Department of Management, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Apr 26;108(17):6889-92. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1018033108. Epub 2011 Apr 11.
Are judicial rulings based solely on laws and facts? Legal formalism holds that judges apply legal reasons to the facts of a case in a rational, mechanical, and deliberative manner. In contrast, legal realists argue that the rational application of legal reasons does not sufficiently explain the decisions of judges and that psychological, political, and social factors influence judicial rulings. We test the common caricature of realism that justice is "what the judge ate for breakfast" in sequential parole decisions made by experienced judges. We record the judges' two daily food breaks, which result in segmenting the deliberations of the day into three distinct "decision sessions." We find that the percentage of favorable rulings drops gradually from ≈ 65% to nearly zero within each decision session and returns abruptly to ≈ 65% after a break. Our findings suggest that judicial rulings can be swayed by extraneous variables that should have no bearing on legal decisions.
司法裁决仅仅基于法律和事实吗？法律形式主义认为，法官以理性、机械和深思熟虑的方式将法律理由应用于案件事实。相比之下，法律现实主义者认为，法律理由的理性适用并不能充分解释法官的裁决，而且心理、政治和社会因素会影响司法裁决。我们在经验丰富的法官做出的连续假释裁决中检验了现实主义的常见刻板印象，即正义是“法官早餐吃了什么”。我们记录了法官的两次日常用餐休息，这导致当天的审议分为三个截然不同的“决策会议”。我们发现，在每个决策会议中，有利裁决的比例从约 65%逐渐下降到几乎为零，然后在休息后突然回升到约 65%。我们的研究结果表明，司法裁决可能会受到与法律裁决无关的外部变量的影响。
