Abortion: rights or technicalities? A comparison of Roe v. Wade with the abortion decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court

A comparison of the difference in approach, philosophy, and percepti on of social implications of abortion in the United States and Germany is examined by contrasting the Roe v. Wade decision of the U.S. Supreme Court with the abortion decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court. Roe v. Wade effectively established abortion on demand prior to "viability" (approximately 6 months) and makes it difficult to prevent it for any reason at any time prior to live birth. When the West German Federal Diet passed the Fifth Law for the Reform of the Penal Code which allowed abortion on request up to 12 weeks of conception and for reasons of maternal health up to 22 weeks, the Constitutional Court declared it null and void 8 months later. The 2 courts reached their decisions for quite different reasons. In the U.S. "Jane Roe" was a real, though anonymous, woman. Other real persons had been trying to overturn abortion statutues in various states. The German court acted on a petition brought by 193 members of the Federal Diet and 4 of the states. It was thus, under the German system, obligated to decide the constitutionality of the revisions in abortion legislation and the decision returned the question to the legislative body. The fundamental difference between the German and the American approach is the "right to life." In America the conflict is between the mother's "right to privacy" and the compelling interest of the state to protect the right to life. At no point does the U.S. Supreme Court consider whether the unborn has rights but only whether they constitute a value the protection of which is a legitimate state interest. In Germany, by contrast, the Federal Constitution explicitly establishes the right to life as a subjective human right; the state not only has no right to take life but acknowledges that this right belongs to the human being himself. The U.S. court reasoned that the unborn have been protected "only" for the last century while the German court stated the right has "already" been recognized for a century. The U.S. Court made no mention of the wider social implications of the decision except for a few brief references; the German court's major consideration was the social implication of the law. An appendix with 6 refs. give a translation of the German court's decision.     

A Model for Policy Analysis Applied to the Goodridge Case

Judicial decisions, especially Supreme Court decisions, are becoming, more than ever, major contributors to social policy creation. The political implications of such decisions have far reaching implications for policy analysts, advocates, systems, and individuals. In the case of Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health(2003), the state asked the court to limit the civil rights of a certain group of people because of their sexual orientation. Despite the impact court decisions have on policy, there are few models designed to be used to connect the impact of court decisions to the societal and personal values that underlie them. This paper describes a new model designed by the author to analyze judicial decisions, one that includes a value critical approach, and shows its application to the Goodridge(2003) ruling granting same sex couples the right to legally marry in Massachusetts.     

Child Sexual Abuse Cases: Implementing a Specialist Judicial List

The damage done to children who are subjected to sexual abuse and the often lengthy delays in the resolution of these matters by the child welfare and legal systems is well documented. With this in mind, the Children's Court in Victoria established for 12 months in 2013 a pilot specialised judicial list (the “D” List) as an intensive case-management approach to more effectively respond to child sexual abuse concerns. The evaluation of the pilot aimed both to review the effectiveness of the list in terms of court functioning, and to provide information about the nature of such cases coming to court, the ages and family circumstances of subject children, decisions made and factors associated with these decisions, and the challenges related to management of and decision-making about such cases. The success of the specialist list has seen it extended to regional courts, because it is a more effective approach to managing and deciding this complex class of cases.     

Evaluation of a School—Juvenile Court team approach to delinquency prevention

The School-Juvenile Court Liaison Project was designed to assist schools and courts in working cooperatively to intervene in and prevent delinquency. Results of the evaluation indicate increased communication and joint service planning between the systems. School and court personnel are talking to each other more often about students who are involved with the court, as well as about general issues of school-court cooperation, and school and court staff are working together more frequently to develop treatment plans for such students. School-court teams have also been successful in developing interagency case staffing councils and prevention-oriented projects in their communities. Factors contributing to the project's success are discussed.     

