Assessing Local Legal Culture: Practitioner Norms in Four Criminal Courts, 1979

This study attempts to operationalize the concept of local legal culture by examining differences in the processing of twelve hypothetical criminal cases in four criminal courts. Questionnaires asking how these hypothetical cases should best be handled were administered to judges, district attorneys, and defense attorneys in four cities: Bronx County (New York City), New York, Detroit, Michigan, Miami, Florida, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In each city, the presiding judge, prosecutor, and head of the public defender's office were informed of the project. Questionnaires were distributed to prosecuting attorneys and public defenders by their supervisors. Judges were contacted in person or given questionnaires with a cover letter from the presiding judge. All questionnaires were completed anonymously and returned separately by respondents. The variables include number of years the respondent had been in the criminal justice system, preferred mode of disposition and of sentencing for each of the twelve cases, and the respondents' predictions of the probability of conviction in each case.