Running Head: PRECEDENTS 1
PRECEDENTS
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PRECEDENTS 2
PRECEDENTS
Reply to Tijuana Brasher
Hi Tijuana, great insights from your post, I concur that precedents represent the
principles or rules that are established in previous legal cases that are binding in courts or any
other tribunals in making rulings and decisions on subsequent cases that have similar issues with
the current situation (Leszczynski,2020). In correlation with your point on how judges decide
cases through the application of text laws and precedents laid down from previous such cases,
these principles provide such great acumens on court proceedings and make rulings easier. There
are indeed possibilities of cases whereby precedents have never been enacted, such as gay
marriages and the issues surrounding child custody in these unions. Judges face a difficult time
deciding on the issues that arise from gay marriages due to a lack of precedents. The written
and practiced laws are usually unfair to same-sex parents as judges end up urging the parents to
try and reach a compromise due to the already existing pressures and uncertainties in solving
same-sex marriages in a justice way(Allen &Price,2020). In incidents whereby either the
mothers or the child's fathers have equal rights to the custody of the child, judges tend to use
precedents assets in the straight marriage divorces (Boucai, 2015). However, terms of court
ruling differ when one partner is the legal parent of the child. In this case, the child's rights are
given to this parent as the second parent has no legal authority to obtain the child's legal custody.
Similarly, there are no precedents provided for postoperative gender reassigned as either
male or female (Ben-Asher, 2017). Such cases tend to fall outside the national jurisdictions of
countries, thus proves to be very problematic in finding solutions. Indeed policymakers should
be called upon to enact laws that address the current legal issues that do not have precedents.
PRECEDENTS 3
Reference
Allen, D., & Price, J. (2020). Stability rates of same-sex couples: With and without
children.9Marriage & Family Review, 56(1), 51-71.
Ben-Asher, N. (2017).9 In the shadow of a myth: Bargaining for same-sex divorce. Ohio:
Pace University.
Boucai, M. (2015). Glorious precedents: When gay marriage was radical.9Yale Journal
of Law and the Humanities, 27(1), 1-82.
Leszczynski, L. (2020). Implementing prior judicial decisions as precedents: The context
of application and justification.9International Journal for the Semiotics of Law,
33(1), 231-244.
PRECEDENTS 4
Reply to Jordyn Greene
Hi Jordyn, Fantastic post you have here, I agree that there are quite a several differences
in cultures of psychology and the legal system. The legal system indeed relies on the application
of rulings, whereas psychology relies on data (Costanzo & Krauss, 2018). While precedents are
an excellent example of legal systems used in making decisions in a court of law, psychology, on
the other hand, needs to be researched expertly. Since the judicial system is always on transition,
there have been constant debates on whether the use of precedents is reliable (Robinson, 2018).
However, psychological scientists are on the upper hand, researching and obtaining new data,
which they believe will help judges make a better ruling.
In comparison, social sciences can be used to determine a court ruling in cases such as
child custody in same-sex marriages whereby precedents do not exist. Even though social
science has been proven to be helpful in search of justice, it is still challenging to incorporate this
form of ruling due to the court system's unwillingness to alter the way they pass judgments. In a
similar opinion, the judge should be well educated in data research to introduce empirical
research and social sciences into the court systems (Stevens, 2018). The judiciary is the
courtroom leader and thus can either accept or deny an expert testimony and research that is
requested to be used in the court system. It is right to conclude that, when it comes to cases with
no precedents, research data should be utilized as a better means of determining court rulings.
PRECEDENTS 5
Reference
Costanzo, M., & Krauss, D. (2018). 9Forensic And Legal Psychology: Psychological Science
Applied to Law9(3rdEd.).9NY, New York: Worth Publishers.
Robinson, R. K., & Frost, D. M. (2018). “Playing it Safe” With Empirical Evidence:
Selective Use of Social Science in Supreme Court Cases About Racial Justice And
Marriage Equality.9Northwestern University Law Review,.112(6), 1565- 1603
Stevens, K. (2018). reasoning by precedent—between rules and analogies..Legal
Theory, 24(3), 216-254. doi:10.1017/S1352325218000113
