Judicial decisions established legal standards for prison conditions and the treatment of prisoners. Prisoners used the litigation process to seek judicial enforcement of these rights-based standards that restricted the autonomy previously enjoyed by correctional officials. Judicial intervention into corrections transformed corrections by pushing all correctional institutions to become professi...

Judges face retention elections in over a third of U.S. state courts of last resort and numerous lower courts. According to conventional wisdom, these elections engender judicial independence and decrease democratic accountability. We argue that in the context of modern judicial campaigns, retention elections create pressure for judges to cater to public opinion on “hot-button” issues that are ...

in modern legal systems there are a variety of sources of law. judicial precedent is one of the legal sources; thus, precedents of supreme court, like enactments of parliament, are enforceable in courts. this similarity between precedents and acts impose many problems as role of supreme court in interpretation of   laws. but the most important problem is the possibility of changing previous pre...