Assimilation,segregation, or integration? A teaching project examining approaches to religious and ideological diversity in the classroom

In this article, we describe the multiple phases of a project that was constructed around the real case of a young Muslim student who wished to be exempted from coeducational physical education on religious grounds. When the school refused her initial request, she decided to take legal measures which ended up in the German Federal Administrative Court. The court ultimately ruled in her favour. Her case was selected as the core ingredient for a new teaching project, which studies acculturation from different perspectives, and examines the complex balance between individual rights and societal duties, as defined by constitutional law in the Federal Republic of Germany. This case demonstrates that the majority society, represented in this study by the school, at times needs to change traditional educational policy in order to further national goals of integration; not as a compromise, but as a fair balance of interests. The project was implemented successfully as an integrated part of teacher preservice education occurring towards the end of the first academically based phase of their training.     

COURT STRUCTURE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY USE, AND JUVENILE COURT DECISIONS

A typology of metropolitan juvenile courts suggests important variations in court structure and procedure. Data describing case characteristics and disposition decisions were drawn from two courts selected to represent "types" ("traditional" and "due process") that are different in structure and procedure. Analyses reveal important differences in the uses of defense attorneys, in case outcomes, and in the variables that influence case decisions. Defense attorney use is more consequential and case decision making is more patterned and regular in the "due process" type court. The study suggests an explanation for contradictions of previous research on the determinants of juvenile court decisions and an interpretation for confusing findings on the consequences of using defense attorneys in juvenile court proceedings.     

ANTITRUST POLICY AND MERGERS: THE WEALTH EFFECT OF SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

Many believe that antitrust policy has had a dramatic impact on merger strategies in the United States. For this to be true, enforcement of antitrust laws must affect a wide range of firms, not just those firms whose mergers are contested. This study tests whether or not firms engaged in uncontested mergers are affected by antitrust enforcement, as signalled by Supreme Court decisions. Using event study methodology, we find that antitrust policy against mergers was binding during the 1960s and 1970s as it ulowered the value of targets in ucontested ongoing mergers.     

The authority of Supreme Court precedent

We construct the complete network of 30,288 majority opinions written by the U.S. Supreme Court and the cases they cite from 1754 to 2002 in the United States Reports. Data from this network demonstrates quantitatively the evolution of the norm of stare decisis in the 19th Century and a significant deviation from this norm by the activist Warren Court. We further describe a method for creating authority scores using the network data to identify the most important court precedents. This method yields rankings that conform closely to evaluations by legal experts, and even predicts which cases they will identify as important in the future. An analysis of these scores over time allows us to test several hypotheses about the rise and fall of precedent. We show that reversed cases tend to be much more important than other decisions, and the cases that overrule them quickly become and remain even more important as the reversed decisions decline. We also show that the Court is careful to ground overruling decisions in past precedent, and the care it exercises is increasing in the importance of the decision that is overruled. Finally, authority scores corroborate qualitative assessments of which issues and cases the Court prioritizes and how these change over time.     

Migration und das kriminalpolitische Handeln staatlicher Strafverfolgungsorgane

Immigrants in Germany form a significant group in terms of crime. An investigation of the rates at which migrants of different nationalities are registered as police suspects and convicted by the courts in comparison to members of the indigenous population was carried out using data supplied by thirteen German federal states. The raw data for the 1995 and 1999 police crime statistics were provided by the State Offices of Criminal Investigation, while the raw data for the 1995 and 1999 court statistics were supplied by the State Statistical Offices. The two data sources were compared while keeping as many variables constant as possible. After taking into consideration age and gender distributions, it is found that for the different migrant populations the probability of involvement with the police and the courts is in some cases more than three times as high as for the German population. However, young migrants (aged under twenty-five) were less likely than young Germans to be convicted by a court in the course of the judicial process. One reason why higher rates were found for migrants is that their everyday life is regulated by the “Ausländergesetz” (Foreign Citizen’s Act), which is irrelevant for German citizens. Significant differences in the probability of migrants becoming involved with the police and the courts were found between the German federal states. In certain states the Foreign Citizen’s Act is applied three times more frequently than in others. The study examines whether these differences are related to a) the external borders of the European Union; b) the proportion of foreigners in the population; and c) political party preferences and the parties forming the governing majority of the state; clear differences were found with respect to item c).     

