BEYOND THE BLACK LETTER OF THE LAW - AN EMPIRICAL-STUDY OF AN INDIVIDUAL JUDGES DECISION-PROCESS FOR CIVIL COMMITMENT HEARINGS

To study the role of parens patriae and ''police powers'' consideratio ns in an individual judge's civil commitment decisions, the judge's re ports of the impact of various characteristics of the patient were ana lyzed. The validity of this methodology was tested by comparing it to an alternative technique based on objective, statistical analysis of t he dependence of the judge's decisions upon patient characteristics. A probate court judge filled out a questionnaire after each civil commi tment hearing over which he presided during a seven-month study. For e ach of 26 decisions, the judge rated the patient on 26 features and in dicated the impact of each feature on the decision. The judge's respon ses were analyzed to measure the role of various statutory and nonstat utory considerations (expressed as patient characteristics) in the jud ge's decisions. Results using self-reported impacts are compared with an objective, statistical characterization of the judge's decision-mak ing policy. As in previous studies, the parens patriae model more clos ely described the individual judge's decision process than the ''polic e powers'' model. Contextual variables (e.g., the patient's family fav oring commitment) also were influential. Results with the two methods were similar. The methodology developed here can be used not only in f urther research on judicial commitment decisions but also to educate j udges and other decision-makers individually faced with potentially tr agic choices as to their personal implicit decision-making strategies.