The following analysis represents the sample data of the judges of Hamilton County and the probability of the cases at three different court levels regarding appeals and reversals.
Introduction:
There are over thousand cases that the judges of Hamilton Country need to deal with. The study for analysis of performance has been undertaken to provide evidence to the media whether the judges are performing fairly well or not. The results of the analysis have been obtained from Kristen DelGuzzi, who belonged to Cinncinati Enquirer; the organization responsible for the conduction of the case study taking three years as a time frame. The main purpose with which the study was done is to provide a real concise on whether all the judges are performing up to their expected limits.
The supporting Company in the total data collection process is the Company of Annette. For this particular study, the definitions of appeals, disposals and reversals have been set. When a judge makes a certain mistake in the judgment, it is said to be an appeal (Findlaw, 2016). Disposal is the situation where a case is dismissed or completely thrown by a judge (Answers.com, 2016). Finally, a reversal is the situation in which the judge decides to reverse the previous decisions that have been made on a case (Findlaw, 2016).
Implication and Purpose of the Study:
The implication of the results obtained from the analysis will be that there can be clear distinction as to which of the judges is doing well and who the least performing judges are. Data was collected from the various levels of courts so as to complete this analysis. The three main questions that will be answered by the study are:
Which of the judges are doing a decent job?
Which of the judges are not performing up to standard?
What is the basis of this reasoning from the side of Annette
The purpose of the analysis is to judge the performances of members of the jury by calculating the probabilities of the appeals, disposals and reversals. The purpose of the report is thus to do the following:
Calculation of probability for cases that are appealed and reversed considering the three types of courts, each judge’s probability for the appeal of a case, each judge’s probability for the reversal of a case.
Ranking of the various judges in order under each court category.
Analysis and evaluation of the performance of the judges for the three varied court levels of Hamilton country.
Data Analysis:
Microsoft Excel has been used to store and analyse the data by calculating the probability. There are multiple numbers received which have a decimal point, meaning that there are no set numbers in many cases. Since this is a compilation of cases from three years, the handled cases are huge in number. The total cases taken are 182,908 and different judges in the three courts have handled these cases in three years. The three courts are the Common Pleas Court, Domestic Relations Court, and Municipal Court.
Probability method was used because it can be taken as one of the most efficient methods of judging the chances of rightness or wrongness in a given decision (Uniteforsight.org, 2016). The same technique has been applied in the given case. The given information was used to identify the number of cases that fell under appeal, disposal or reversal or the variables that determined the quantity of errors, caused as a result of mistakes from the judges. The efficiency of the judges was also ranked based on the appropriateness level of handling each case.
Results:
The following major findings can be derived from the results of the calculation:
The highest value of probability for appeal from among judges in the common pleas court is 0.20493 for Helen E. Freedman.
The highest value for probability for reversal from among judges in the common pleas court is 0.02449 for Paul G. Feinmann
The highest value for probability for reversal after appeal from among judges in the common pleas court is 0.72093 for Sallie Manzanet-Daniels.
The highest value for probability for appeal from among judges in the domestic relations court is 0.00545 for Edward O. Spain
The highest value for probability for reversal from among judges in the domestic relations court is 0.00091 for Leslie E. Stain
The highest value for probability for reversal after appeal from among judges in the domestic relations court is 0.37500 for William E. McCarthy
The highest value for probability for appeal from among judges of the municipal court is 0.01278 for Rosalyn H. Richter
The highest value for probability for reversal from among judges of the municipal court is 0.01035 for John C. Egan Jr.
The highest value for probability for reversal after appeal from among judges in the municipal court is 1 for David B. Saxe
Out of the 16 judges in the common pleas court, John W. Sweeny Jr. is the lowest performer.
Out of the four judges in the domestic relations court, John A. Lahtinen is the lowest performer.
Out of the twenty judges in the municipal court, Dianne T. Renwick is the lowest performer.
Out of the 16 judges in the common pleas court, Paul G. Feinmann is the best performer.
Out of the four judges in the domestic relations court, Leslie E. Stain is the best performer.
Out of the twenty judges in the municipal court, John C. Egan Jr. is the best performer.
Paul G. Feinman, who is in Common pleas as well as the municipal court, shows the contrast in the results somewhat. He stands the winner in the common pleas court category, whereas, in the municipal court category, he is in the fourth position.
Analysis:
According to some authors, though there is no definite model for identifying the ways of performance evaluation of the judicial system, the following indicators may be used to measure the same:
The disposal rates of trials and the time of throughput, which shows judicial punctuality and thus measures performance.
The outcomes of appeals and the rates of reversals, which measure the errors related to a case at the trial bench
The rate of complaints in a given case, which shows how satisfied the customers are with the decisions given by the judiciary system (Armytage, Educating judges.)
In this case, we take into consideration the first two criteria so as to determine the performance of the judges in the three courts. As per this analysis, Paul G. Feinmann, Leslie E. Stain and John C. Egan Jr. stand as the best performers in the Common pleas, domestic relations and municipal courts respectively. Out of the top three performers, one of them is female. This also drives a long way in providing impetus to the school of thought that women are better decision makers than men.
If we analyse and compare the different variables for the best performers, we may be able to derive a model as to what decision determines being a better decision maker. The number of disposed cases for Feinmann is 2164, which is the approximate average in his category. The same for Stain is 6572, which is the second lowest in her category and for John, the amount is 3285, which is the third highest number of disposals in his category. We could thus say that if the number of disposals is lesser, the judicial performance becomes better. The number of appealed cases is third highest for Feinmann, second lowest for Stain and seventh lowest for John. Thus, in this case too, we can say that if the number of appeals is lesser, the judicial performance becomes better at higher court level. As for the reversed cases’ amount, the number of these for Feinmann is 53, Stain is 6, and John is 34. As for the reversed case, the performance is better if the case reversal is high.
In all the three courts, the ones who have performed lower have a high number of disposal cases, which also proves the relation that we established earlier regarding disposals and performance for the top judges.
Conclusion:
Thus, the efficiency of the judicial system in the Jackson Country seems to be in a good position. However, there needs to be higher efficiency in the handling of disposed cases as many judges seem to be struggling because of these factors.
References
Answers.com,. (2016). What does disposed mean in a court of law. Retrieved 27 January 2016, from http://www.answers.com/Q/What_does_disposed_mean_in_a_court_of_law
Armytage, L. Educating judges.
Findlaw,. (2016). Appealing a Court Decision or Judgment - FindLaw. Retrieved 27 January 2016, from http://litigation.findlaw.com/filing-a-lawsuit/appealing-a-court-decision-or-judgment.html
Findlaw,. (2016). Reversing a Conviction - FindLaw. Retrieved 27 January 2016, from http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/reversing-a-conviction.html
Uniteforsight.org,. (2016). Purposes of Evaluations (Plausibility, Probability, Adequacy). Retrieved 27 January 2016, from http://www.uniteforsight.org/evaluation-course/module3
