State supreme courts frequently cite each other as authorities. These citations constitute the interstate communication of precedent. The major direct predictors of this inter-court communication are the legal capital of the cited court, the difference in legislative innovativeness between the two states, and contemporaneous interstate migration. After 1940, inter-court communication is more strongly related to interstate migration than to any other predictor in the analysis. The relationship between interstate migration and inter-court communication suggests that the interstate communication of precedent is affected by cultural regionalism. Inter-court communication is not increased by similarity between states in population size or in levels of urbanization and industrialization. Courts of populous and urban states are cited more by courts of less populated and rural states, but these relationships are mediated by differences in legal capital, legislative innovativeness, judicial professionalism, and interstate migration. Judicial professionalism and the West's regional reporter system are directly related to inter-court communication in the later years surveyed.

This article analyzes the Philippine system of compulsory conciliation both in terms of its significance in the context of the political system as a whole and in terms of its operation at the village level. I argue that the mediation structures established by national law are part of a pattern in which the Philippine state is incorporating within it the various sectors of civil society, but that the cooptation of the customary method of dispute processing is not meeting resistance from the rural Filipino. This analysis supports the more general argument that systems of informal justice operate to enhance centralized political authority, yet it reveals the dialectical nature of such arrangements for dispute processing.

This paper takes as an example of Anglo-American legal ideology the work of legal philosopher H.L.A. Hart, analyzing it in light of current linguistic theories. Linguists have proposed that ideological reflection can be affected in particular ways by the structure of the language used to convey it. We find that Hart's theory, with its emphasis on decontextualized rules and prerequisite conditions, fits the linguistic predictions. The paper concludes with the suggestion that the effect of language structure on cultural and/or legal ideologies is, however, socially and culturally circumscribed.

This analysis of the juvenile court movement is critical of both functionalist and social movement interpretations. Following Meyer and Rowan (1977) and Hagan et al. (1979), I suggest that the juvenile court was not a substantive reform but served primarily to extend conventional means of child-control through the legitimizing vocabulary of Progressivism. Descriptive analysis of state statutes shows the derivative, ambiguous nature of the juvenile court as a legal phenomenon. Dynamic analysis of the diffusion of juvenile court acts shows that neither functional need nor social movement influence provides a convincing explanation for the rapid institutionalization of the court.

This paper examines the way in which a United States district court decision in Texas catalyzed state legislation in that state. The events leading from the decision to the enactment of the statute are chronicled. The paper also describes the processes of bargaining and cooperation among the major actors who used the decree to obtain the new legislation. In the conclusion, factors that facilitated the catalytic impact of the judicial decision are discussed.

The pivotal case in the history of the plea of insanity occurred in London during the reign of George III. In the year 1800, James Hadfield discharged a horse pistol at the king as he entered the royal box at Drury Lane Theatre. Hadfield pleaded insanity to a charge of high treason and was acquitted. The verdict caused much judicial concern, for the law's power over him was at best unclear. Hadfield was taken to Newgate Prison while Parliament hastily passed the Criminal Lunatics Act of 1800, which enabled the government to detain Hadfield for the rest of his life. No longer was a defendant found not guilty on the grounds of insanity entitled to a general acquittal. Insanity became a special verdict linked with automatic confinement for an indefinite period of time. Three other provisions of the act called for the detention of mentally ill persons who were arrested for criminal offenses or found in circumstances that suggested criminal activity.

This paper examines the relationship between social structures and community justice. It rejects both those arguments that see community justice as independent experiments for the development of an alternative system of justice and those that see such experiments as functioning solely in the interests of dominant legal and social structures. Based on a study of the collective justice systems of a variety of small-scale cooperatives, the paper develops a theory in which community justice is shown to be ambiguously related to the larger system in which it is set and to the groups and individuals who make up that system. This ambiguity, it is argued, is capable of transforming the wider structure, and the theory allows us to glimpse a potential for broad-based socio-legal change.

This article examines litigant narratives in small claims courts from two perspectives: the degree to which relaxed procedures and evidentiary constraints provide greater satisfaction to litigants than more formal courts, and the problems litigants encounter in providing legally adequate accounts without the assistance of attorneys. Data for this study are 55 trials in two states (North Carolina and Colorado). The findings show that narratives in small claims court bear many resemblances to everyday talk about trouble, provide litigants significant opportunities to tell their stories in court, but frequently fail to include critical components of legally adequate claims.