NCJ Number
122356
Journal
Judicature Volume: 73 Issue: 4 Dated: (December-January 1990) Pages: 200-202
Date Published
1990
Length
3 pages
Annotation
Judicial scholars should interview trial court judges about their work and how they make decisions.
Abstract
Trial judges often hide or ignore those aspects of their judicial decisionmaking most interesting to judicial scholars. Interviewers must thus establish their credibility if they wish their interviews to be productive. Because most judges like to talk, interviewers should also encourage judges to reminisce about their early experiences on the bench and to tell how they think they have changed as time has passed. Interviewers should be prepared for judges who are mistaken in their self perceptions or who do not report their actions straightforwardly. Judicial scholars should undertake more biographies of trial court judges to identify the personality variables of judges. Panel studies of trial court judges would also yield helpful data, as would such nontraditional research practices such as sitting with judges during plea bargaining and sentencing. 6 footnotes.