Francis, Thank you for pointing out those caveats. You're absolutely right that there are many reasons why a decision would be overturned that don't reflect directly on the judge. To be honest, calling it "Rate My Judge" had more to do with being snappy than anything else. Within the limited supply of data there are no standout cases of a single judge being appealed against particularly often, and if that proved to be the case with a larger data set then that would be a noteworthy fact in itself. To that extent the text was based on my supposition rather than the data. I've now reduced the emphasis on judges and brought in some other factors, though the code has yet to catch up of course.
The paragraph containing "This site is about judges' job performance" is more intended to clarify that no attempt is being made to track individual defendants/appellants through the system or to aggregate information about sentencing, in the way suggested in this recent thread<http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/you-only-go-to-jail-for-shoplifting-some-crim>started by Ben Goldacre. Given more time it would be very much worth, as you say, trying to identify the reason for an appeal. Alternatively looking for patterns in appeals by type of offence, prosecution/defence counsel members and even location would be interesting. On a wider note, I think this kind of exploration has the potential to surface some interesting things about the way the system works, or differs from the popular imagination of how it works. For instance, the point you make that a judge could rule based on claims about the law made by interested parties which he/she doesn't have the opportunity to research further. I think that's something that should be better known. Nick On 3 January 2011 23:17, Francis Davey <[email protected]> wrote: > On 3 January 2011 22:36, Nick Bull <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I've spent the day scraping information from Appeal Court judgements, in > an > > attempt to find a metric for judges' performance. > > > > For your interest and amusement[*], here's a snapshot of how far I've got > > with it: > > > > http://www.duffdevices.org/ratemyjudge/ > > > > Has anyone else looked at this area? The most painful part is extracting > > the data from paragraphs of English text; are there any tips/techniques > for > > approaching this, other than "don't" of course? > > > > Its the kind of analysis that is quite common (I believe) in the > United States, but less common here. That is partly because many > judges are political (or democratic) appointments, whereas most of > ours could not even loosely be described as such. Thus in the US there > is much interest in the political "leaning" of a judge and that is why > the school of judicial realism is particularly strong over there. > > I don't know of anyone who does it here. That must partly be because > tools to do so are only now easily available, but also because it may > be of limited use. > > That is why I'm a little unhappy about: > > "This site is about judges' job performance" > > A decision overturned on appeal is not necessarily a criticism of the > judge's performance. > > Ignoring cases where additional evidence is admitted on appeal (where > the court could not possibly have considered it), an appeal may > succeed because the court of appeal takes a different view from the > judge as to the way the law should be applied. That doesn't mean the > first instance judge was wrong. The Court of Appeal (Criminal > Division) controls which appeals are then allowed to the Supreme > Court, so it is much harder to check whether the second line are > really right. There are well known cases where a lower level judge has > had to persist in deciding in a particular way in order to persuade > the courts above to see sense. > > Its hard to criticise a judge who (for example) makes a decision in > the light of authority, but that authority is changed by a superior > court (cf the House of Lords complete and speedy volte-face in R v > Shivpuri against their own decision in Anderton v Ryan). See (for one > of your examples): > http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2010/130.html. > > I think the basic problem is that it is *not* a judge's job to be > right. Even in criminal cases. We simply don't have the time and money > to deliver correct judgments 100%. Sorry, but that's reality. One > aspect of this is that judges are not required or supposed to carry > out extensive legal research of their own. The way our courts work is > that a judge has to take guidance from the parties or their > representatives. It may be that the state of the law is wholly > misrepresented to the judge by (incompetent, conniving or just badly > advised) parties, who then makes an incorrect decision. The judge was > doing their job, but they may be speedily overturned on appeal. > > Reading an appeal decision its clear when judges are really being > criticised (and to what degree). For example the now retired HHJ > Cotran was very trenchantly criticised in: > > http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2006/281.html > > who alluded to earlier criticism of the same judge in: > > http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2004/434.html > > It would be great to pick up that sort of case and find ways to remove > judges who behave in such an awful fashion. I'm just not happy about > finding judges who do their jobs properly but (for whatever reason) > have decisions overturned on appeal. > > I appreciate you are focussing on the criminal division which will > mostly be appeals against directions, which may be closer to the mark. > > -- > Francis Davey > > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list [email protected] > Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public >
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