POLS 245 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Jury Trial
20 Oct 2016
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Document Summary
What is an adversarial process: opponents- the fundament of the system, fundamental feature of legal system. When we have a legal dispute, we lawyer up, sue someone- and they. What is it? become our adversary: policy making, policy implementation, and dispute resolution. Occurs largely through a lawyer dominated adversarial process in which the parties are presented as fundamentally opposed to one another. In which we need an expert (lawyer) to solve our issues: positives: Can lead to progress or justice even in a fragmented governmental system. Relatively open access and influence by otherwise excluded groups. Anyone with a legitimate case, can sue someone else, with the hope to make a change. Ordinary citizens can sue to change policy. Suing someone can get more of a response than lobbying. Judication is more insulated from politics and money. Not always true- state judges can be elected. The threat of lawsuits modifies behavior of organizations.
