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Social, Cultural, and Temporal Dynamics of the AIDS Case Congregation: Early Years of the Epidemic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Kriss A. Drass ,
Michael Musheno  and
Peter R. Gregware
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Abstract

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Studies of legal decisionmaking have focused traditionally on how social influences, particularly the relative social standing of competing parties, affect case outcomes. More recently, sociolegal scholars have directed their attention to the significance of cultural categories in shaping case-based decisionmaking. We here examine how both social and cultural factors shape judicial decisions and their meanings for a “congregation” of court cases precipitated by the AIDS epidemic in the United States. Our logistic regression analysis of the opinions of 181 AIDS-related cases decided in the early years of the epidemic (1983-89) finds that two social factors, the relative social standing of parties and the types of claims brought to the court, and two cultural factors, the court's use of negative AIDS metaphors and references to individual rights, are significantly related to case outcome. Finally, in line with Galanter's (1990) notion that case congregations have histories that involve development and change over time, our temporal analysis reveals the emergence of two case congregations and suggests how each serves to bolster the legitimacy of the judiciary amidst social crisis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , 1997 , pp. 267 - 299
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 by The Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Grant, Law and Social Science Program, grant no. SES-8908456. The authors' names appear in alphabetical order to reflect equal contributions.

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