Justice,speed and thoroughness in child protection court proceedings: Messages from England

This paper reports and assesses the outcomes of a pilot programme in London to reduce the duration of child protection court proceedings. The initiative, known as the ‘Tri-borough Care Proceedings Pilot’, was intended to reduce the usual duration to 26 weeks, ahead of national moves in that direction. The paper locates the issue of court delay in a wider political and child welfare context, highlighting the dilemmas of balancing principles of family autonomy and child safety, support and protection, thoroughness and speed, welfare practices and court processes. It compares the policy, legal and court contexts in the USA and England, showing that what might appear at first sight a local initiative actually relates to a much wider, long-lasting and international debate about how to reach important decisions about children in a reasonable timescale. The paper concludes that there will always be, and must always be, tensions between the courts, national government and local welfare agencies. The pilot shows that greater speed can be achieved by a concerted effort from all the agencies, but at the same time the division of powers and responsibilities is a bedrock for protecting individual rights in liberal democratic societies. Welfare and legal practitioners alike need to appreciate this tension in child protection policy and practice, and resist recrimination when there are differences of opinion. Knowing that other countries face the same challenges can help to promote a more realistic and sophisticated understanding of the dilemmas and the implications for practice, and so help to bring about better decisions for children.     

Superhero,Instructor, Optimist: FEMA and the Frames of Disaster in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

Using framing theory to examine hundreds of press releases posted to the Web by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), this study asserts that FEMA provided useful information on survival and assistance, but that the organization emphasized good deeds and optimism while essentially ignoring social, political, and cultural issues that publicly defined the hurricanes and damaged FEMA's image.     

REPRESSION, THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM, AND POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR CIVIL RIGHTS ADVOCACY DURING RECONSTRUCTION

Contemporary research on the modern civil rights movement stresses the importance of a triad pattern of civil rights protest, white violence, and federal intervention. We explore the role of the U.S. Supreme Court in constraining federal intervention in response to white supremacist violence during Reconstruction. We conclude that Supreme Court decisions played an important role in defeating the Reconstruction-era civil rights movement by minimizing the likely benefits to be gained from civil rights advocacy. Future scholarship should further examine the impact of federal court decisions on the political opportunity structure facing social movements.     

Elders and the courts: judicial policy for an aging America

This article examines how trial courts should address complex issues of an aging society. More older people, living longer, will enter courthouses with underlying problems that will impede effective access and court processes and will require judges to enhance linkages with community health, mental health, and social services providers. The article analyzes how court systems perceive these issues and explores how they have begun to address them. It concludes with an argument in support of innovative new approaches to assist courts in responding to emerging issues of older adults.     

Juvenile Courts and Competency to Stand Trial

This article reviews the recent development of juvenile competency to stand trial (CST) policies across the United States in light of the inherent contradiction of this due process procedure in a separate juvenile court that is premised on the incompetence of youth. The article draws on existing CST legal doctrine and psycho‐legal research to demonstrate the need for sociolegal research to better understand who gains access to the CST process, CST decisions, and how CST may influence subsequent case processing decisions. Utilizing CST as an adopted formal policy from criminal court and an exploratory case study, I demonstrate the difficulties facing how court actors manage the role of youthfulness and culpability for CST decision‐making in contemporary juvenile courts. Overall, both quantitative and qualitative research is needed to examine whether court actors’ practice of CST serves to further deconstruct or reinforce the juvenile court’s rehabilitative ideal.     

Elders and the Courts

Abstract

This article examines how trial courts should address complex issues of an aging society. More older people, living longer, will enter courthouses with underlying problems that will impede effective access and court processes and will require judges to enhance linkages with community health, mental health, and social services providers. The article analyzes how court systems perceive these issues and explores how they have begun to address them. It concludes with an argument in support of innovative new approaches to assist courts in responding to emerging issues of older adults.     

