IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/rlecon/v14y2018i2p18n1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does the Appeals Process Reduce the Occurrence of Legal Errors?

Author

Listed:
  • Chopard Bertrand

    (LIRAES, University Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France)

  • Fain Edwige

    (Paris Center for Law and Economics, University Paris II Panthéon-Assas, Paris, France)

  • Roussey Ludivine

    (LIRAES, University Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France)

Abstract

This paper challenges the commonly held belief that the appeals process reduces the occurrence of legal errors. We show that, although the right to file an appeal or request adjudication offers an opportunity to correct mistakes made at trial, the final impact of the appeals process on the accuracy of judicial decisions is not always desirable because of its effects on the trial court decision-maker’s effort and on deterrence. In particular, we find that if (i) the trial court decision-maker is more concerned with legal errors than with her reputation, (ii) few potential offenders attribute high benefits to committing harmful acts and (iii) the additional effort exerted by the decision-maker has a stronger impact on wrongful acquittals than on wrongful convictions, then the implementation of an appeals process may spur a decision-maker to reduce her effort and may thus be detrimental to the quality of judicial output.

Suggested Citation

  • Chopard Bertrand & Fain Edwige & Roussey Ludivine, 2018. "Does the Appeals Process Reduce the Occurrence of Legal Errors?," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(2), pages 1-18, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:rlecon:v:14:y:2018:i:2:p:18:n:1
    DOI: 10.1515/rle-2014-0038
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/rle-2014-0038
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/rle-2014-0038?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), 2007. "Handbook of Law and Economics," Handbook of Law and Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    2. Yves Oytana, 2014. "The Judicial Expert in a Two-Tier Hierarchy," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 170(3), pages 537-570, September.
    3. Shavell, Steven, 1995. "The Appeals Process as a Means of Error Correction," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(2), pages 379-426, June.
    4. Nuno Garoupa & Matteo Rizzolli, 2012. "Wrongful Convictions Do Lower Deterrence," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 168(2), pages 224-231, June.
    5. Matteo Rizzolli & Margherita Saraceno, 2013. "Better that ten guilty persons escape: punishment costs explain the standard of evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 395-411, June.
    6. Elisabetta Iossa & Giuliana Palumbo, 2007. "Information Provision and Monitoring of the Decision-Maker in the Presence of an Appeal Process," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 163(4), pages 657-682, December.
    7. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), 2007. "Handbook of Law and Economics," Handbook of Law and Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Roussey, Ludivine & Soubeyran, Raphael, 2018. "Overburdened judges," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 21-32.
    2. Sidorova, Elena & Golovanova, Svetlana & Avdasheva, Svetlana, 2019. "How to measure the quality of court decisions? A case of commercial courts," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 54, pages 126-143.
    3. Lundberg, Alexander & Mungan, Murat, 2022. "The effect of evidentiary rules on conviction rates," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 563-576.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bertrand Chopard & Edwige Marion & Ludivine Roussey, 2014. "Does the Appeals Process Lower the Occurrence of Legal Errors?," EconomiX Working Papers 2014-43, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    2. Mungan, Murat C., 2014. "A behavioral justification for escalating punishment schemes," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 189-197.
    3. Mungan, Murat C., 2015. "Wrongful convictions and the punishment of attempts," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 79-87.
    4. Matteo Rizzolli & Luca Stanca, 2012. "Judicial Errors and Crime Deterrence: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(2), pages 311-338.
    5. Roee Sarel, 2022. "Crime and punishment in times of pandemics," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 155-186, October.
    6. At Christian & Friehe Tim & Gabuthy Yannick, 2019. "On Lawyer Compensation When Appeals Are Possible," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 1-11, April.
    7. Maria Antonelli & Veronica Grembi, 2013. "A microeconomic model of the demand of civil justice: is one institutional context better than another?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 295-318, October.
    8. Christmann Robin, 2015. "Tipping the Scales – Settlement, Appeal and the Relevance of Judicial Ambition," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(2), pages 171-207, July.
    9. Antonio Nicita & Matteo Rizzolli, 2014. "In Dubio Pro Reo. Behavioral Explanations of Pro-defendant Bias in Procedures," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 60(3), pages 554-580.
    10. Lando, Henrik & Mungan, Murat C., 2018. "The effect of type-1 error on deterrence," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 1-8.
    11. Mungan Murat C., 2013. "Optimal Warning Strategies: Punishment Ought Not to Be Inflicted Where the Penal Provision Is Not Properly Conveyed," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(3), pages 303-339, November.
    12. Šastitko, Andrej E., 2013. "Effects of third party errors," EconStor Preprints 121747, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    13. Thomas J. Miceli & Murat C. Mungan, 2021. "The limit of law: factors influencing the decision to make harmful acts illegal," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 293-307, September.
    14. Ajit Mishra & Andrew Samuel, 2018. "Law Enforcement And Wrongful Arrests With Endogenously (In)Competent Officers," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 1417-1436, April.
    15. Moritz Birgit & Becker Martin & Schmidtchen Dieter, 2018. "Measuring the Deterrent Effect of European Cartel Law Enforcement," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 18(3), pages 1-27, July.
    16. Mungan Murat C., 2020. "The Optimal Standard of Proof with Adjudication Avoidance," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 1-7, March.
    17. Menusch Khadjavi, 2018. "Deterrence works for criminals," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 165-178, August.
    18. Sophie Bienenstock, 2019. "The Deterrent Effect of French Liability Law: the Example of Abusive Contract Terms," Post-Print hal-03222207, HAL.
    19. Fluet, Claude, 2020. "L'économie de la preuve judiciaire," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 96(4), pages 585-620, Décembre.
    20. Goerke, Laszlo & Neugart, Michael, 2015. "Lobbying and dismissal dispute resolution systems," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 50-62.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    appeals; legal errors; crime deterrence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K14 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Criminal Law
    • K4 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:rlecon:v:14:y:2018:i:2:p:18:n:1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.