Justice Served
The Value of Information in the Court. Get it Right, Keep it Tight.
Matias Iaryczower & Matthew Shum
American Economic Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
We estimate an equilibrium model of decision-making in the US Supreme Court which takes into account both private information and ideological differences between justices. We present a measure of the value of information in the court: the probability that a justice votes differently than what she would have voted for in the absence of case-specific information. Our results suggest a sizable value of information: in roughly 44% of cases, justices' initial leanings are changed by their personal assessments of the case. Our results also confirm the increased politicization of the Supreme Court in the last quarter century. We perform counterfactual simulations to draw implications for institutional design.
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Female and Minority Judicial Nominees: President's Delight and Senators' Dismay?
Nicole Asmussen
Legislative Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Female and minority judicial nominations take longer and are less likely to be confirmed, yet presidents eagerly seek such nominations. I account for this puzzle by building a model in which senators face costs for opposing female and minority nominees. I predict that such nominations are more likely when the gridlock interval is large. Using appellate nominations from 1977-2004, I find that Republican presidents are more likely to pursue these nominations during periods of high gridlock. Furthermore, accounting for the gridlock interval erases the differences in confirmation duration and success between female/minority nominees and white male nominees.
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What Do Federal District Judges Want? An Analysis of Publications, Citations, and Reversals
Stephen Choi, Mitu Gulati & Eric Posner
Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
Evidence from a data set of federal district judges from 2001 and 2002 suggests that district judges adjust their opinion-writing practices to minimize their workload while maximizing their reputation and chance for elevation to a higher court. District judges in circuits with politically uniform circuit judges are better able to predict what opinions will get affirmed by the circuit court, leading to higher publication rates and a higher affirmance rate. In contrast, district judges in circuits with politically diverse circuit judges are less able to predict the preferences of the reviewing circuit court panel, leading district judges to publish fewer but higher-quality opinions in an effort to maximize their affirmance rate.
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Greg Goelzhauser
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Why does the Supreme Court avoid deciding cases it accepts for review? In this article, I contend that the Court uses procedural access doctrines such as standing, ripeness, and mootness to sidestep constitutional cases when confronted with certain internal and external pressures. Using data from 1946 to 2001, the results suggest that the Court utilizes procedural tools to dismiss constitutional cases when preference heterogeneity on the Court increases and when the justices are confronted with issues about which groups feel strongly and are deeply divided. Although the Court does not appear to be influenced by the threat of political opposition, it is more reluctant to resolve disputes when members of Congress file an amicus brief. The results offer a first glimpse into how often the Court invokes the "passive virtues." They also have implications for our understanding of agenda setting, decision-making in access cases, and normative constitutional theory.
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Ryan Owens & Ryan Black
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Given scarce resources, Supreme Court justices hear cases that maximize their auditing capacities. The authors argue that justices rely on the identity of lower court judges and the ideological disposition of lower court decisions to decide which cases to review. The authors find justices are most likely to audit disagreeable lower court decisions rendered by ideologically disagreeable panel judges and are least likely to review agreeable lower court decisions rendered by ideologically agreeable panel judges. Furthermore, when faced with the same ideologically disagreeable lower court decision, justices are less likely to review decisions made by ideological allies than those by ideological foes.
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Lower Court Influence on U.S. Supreme Court Opinion Content
Pamela Corley, Paul Collins & Bryan Calvin
Journal of Politics, January 2011, Pages 31-44
Abstract:
Despite the importance of Supreme Court opinions for the American polity, scholars have dedicated little systematic research to investigating the factors that contribute to the content of the justices' opinions. In this article, we examine the ability of lower federal courts to shape the content of Supreme Court opinions. We argue that lower court opinions will influence the content of the Court's opinions to the extent that the justices perceive that integrating language from lower court opinions will aid them in making efficacious law and policy. Utilizing plagiarism detection software to compare lower federal court opinions with the majority opinions of the Supreme Court during the 2002-2004 terms, we uncover evidence that the Court systematically incorporates language from the lower federal courts into its majority opinions.
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Testing the Effects of Independent Judiciaries on the Likelihood of Democratic Backsliding
Douglas Gibler & Kirk Randazzo
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We test the efficacy of judicial independence in preventing regime reversals toward authoritarianism. Using a dataset of judicial constraints across 163 different countries from 1960 to 2000, we find that established independent judiciaries prevent regime changes toward authoritarianism across all types of states. Established courts are also capable of thwarting regime collapses in nondemocracies. These results provide some of the first large-n evidence confirming the ability of the judiciary to maintain regime stability. Unfortunately, however, the beneficial effects of court systems seem to take time to develop. The evidence indicates that newly formed courts are positively associated with regime collapses in both democracies and nondemocracies.
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The Small Group Context: Designated District Court Judges in the U.S. Courts of Appeals
Paul Collins & Wendy Martinek
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, March 2011, Pages 177-205
Abstract:
Decision making in the U.S. courts of appeals occurs primarily in three-judge panels. A substantial number of cases are decided by panels that include a judge who is a district court judge serving temporarily on the appeals bench. This means that court of appeals decision making is often a function of small groups with temporary members. Here, we examine whether designated district court judges behave differently than their court of appeals colleagues when they cast their votes in cases they are deciding as members of three-judge appellate panels. In doing so, we suggest a profitable direction for theory building vis-à-vis judicial decision making. Our analysis of the ideological direction of the votes judges cast, as well as the variance in those votes, indicates that judges on three-judge panels are influenced by the preferences of their fellow panelists, and that designated district court judges, while no more variable than their court of appeals colleagues, are more susceptible to the influence of their peers than are regular members of the courts of appeals in a nontrivial number of cases.
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What Judges Think of the Quality of Legal Representation
Richard Posner & Albert Yoon
Stanford Law Review, January 2011, Pages 317-350
Abstract:
Studying the legal profession poses several challenges. The evolution of law has moved lawyers away from a generalist practice towards increased specialization. This makes it difficult to compare lawyers across different practice areas meaningfully and to provide a comprehensive assessment of the legal profession. Judges are well situated to provide such an evaluation, given their experience and scope of cases. This Article reports the responses of federal and state judges to a survey we conducted in 2008. The questions relate to their perceptions of the quality of legal representation, generally and in criminal and civil cases; how the quality of legal representation influences how they and juries decide cases; and their recommendations for change in the profession. We find that judges perceive significant disparities in the quality of legal representation, both within and across areas of the law. In many instances, the underlying causes of these disparities can be traced to the resources of the litigants. The judges' responses also suggest that they respond differently than juries to these disparities, and that the effect of these disparities on juries may be more pronounced in civil than in criminal cases.
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The Dynamics of Interest Representation at the U.S. Supreme Court
Thomas Hansford
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
How do organized interests respond to their opponents' advocacy activities in a policy venue? Utilizing data on amicus curiae filings at the U.S. Supreme Court, the author estimates vector error correction and vector autoregression models that allow him test whether interests respond, in a dynamic sense, to the efforts of the "other side." The author capitalizes on the temporal sequencing of variation in advocacy activity to gain leverage on the causal connection between the behaviors of opposing sets of interests and provides a richer portrait of the dynamics of interest representation in a policy venue. The results reveal that organized interests respond positively to the advocacy activities of their opponents by exhibiting both short-term counteraction and long-term countermobilization, implying that over the long run, interest representation at the Court is responsive and perhaps balanced.