brussels, September 1967), and Public Opinion and the Supreme Court: The Goldwater Campaign, Pub. Opin. Q. (1968, forthcoming) ; K. M. Dolbeare, The Public Views the Supreme Court, in Law, Politics, and the Federal Courts 194-212 (H. Jacob ed. 1967); J. Kessel, Public Perceptions of the Supreme Court, 10 Midw. J. Pol. Sci. 167-91 (1966); and Kenneth M. Dolbeare and Phillip E. Hammond, The Political Party Basis of Attitudes Toward the United States Supreme Court, 16 Pub. Own. Q. 16-30 (1968).

56. Already there have been important, research contributions by colleagues abroad. See V. Aubert, Conscientious Objectors Before Norwegian Military Courts, and U. Torgersen, The Role of the Supreme Court in the Norwegian Political System, both in Judicial Decision-Making 201-44 (G. Schubert ed. 1963); V. Aubert, Researches in the Sociology of Law, 7 Am. Behav. Sci. 16-20 (December 1963); T. Hayakawa, Legal Science and Judicial Behavior, With Particular Reference to Civil Liberties in the Japanese Supreme Court, 2 Kobe U. L. Rev. 1-27 (1962) ; S. R. Peck, The Supreme Court of Canada, 1958 to 1966: A Search for Policy Through Scalogram Analysis, 45 Can. B. Rev. 666-725 (1967); and A Behavioral Approach to the Judicial Process: Scalogram Analysis, 5 Oscoode Hall L. J. 1-28 (1967) ; and Abelardo G. Samonte, The Philippine and American Supreme Courts: A Comparative Study of Judicial Attributes, Attitudes, and Decisions (paper read at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Ass'n, 1966). Others will be forthcoming soon. See Comparative Judicial Behavior: Cross-Cultural Studies in Political Decision-Making in the East and West, supra note 46.

57. M. Landau, Due Process of Inquiry, 9 Am. Behav. Sci. 4-10 (October 1965), and Baker v. Carr and the Ghost of Federalism, in Reapportionment 241-48 (G. Schubert ed. 1965).

58. K. Deutsch, The Nerves of Government (1963); Ulmer, supra note 26.

59. G. Schubert, Judicial Policy-Makinc: The Political Role of the Courts (1965).

60. J. A. Robinson & R. C. Snyder, Decision-Making in International Politics, in International Behavior: A Social-Psychological Analysis 435-63 (H. C. Kelman ed. 1965).

61. Vines, supra note 36.

62. Danelski, supra note 7.

63. E.g., G. Schubert, Judicial Attitudes and Voting Behavior: The 1961 Term of the United States Supreme Court, 28 L. & Contemp. Prob. 102-08, 137-42 (1963), and Judicial Behavior: A Reader in Theory and Research 575-87 (1964).

64. T. Becker, D. C. Hildrum, & K. Bateman, The Influence of Jurors' Values on Their Verdicts: A Courts and Politics Experiment, 46 Sw. Soc. Sci. Q. 132-40 (1965).

65. W. F. Grunbaum, Analytical and Simulation Models for Explaining Judicial Decision-Making (paper presented at the Shambaugh Conference on Judicial Research, University of Iowa, October 1967) ; to be published in The Frontiers of Judicial Research (J. Tanenhaus & J. Grossman eds. 1968, forthcoming).

66. T. Becker, Surveys and Judiciaries, or Who's Afraid of the Purple Curtain, 1 L. & Soc'y. Rev. 133-43 (1966).

67. R. W. Gerard, Quantification in Biology, in Quantification: A History of the Meaning of Measurement in the Natural and Social Sciences 204-22 (H. Woolf ed. 1961).