ABSTRACT
Lawyers, judges, legal-system personnel, and defendants have known for a long time that departures from adversary adjudication are common. In recent years, however, students of the legal system have recognized that such departures are not only common but firmly entrenched. Recently, there has been something of a movement to understand courts as “organizations”. This is essentially a continuation of earlier modelling attempts, with the bureaucratic organization representing a well defined model that differs in many crucial respects from the normative adversarial trial court. Many court cases are excellent examples of the operation of the Political mode of choice. This is not to suggest that judicial decisions are influenced by the current political regime. Prosecutors wish to maximize production, maximize convictions and guilty pleas, avoid over-leniency in the more serious cases, and earn favorable recommendations from superiors. In general, individuals are motivated by profiles of conditions to adopt different decision-making strategies in different situations.
