Letter from the Editor

It is with a heavy heart that I introduce this final issue (Volume 43, Issue 4) of Justice System Journal. JSJ has published cutting-edge, timely research about law and courts since 1974. For the last 48 years, JSJ has epitomized the best of the law and courts community: a commitment to high quality research reflecting the breadth and depth of our wide-reaching scholarly community. JSJ has proudly published articles that represent the many disciplines that make up the law and courts community, including, but not limited to, Political Science, Sociology, Criminal Justice, Law, and Public Policy. JSJ has published articles about all levels of courts, both in the US and abroad, as well as pieces examining other actors in the judicial system, from judges to lawyers to litigants to jurors to interest groups to the broader public. And, the articles in JSJ have reflected the range and wealth of theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and data sources that make our community so vibrant.

Unfortunately, the decision has been made by the sponsoring organization, the National Center for State Courts, to cease publication of Justice System Journal. Thus, this issue is the very last, bringing to a close a Journal with a long and storied history. The loss of JSJ leaves a tremendous hole in our academic community. I am deeply thankful to our publisher, Taylor & Francis, who agreed to go well past the budgeted page allotments to ensure that no authors would be harmed by the decision to cease publication of JSJ. And, I am thankful to be able to help these articles come to fruition in the pages that follow, and that you, the reader, will have the opportunity to learn from them as I did.

In this final Letter from the Editor, I want to thank all of those who ensured that Justice System Journal flourished throughout the years. I want to begin by thanking the members of JSJ’s Editorial Board. Each of the esteemed scholars who currently serve on the Editorial Board, and those who served in years past, have been the backbone of this journal. Board members have answered frantic calls for last minute reviews, helped brainstorm new journal initiatives, and been a consistent reminder of the importance of JSJ to the broader community. I particularly want to thank Pamela Corley and Rebecca Reid for their additional efforts as the most recent Legal Notes Editors.

I want to express my deep thanks to Mark Hurwitz and Robert Howard, the immediate past editors, for their continued support and guidance during my editorial tenure and through the difficult months of JSJ’s cessation. They, along with Tom Clarke and Richard Schauffler, played an essential role in making Justice System Journal the highly-ranked journal it is today.

I want to thank our invaluable reviewers. Reviewing manuscripts for journals can be an incredibly thankless task, but it is also one of the most important things we all do to give back to the scholarly community. Without reviewers, the peer review process would not exist. Thus, thank you to the literally thousands of you who have reviewed manuscripts for JSJ, many of you doing so multiple times a year, and always with the goal of aiding your anonymous colleagues in producing the best scholarship possible. A special and enormous thank you goes to the following individuals, each of whom reviewed over 10 manuscripts just since 2014: Todd Curry (19!), Paul Collins, Christina Boyd, Pamela Corley, Melinda Gann Hall, Meghan Leonard, Eileen Braman, Robert Hume, Michael Nelson, Laura Moyer, Brett Curry, and Lydia Tiede. Your efforts are appreciated more than can ever be expressed, and I thank all of you who have answered my requests so graciously and conscientiously during my tenure as editor.

Finally, I want to sincerely and deeply thank all of you who are reading this final missive for supporting Justice System Journal over the past 48 years, whether by reading and citing work published in JSJ, submitting and publishing in JSJ, or encouraging others to submit to and read JSJ. I am incredibly proud of the place JSJ holds in the academic community, and I am honored to have been allowed to play even a small role in ensuring JSJ reflected the best of law and courts scholarship.

Amy Steigerwalt
Georgia State University