Question

Explain whether Dr. Nguyen is correct in thinking that extra-legal factors are more important in legal decision making than legal factors.

Answer 1

We can determine and explain whether Dr. Nguyen is correct in thinking that extra-legal factors are more important in legal decision making than legal factors by doing a quick review on the various research which has been conducted on this topic and considering researchers conclusions:

In judicial decision making, mostly the manner in which the judges choose between a given set of rules, standards, legal, and extra-legal factors fundamentally gives the solution towards the case outcomes and also it contributes to the development of a fuller understanding of the judicial decision-making process in the court.

Typically, the judges’ decisions mechanism was described as being a rational one, based on elements exclusively provided by law.

The decision of the judge is shaped around on the dangerousness of the offense, offender’s personality, mitigation or aggravating factors but this kind of legal formalism began to be criticized , when some researches went ahead and proved that the decision process is also tends to be deeply influenced by some extralegal factors such as the social, psychological, economic and even physiological factors

Based on our topics context, the following variables can be classified as being the legal factors:

the severity of offenses for which person has been charged, their prior criminal records which have been recorded and also the recommendations of the Pretrial Services Agency.

The other kinds of variables such as:

sex, age, ethnicity, and the identity of the judge, are classified as extra-legal.There are also, other types of extra-legal factors (mass media, public opinion, personal experiences) that have the tendency to influence judges’ decision.

There have been several assumptions by the research studies which may be summarized as follows;

(1) Most judiciary decision making outcomes in which the judges tend to be focused more on the legal factors in sentencing process;

(2) the extra-legal factors have a low impact on the decision making process;

The relationship between legal (e.g., evidence) and extra-legal factors (e.g., preconceived biases and behaviors related to judicial decision-making)

Importance of extra legal factors in legal decision making:

Few of the Extra-legal factors had an impact upon the judges decision. The recent research reveals that judges are influenced by some factors , which can be summarized as follows;

-The social class (for example sometimes people from the lower classes are quiet convicted to harsh punishments when comparing with the high class offenders),

-The Gender (it is reflected in sentences with regard to the sex based discrimination or equality between men and women. It has been determined that females judge tend to adopt liberal positions) (Siegel, 2011).

-It has also been determined that, most of the female judges are likely more towards the tendncy to punish harsher sex offenders comparing with male judges (O’ Connor, 2010).

-Another relevant factor with impact on decision is the overwhelming activity of judges, as it is had been proved that the magistrates from courts with a small number of cases tends to applying harsher punishments to the criminals (Siegel, 2011).

-Last factors is that time may have quiet a significant impact on decision, some studies show that there tends to be some differences which exists between sentences imposed before or after lunch (Danziger, 2011).

Which of it has more importance / influence /significance in legal decision making:

A few of the study revealed that judges tend to have a rational approach of sentencing policy, which includes minimizing or even excluding the possibility to be influenced in their decisions by factors as the media, public opinion or personal experiences.

Moreover , they also tend to be focused strictly on procedures from inside the court and based on law and don’t take into account the institutional impact of sentences (prison overcrowding).

Despite of all of these things, the judges are quiet inerested to obtain the information regarding the offender’ s personality, his or her level of education, the professional background, his or her psycho-social identity and being focused on external motivation of offender.
When the judges tend to impose the noncustodial sentences (probation) judges are quiet interested not only on the punitive side of sentence but they also tend to also take care about the offenders’ rehabilitation which impose some obligations that are to be respected during the probation term. which may influence the extra legal factors which determine in the final decision of the judiciary.

RELATIONSHIP
The Relationship between Legal and Extra-Legal Factors :

The research Findings suggest that there is a diverse trend in the judicial decision-making toward the domestic violence cases,it is said to be based on a combination of internal and external factors.

In addition to the presence and quality of many of the legal factors (evidence, witness statements, etc.) are a direct result of law enforcement responses. Another major influencing factor in judicial decision-making is the District Attorney. The District Attorney has the potential to determine a judge’s decision.

The formal law is one entry into the decision of the judiciary If the category of "legal factors" in the legal/extra-legal is quite debatable and said to be coextensive with what is defined in the formal written law (e.g.,statutes),

There is a proper relationship between the formal law and its application. These findings can be said to be consistent with the hypothesisof legal realists that the legal rules are one of the considerations in the final judicial decisions.

The findings strongly suggest that legally specified criteria play a important and dominant role in such decisions.

This further suggests to us that the attempts to document the impact of extra-legal factors on legal decisions will, present a misleading picture if they do not adequately measure legal factors.

This is not quiet because of extra-legal variables being spuriously significant. It the case that if the major influential legal variables get excluded from our models, there will end up being a distorted unclear picture of both the relative significance of extra-legal variables and the also the legality of judicial decision-making in general.

In these situations, Where the law has been codified, the legal/extra-legal controversy can best be explained by continusly considerating the statutorily and non- statutorily prescribed factors.

The factors like Race, age, sex, and other demographic measures are clearly not the only extra-legal factors that tend to have an influence upon the judicial decisions, even though research had been influenced by conflict appears most concerned with these such variables.

When we consider the case of the pretrial release decisions, the extra-legal factors are the most influential determiners of pretrial release decisions. They are the perceived notion that the defendant would be dangerous if he is freed and also on the identities of the individual judges.

This brings me to my final point. the distinction among the Various kinds of factors that which tend to have extra-legal effects is the major key towards drawing policy implications from court decisions.

To some extent that race or ethnic discrimination can be recognized as being necessary in a particular decision context or this being associated with a particular outcome.

The legal/extra-legal controversy has been for too long been dictated as a model of research that has quiet failed to give us due enlightment to either side of the debate.

The complexities and compactness of law have often been ignored.This has lead to the extra-legal category to habing been narrowly defined and determined.

The research studies suggests that both the components (legal and extra-legal) should be refined and reexamined as part of the growing, continuing process which tends to seek to understand the very bases for the decisions that lead to the court outcomes.