Stuart S. Nagel

Political Party Affiliation and Judges' Decisions

Several scholars within the public law field of political science have compiled data on differences in the backgrounds of American judges, but without attempting to correlate these characteristics with differences in the decisions of the judges. Other scholars have compiled data on the different decisional tendencies of American judges, but again without correlating these tendencies with differences in the backgrounds of the judiciary. The first purpose of this paper is to explore the empirical relationships between one background characteristic and fifteen areas of judicial decision-making. Political party affiliation was chosen as the one background characteristic because it is of particular interest to political scientists, and is an especially useful indicator for predicting how judges on bipartisan appellate courts will divide when they do not agree. The second purpose is to explore empirically the effectiveness of three judicial reforms (judicial appointment, non-partisan ballot, and long term of office) which are frequently advocated as means of decreasing partisan influences in judicial decisions.

Judicial Backgrounds and Criminal Cases

differences in the decisions of the judges analyzed.? Various other scholars of the judicial process have compiled data on the different decisional tendencies of American judges, but they similarly have not shown that these decisional propensities correlate with differences in the backgrounds of the judiciary.2 It is the purpose of this paper to explore the empirical relationships between various background and attitudinal characteristics of judges and their decisions in criminal cases.3

Public policy : goals, means, and methods

The author details the basic concepts and principles of systematic public policy evaluation which involves processing goals to be achieved, the means available for achieving these goals and methods of determining relations and drawing conclusions on the best policies or combinations of policies. Filled with examples, visual aids, questions, references, indexes and glossaries, as well as other useful features. Originally published in 1984 by St. Martins Press, this edition contains a new preface by the author.

Decision Theory and Juror Decision -Making

This chapter has three purposes. The first purpose is to develop a method for determining the values of jurors regarding their propensities to convict or acquit. The second purpose is to use that method to determine how those propensities differ across types of jurors and cases, and how the propensities influence decisions. The third and main purpose is to discuss how such propensities can be brought more into line with the legal rules which specify that defendants should not be convicted unless they appear to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Dealing with unknown variables in policy/program evaluation

Abstract A leading objection to the feasibility of applying benefit-cost analysis in evaluation is that one often cannot know the benefits, the costs, or the probabilities of their occurring for a given proposal. Threshold analysis involves handling unknown variables by converting relevant evaluation problems into questions as to whether a given benefit, cost, probability, or combination of these elements is more or less than a threshold. Above the threshold, the proposed program would be relatively profitable; and below the threshold, it would be relatively unprofitable. Applying that analysis may require the drawing of simple graphs to stimulate the minds of knowledgeable persons as to the range of the actual benefits, costs or probabilities. The approach can be applied when the benefits or the costs are either monetary or nonmonetary, and when the problems involve either go/no-go decisions or conflicting-choice decisions.

Nonmonetary Variables in Benefit-Cost Evaluation.

Nonmonetary benefits in benefit-cost evaluation can be dealt with by converting the choices into questions regarding whether a given nonmonetary return is worth more or less than a given dollar cost. Answering such questions enables one to pick the alternative that is best on benefits minus costs, even though the benefits and costs cannot be measured in the same units.

Bridging theory and practice in policy/program evaluation

Abstract This article is designed to deal with the basic theoretical issues in public policy analysis. Those basic issues can be divided into cross-cutting generalizations about relevant concepts, knowledge acquisition, causes, and norms. On concepts, one key issue relates to how to define public policy evaluation. The key elements relate to processing a set of societal goals to be achieved, alternative policies for achieving them, and relations between goals and policies in order to choose or explain the best policy, combination, allocation, or predictive decision-rule. Conceptualizing the field might also include defining what constitutes good public policy evaluation. One key element relates to validity in the sense of including the major goals and alternative policies, external consistency with empirical reality in describing their relations, and internal consistency in logically drawing a conclusion that follows from the goals, policies, and relations. Good public policy evaluation also has importance in terms of the problems with which it deals, usefulness in terms of impact on decision-makers, originality, and feasibility, although ideological direction is a matter separate from technically good policy analysis. On knowledge acquisition, policy evaluation obtains ideas for goals, policies, and relations from such places as authority, statistical-observational analysis, deduction, and sensitivity analysis. A good system of arriving at policy recommendations should be capable of dealing with such obstacles to processing knowledge as multiple dimensions on multiple goals, multiple missing information, multiple alternatives that are too many to determine the effects of each one, multiple and possibly conflicting constraints, and the need for simplicity in drawing and presenting conclusions. The causal theory of public policy evaluation is concerned with why some policies get adopted and others get rejected. Some of the answers relate to low opposition combined with high support, reaching appropriate decision-makers, orientation toward intended goals, and achievement of favorable effects. Causal theory is also concerned with why some adopted policies succeed and others fail. Relevant factors include how high the original goals were, what incentives were provided to secure compliance, how well the coordination between the public and private sectors was handled, and how well the formulation and implementation were analyzed before problems were encountered. The normative theory of policy evaluation is partly concerned with such questions of professional ethics as whose goals to maximize, how much obligation is therefor validity and other criteria of good analysis, how to deal with putting people at risk in policy experimentation, and the extent to which analysts should prescribe rather than merely describe. Normative theory is also concerned with clarifying societal values such as the greatest happiness for the greatest number, bringing up the bottom, doing things that keep anyone from being worse off, and the newer societal values of developing public policies that enable all sides to come out ahead of their best expectations.

P/G% Analysis

Microcomputers increasingly are being used to aid program evaluators in their word processing, data retrieval, and statistical/mathematical calculations. A new development is the use of microcomputers to process information concerning alternative programs, policies, decisions, or other options in order to aid in deciding which option or combination is the best. Using microcomputers in this way enables one to avoid the drudgery of the arithmetic, to be prompted into clarifying goals, alternatives, and relations, to try numerous changes to see their effects, and to have ones creativity stimulated in developing better program evaluation.

On Unicorns Blocking Commitment Law Reform

Four surveys of the attitudes of psychiatrists toward issues related to involuntary civil commitment law are reviewed. This article shows that, contrary to popular opinion, psychiatrists favor increased due process of law protections and rights for patients both during and after commitment proceedings. These attitudes have been relatively stable over the past decade. In contrast with other groups, psychiatrists may be less emphatic in their support of rights, but the attitudes of psychiatrists when examined on an absolute scale clearly favor increased rights.

Optimally Allocating Federal Money to Cities

The purpose of this article is to discuss some basic methods for optimally allocating federal money to cities. Optimally allocating in this context means using the quantitative methods of operations research, management science, and related fields in order to allocate federal money to cities in such a way as to (1) maximize benefits subject to a given budget, (2) minimize costs subject to a minimum satisfaction level, or (3) maximize benefits minus costs. The basic methods include (1) allocating by marginal rates of return, which partly relies or statistical regression analysis; and (2) allocating by part/whole percentages, which partly relies on ideas associated with multiattribute utility theory. The basic methods will be illustrated with the example of allocating anticrime dollars to cities, although one could easily reason by analogy to allocation in any subject matter area.