Neighborhood context and racial/ethnic disparities in judicial processing

This article examines the importance of neighborhoods in shaping judicial processing and racial/ethnic disparities in court outcomes. Scholarship instructs that court actors—prosecutors, defense counsel, and judges—make legal decisions with local communities in mind. With the rise of geographic information in arrest records and mapping techniques, greater opportunities exist to evaluate the role of neighborhood context in the juvenile and criminal courts. This article synthesizes research on how the characteristics of neighborhoods where defendants live and/or offend influence judicial processing. Attention is given to how scholars define neighborhoods, identify key neighborhood conditions, and analyze the relationships among places and judicial decisions. Emphasis is also placed on unpacking debates on whether neighborhood conditions diminish or aggravate racial/ethnic disparities in court outcomes, such as incarceration decisions. Its analysis reveals findings of neighborhood effects as well as evidence of neighborhood characteristics widening racial/ethnic differences in judicial processing. This article thus encourages the consideration of community context in disparity studies and policy efforts to improve citizens' access to justice.     

An Overview and Comments on Recent Americans With Disabilities Act Court Rulings

Abstract

The American with Disabilities Act (ADA) is designed to protect persons with disabilities from discrimination in nearly every aspect of American life. This commentary focuses on a number of recent United States Supreme Court decisions that help to clarify the intent of the ADA. It is critical for social workers to be aware of these recent court rulings because they affect social work practice and have important policy implications.     

Promoting Drug Court Education in Schools of Social Work: Ideas in Action

Drug courts have provided an alternative to incarceration for arrestees with substance use disorders since 1989 in the USA, and the first drug court outside of the USA began in 1998 in Canada. As drug courts continue to increase throughout the world, it is important for social work students to learn about the role of drug courts in their communities, as they may interact with these programs directly or indirectly, whether it is being a member of a task force that begins a drug court or providing substance abuse treatment to participants. This Ideas in Action article conceptualizes drug courts and discusses their relevance for social work education. The article also proposes several direct service-learning techniques, such as completing practicums and course projects, which can be used within schools of social work to educate students about drug courts and promote civic engagement, reflection, and reciprocity.     

The Causes of Pro-Immigration Voting in the United States Supreme Court1

During the pre-confirmation debate over Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, critics accused her of allowing her background to influence her judicial decisions. This article assesses the validity of such a claim for all sitting justices from 1875 to 2007 in one relevant policy area, immigration. In this article, we look at all 185 immigration-related decisions by the Supreme Court from its creation through 2007. Logistic general estimating equation regression analysis of Supreme Court voting on these cases suggests that justices who were nominated by Democratic presidents, who were urbanites, and who had previous judicial experience were more likely to vote in favor of immigration. However, justices who grew up in the Southwest, had Southern European ancestors, or were ideological conservatives were more hostile to immigration. Although public opinion, the unemployment rate, and the percent foreign-born in a given year did not affect justices’ votes, non-asylum cases and appeals from the Eighth Circuit were more likely to receive favorable treatment. The mean level of racial liberalism of the Senators in office during a particular justice’s confirmation hearings likewise had a large impact on his or her subsequent rulings. These findings suggest that Supreme Court voting on immigration is substantially influenced by justices’ background and political preferences as well as by some political and legal structures. These results thus support Legal Realism and New Institutionalism instead of the Traditional Legal Model of Supreme Court behavior.     

Same-sex marriage laws and demand for mortgage credit

Marriage for same-sex couples was only permitted in a limited number of states prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. We exploit panel variation across states prior to the Supreme Court decision to investigate the effect of marriage laws on demand for mortgage credit. Identification relies on the fact that states permitted same-sex marriage at different points in time, often through court order whereby the outcome and timing of ruling was unknown. We estimate that states permitting same-sex marriage experienced a 6–16% increase in same-sex mortgage applications after the policy was implemented. Federal recognition of marriage is associated with a stronger effect than state same-sex marriage prior to the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, but the effect of state-recognized marriage is also stronger than anti-discrimination policies in housing. Our findings provide important insight not only to the housing choices of same-sex households but the impact of marriage on all households.