On Shared Suffering: Judicial Intimacy in the Rural Northland

Abstract

Rural state and tribal court judges in the upper US Midwest offer an embodied alternative to prevailing understandings of "access to justice." Owing to the high density of social acquaintanceship, coupled with the rise in unrepresented litigants and the impossibility of most proposed state access to justice initiatives, what ultimately makes a rural courtroom accessible to parties without counsel is the judge. I draw on over four years of ethnographic fieldwork and an interdisciplinary theoretical framework to illuminate the lived consequences and global implications of judges' responses, which can be read as grassroots-level creativity, as resistance, or simply as "getting by." "Of the people in court today, I know every single one of them… I had two calls at home last night about 'your case tomorrow.'" The judge shook his head and looked around his chambers. "On my very first day on the bench, a guy in the back of the courtroom stood up, shouted my first name, and said, 'How the fuck are ya?'" My jaw dropped. "No." He nodded, laughing. It had been a three-hour drive north, through long stretches of national forest and into the county seat. It was a northern paper-mill town that smelled like it, tiny houses lining the shady streets and the mill spouting steam up ahead. Between 2013 and 2017, the average per capita income here was $23,000, with 25% My heartfelt thanks to the editors, anonymous reviewers, and Larry Nesper for their insightful and enthusiastic feedback on this manuscript. This article also benefitted greatly from collegial and expert engagement at the 2020 Law & Humanities Junior Scholars Workshop and the University of Minnesota Law School's Faculty Works in Progress forum. I am grateful for these stimulating conversations. Special thanks to Riaz Tejani and Robin West for discussing the paper and offering such compelling and even moving critiques. My thanks as well to Jon Bredeson for his indispensable research assistance. And finally, I am humbled by the profound generosity of the judges whose work I detail here. To be so welcomed by very different-and very busy-individuals is something I could never anticipate. I hope this manuscript helps shed light on their important commitments. This research is supported by the National Science Foundation's Law and Sciences Program (award #1729117).

Justice by Geography: The Role of Monetary Sanctions Across Communities

“…Alexes Harris (2016) finds that courts in Washington varied considerably in their use of monetary sanctions in ways that were not explained by the nature of the offense, statute, or defendant characteristics, but rather reflected different localized "punishment cultures." In addition to local norms and cultures, structural variations of communities and court systems result in distinct constraints in fiscal resources, time, and personnel that impact how justice is performed and enacted (Cebulak 2004;Pruitt et al 2018;Statz 2021). For example, relative to court systems in large cities, courts in rural and suburban areas tend to have fewer employees, more limited resources, such as fewer public defenders, probation and supervision services, and less programming such as diversion or specialty courts (Huebner, Kras, and Pleggenkuhle 2019;McDonald, Wood, and Pflüg 1996;Pruitt and Colgan 2010;Weisheit, Falcone, and Wells 1999;Statz 2021).…”

“…In addition to local norms and cultures, structural variations of communities and court systems result in distinct constraints in fiscal resources, time, and personnel that impact how justice is performed and enacted (Cebulak 2004;Pruitt et al 2018;Statz 2021). For example, relative to court systems in large cities, courts in rural and suburban areas tend to have fewer employees, more limited resources, such as fewer public defenders, probation and supervision services, and less programming such as diversion or specialty courts (Huebner, Kras, and Pleggenkuhle 2019;McDonald, Wood, and Pflüg 1996;Pruitt and Colgan 2010;Weisheit, Falcone, and Wells 1999;Statz 2021). We add to this growing scholarship by exploring the influence of these structural and organizational features on monetary sanctions.…”

“…Although courts across the United States share some basic features, it is well recognized that local community contexts shape many of the interpersonal dynamics relevant to case outcomes (Ulmer 2019;Ulmer and Kramer 1998;Statz 2021). Communities vary greatly in ways that are difficult to classify.…”

“…Courtroom workgroups in urban environments are relatively stable, often in response to a shared bureaucratic goal of efficient case processing (Ulmer 1995). In rural communities, court actors are more likely to know personally, not only the other court actors, but also the defendant and the victim (Cebulak 2004;Statz 2021). Thus, although anonymity combined with cohesive work groups leads to efficiency in the urban context, the literature suggests that dense and personal acquaintanceships between the courtroom workgroup and the community, when combined with cohesive court actors, also encourages negotiation and informality to resolve cases (Fahnestock and Geiger 1993;Worden and Clark 2019;Statz 2021).…”

Investigating Access to Justice, the Rural Lawyer Shortage, and Implications for Civil and Criminal Legal Systems

“…Many U.S. stakeholders and scholars study A2J using simple metrics, e.g., number of people eligible for free civil legal assistance, size of public defender caseloads, though there are serious gaps in basic data, e.g., the number of civil cases filed each year (Sandefur, 2016a). Others have developed more sophisticated approaches, deploying mixed methods, qualitative studies, and the occasional ethnography to get at the multifaceted reasons inequities persist (Hubbard et al, 2020; Legal Services Corporation [LSC], 2017b; Statz et al (in press);Statz, 2021;Young, 2020). Randomized control trials are now being used, though not without controversy (Access to Justice Lab, n.d.;Albiston & Sandefur, 2013;Karp, 2021).…”