The final volume of a trilogy (begun with The Contours of Justice and The Tenor of Justice) based on a large-scale, complex study of nine criminal courts. Explains how criminal court policies reflect tensions or harmony among judges on the bench, and identifies and illustrates patterns of dominance and conflict within courthouse communities.

Tournament of Appeals investigates the leave to appeal process in Canada and explores how and why certain cases "win" a place on the Court's agenda and others do not. Drawing from systematically collected information on the process, applications, and lawyers that has never before been used in studies of Canada's Supreme Court, Flemming offers both a qualitatively and quantitatively-based explanation of how Canada's justices grant judicial review.

Canada's Supreme Court decides cases with far-reaching effects on Canadian politics and public policies. When the Supreme Court sets cases on its agenda, it exercises nearly unrestrained discretion and considerable public authority. But how does the Court choose these cases in the first place? From the several hundred requests for judicial review filed every year, how and why do the justices pick some cases but not others for review? Tournament of Appeals investigates the leave to appeal process in Canada and explores how and why certain cases win a place on the Court's agenda and others do not. Taking the approach that the process mimics a sports tournament, this study raises several vital questions. For example, is there an elite Supreme Court bar that routinely wins the tournament? Do the Court's rules affect the tournament's outcomes? in this tournament, how do the judges play the game and how does it affect their votes to grant or deny judicial review? Drawing from systematically collected information on the process, applications, and lawyers that has never before been used in studies of Canada's Supreme Court, Flemming offers both a qualitatively and quantitatively-based explanation of how Canada's justices grant judicial review. The first of its kind, this innovative study will draw the attention of lawyers, academics, and students in Canada as well as in the Commonwealth, and European countries whose high courts share many features of the appeals process in Canada.

The Contours of Justice provides a framework for describing and understanding criminal courts throughout the United States by depicting the functions of criminal courts in nine middle-sized counties in three states. It integrates concepts from each of the three traditional theoretical approaches to court analysis: the individual, organizational, and environmental approaches. The authors approach the courts as communities composed of judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys rather than as "legal institutions" applying formal law. They analyze the differences in culture, technology, physical setting, the customary ways of arriving at guilty pleas, as well as other aspects of the courts. The authors also incorporate information about the political and economic characteristics of the communities that the courts serve, along with the basic functions of scheduling cases and assigning personnel to cases. The portraits of the nine courts present the day-to-day activities of judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys that lead to the decisions about the fates of the defendants brought to the courts. This comparison not only provides a vivid picture of actual court function, but allows an assessment of the process that leads to ideas for reform.