The Process is the Punishment: Handling Cases in a Lower Criminal Court

Acknowledgments

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I began this study during my stay as a Russell Sage Foundation Fellow in the Law and Behavioral Science Program at the Yale Law School and completed it while I was Research Fellow in the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation Program in Criminal Justice there. I am deeply appreciative to these two foundations and to the Yale Law School for their generous support during this period. My greatest personal debt is to Stan Wheeler, director of the Russell Sage Program at Yale, and Dan Freed, director of the Law School's Guggenheim Program, who offered advice, criticism, and unflagging encouragement for my venture, and they must certainly take a large measure of the credit for whatever merits this book possesses. Abe Goldstein and Harry Wellington, deans of the Law School during my stay there, presided over an environment that was hospitable to sociolegal research. During the last phase of my work, Ed Lindblom, director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, and his then assistant director, Douglas Yates, secured for me a quiet and comfortable setting in which to write and a group of colleagues and students on whom to test my ideas. No scholar could ask for more. A host of other people aided my work in various ways. Jack Katz will never quite know how influential he was in the development of my thinking at a crucial stage of my research. Bob Kagan, Austin Sarat, Wallace Loh, Joanne Epps, Andrew Rutherford, Dennis Curtis, Michael Kelly, Stuart Scheingold, and Paul Nejelski all either read and commented on portions of my manuscript or provided especially useful advice. xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I was fortunate to have a number of outstanding students and research assistants whose work was invaluable. They are Kurt Hallock, Dean Goodman, Diane Pike, John McNaughton, Rich Edwards, and Setsuo Miyazawa. It goes without saying that this book could not have been written without the cooperation and counsel of those whose behavior I was scrutinizing, the participants in the criminal justice system. There are far too many people for me to single out, and I must be content to mention just a few who were especially helpful. Foremost is my now close friend, Jon Silbert, who first as a colleague and then in private practice took considerable time and trouble to show me around the courthouse, introduce me to people, and remain to answer a constant stream of questions about criminal procedure and courthouse customs. Paul Foti and Morton Lewis, chief prosecutor and public defender, respectively, at the time of my study, were always accessible. Both they and their staffs were generous with their time and candid in their comments. Numerous judges gave of their time as well, and if I single out Barry Schaler, I do not mean to slight the many others. Tommy Corodinno of New Haven's Legal Assistance Association and Joseph Shortall, then assistant executive secretary of the State Judicial Department, supplied me with much useful information. I must also thank the entire staff of the court and the numerous defendants, victims , and witnesses whom I watched and to whom I talked in corridors. Several people read what I thought was to be a final draft of the manuscript and in doing so made numerous and detailed comments, which led to significant revisions and improvements. They are Dan Freed, Stan Wheeler, Abe Goldstein, Herb Jacob, and Margaret Feeley, and I am deeply grateful for their thoughtful and detailed comments. Edna Scott and Diane Slider transcribed page after page of interview and observation notes and later typed major portions of successive drafts of the manuscript, all with characteristic good cheer and efficiency. I xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS owe a note of appreciation to David Fellman for finding me a nest egg to cover the cost of typing the final draft of the manuscript . I must also acknowledge my indebtedness to Marlene ElIin at the Russell Sage Foundation, for her skillful editing. Finally, I must express my deep appreciation to the two who matter most, my wife Margaret and my son Jacob. Margaret has remained a steady source of support and encouragement during this long project, and Jacob came along at just the right time to relieve the tedium and offer a friendly diversion. xiii ...