The Unblinking Eye Turns to Appellate Law: Cameras in Trial Courtrooms and Their Effect on Appellate LawOver the past twenty years, most American courthouses have been wired with audio and video recording equipment to enhance security and economize on court reporting costs. These in-house alterations have an overlooked consequence for appeals. The mere existence of these recordings of all courtroom occurrences will unavoidably change the way appeals are handled and reviewed.
Appellate courts will need to make new types of decisions on whether to accept the audio-video recordings as appellate records or continue the reliance on transcripts and items entered into evidence. If the appellate courts do not accept audio-video recordings as appellate records, or if they accept some but not all recordings, the courts will need to develop a fair and rational way to decide when to use appellate records based on transcripts only and appellate records based on an audio-video recording . Attorneys will also need to consider whether to demand video recordings for trials, and, how to use the existing, probably more limited, forms of recording for appeals.
This Article will discuss the likely implications of complete, gavel-to-gavel audio and video trial court recordings on the appellate record; on standards of review including appellate review of evidentiary rulings and witness credibility; and on distinctions between appeals and collateral actions.
Diversity and Merit Selection: The Impact of Judicial Nominating Commissions on the Gender Demographics of Florida’s Appellate JudgesIn this study, we examine whether diversity in the membership of Florida’s appellate Judicial Nominating Commissions influences the types of nominees forwarded to the governor for appointment, under the Merit System. We theorize that a broad set of factors will influence who the JNC nominates, including party affiliation, attorney status, gender stratification of the JNC membership and judicial incumbency of the potential nominee. Using data that cover the period from 1991 to 2003, we suggest that JNCs that are relatively more composed of political minorities will be comparably more likely to forward nominees who are also political minorities, in order to increase the descriptive representation of the state’s appellate tribunals. We find that the gender demographics of the JNC and the judicial incumbency of nominees are systematically related to the characteristics of those persons forwarded to the governor for selection. While partisanship factors were positively related to the proportion of women nominees sent forward, such factors did not reach conventional levels of statistical significance in this study.
Information Seeking Behavior of Judges of the Florida District Courts of AppealAppellate judges, in their roles as decision makers, are extensive users of information. They are paid to pass judgement on the unresolved disputes of others. Information to assist the judge in making those decisions is provided to them in court records, attorney's briefs and oral arguments. Judges also seek information externally. State funds are appropriated to support the requirement for external information through the provision of law clerks, computer assisted legal research subscriptions, and both personal and centralized libraries.
At some point judges may choose to seek information external to the brief to guide or support their written opinions. Information seeking behavior is described by studying where information users go for information, why they choose or prefer certain types of information, and what factors contribute to their decision as to when to seek information. Seeking information may be affected by factors present in three categories: the individual, the organization and the professional environment.
The problem was to identify, isolate and describe the factors which constitute the information seeking behavior of appellate judges.
The judicial group studied was comprised of the fifty seven judges of the Florida District Courts of Appeal located in five districts and six cities throughout Florida. All courts were visited. No sampling occurred. Twenty factors, organized in three categories, were identified to guide the description of judicial information seeking behavior. Three data gathering techniques were employed. Qualitative data was gathered by personally interviewing judges using 37 open ended, systematic and standard questions. Quantitative data was gathered through structured observation of oral arguments in the courtroom and a questionnaire survey sent to all judges.
When taken together the data provides evidence that there are patterns of information seeking existing within the individual judges, their organization, and their legal environment. In total, the evidence supported 13 conclusions. 1) Appellate judges do not trust and are skeptical of the information provided to them. 2) Judges have particular needs with regards to organizing information which are not met by any system. 3) The time required for information seeking is predicated upon the judge's situation regarding the disposition of the case. 4) A judge's years on the bench suggests a pattern of information seeking at oral argument. 5) Two critical events influence when judges most keenly need and seek information: the oral argument and decision conference. 6) Judges seek information independently and individually. 7) A judge's distance from the information source approximates and predicts its relevance, use, and value to the judge. 8) Two resources provided by the state, which if absent, would most affect the judges' information seeking are their law clerks and personal library collections. 9) The quality and depth of information seeking by the judges is guided primarily by their internal feelings of satisfaction toward their resulting opinions. 10) Judges' use of the computer is affected by the nature of their job which involves primarily reading and writing. 11) Judges prefer, and value most, information in hardcopy. 12) Judge's information seeking is limited to resources within the physical confines of the courthouse. 13) A judge's information seeking behavior is affected by time.
Appealing Administrative Action: The Threshold ConsiderationsAppeals of administrative agency actions differ from traditional appellate practice. For example, appellate cases involving agency decisions can raise nuanced differences in the law of standing, the degree of judicial deference, the relevance of stare decisis, and the mechanics of the appellate record. The initial concerns associated with appealing an administrative order can be considered in the context of three simple questions: 1) Can I appeal; 2) should I appeal; and 3) how do I start the appeal?
The History of the Florida Supreme Court, Volume 0This article describes the challenges to writing the history of Florida's colonial courts in the Spanish and British periods from 1513 to 1821. These courts are an important yet understudied aspect of Florida legal history.
