The US Caselaw as a living system.
This study presents an innovative exploration of the American Caselaw database, encompassing more than five million legal cases spanning three centuries of American history. Using complex network analysis, we reveal the organic nature of the US Caselaw, fundamentally anchored in common law. Through...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2025-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0324386 |
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| author | Carlos G O Fernandes Erneson A Oliveira Rilder S Pires João A Monteiro Neto J Ernesto Pimentel Fh José S Andrade Vasco Furtado |
| author_facet | Carlos G O Fernandes Erneson A Oliveira Rilder S Pires João A Monteiro Neto J Ernesto Pimentel Fh José S Andrade Vasco Furtado |
| author_sort | Carlos G O Fernandes |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This study presents an innovative exploration of the American Caselaw database, encompassing more than five million legal cases spanning three centuries of American history. Using complex network analysis, we reveal the organic nature of the US Caselaw, fundamentally anchored in common law. Through analysis of citation and bibliographic coupling networks, we shed light on the system's internal structure, unveiling communities delineated by regional, federal jurisdiction, and clustering based on similar legal citations. Our research uncovers a remarkable allometric relationship between the activity of judges and the legal case citations, reflecting the analogy between metabolic rate and body mass correlation observed in biological organisms. Furthermore, our results show a consistent self-similar characteristics of the communities and their maximum spanning trees, which also provides relevant insight into the origin of the allometric behavior. This analysis not only reveals the US Caselaw as a "living" entity but also sets a precedent in Caselaw-based judicial system studies, reinforcing the notion of its dynamic, organic functionality in the realm of analyzing complex legal systems. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-991f5a58f8da48e2b0e43610b0461be7 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj-art-991f5a58f8da48e2b0e43610b0461be72025-08-20T03:25:34ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032025-01-01205e032438610.1371/journal.pone.0324386The US Caselaw as a living system.Carlos G O FernandesErneson A OliveiraRilder S PiresJoão A Monteiro NetoJ Ernesto Pimentel FhJosé S AndradeVasco FurtadoThis study presents an innovative exploration of the American Caselaw database, encompassing more than five million legal cases spanning three centuries of American history. Using complex network analysis, we reveal the organic nature of the US Caselaw, fundamentally anchored in common law. Through analysis of citation and bibliographic coupling networks, we shed light on the system's internal structure, unveiling communities delineated by regional, federal jurisdiction, and clustering based on similar legal citations. Our research uncovers a remarkable allometric relationship between the activity of judges and the legal case citations, reflecting the analogy between metabolic rate and body mass correlation observed in biological organisms. Furthermore, our results show a consistent self-similar characteristics of the communities and their maximum spanning trees, which also provides relevant insight into the origin of the allometric behavior. This analysis not only reveals the US Caselaw as a "living" entity but also sets a precedent in Caselaw-based judicial system studies, reinforcing the notion of its dynamic, organic functionality in the realm of analyzing complex legal systems.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0324386 |
| spellingShingle | Carlos G O Fernandes Erneson A Oliveira Rilder S Pires João A Monteiro Neto J Ernesto Pimentel Fh José S Andrade Vasco Furtado The US Caselaw as a living system. PLoS ONE |
| title | The US Caselaw as a living system. |
| title_full | The US Caselaw as a living system. |
| title_fullStr | The US Caselaw as a living system. |
| title_full_unstemmed | The US Caselaw as a living system. |
| title_short | The US Caselaw as a living system. |
| title_sort | us caselaw as a living system |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0324386 |
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