Showing papers on "Majority opinion published in 1976"

The Supreme Court and National Policy Making

Abstract: The role of the Supreme Court of the United States in national policy making has long been a subject of debate among students of the American legal system and of democratic theory. Both the relative influence of the Court vis-a-vis other political institutions and the implications of judicial review for principles of majority rule and democracy have been central to this discussion. Perhaps the most influential account of the role of the Court offered in recent years is Robert A. Dahl's 1957 article, “Decision-Making in a Democracy: The Role of the Supreme Court in National Policy-Making.” Dahl argues that the Court, like other political institutions, is a member of the stable ruling coalitions that dominate American politics, and that its decisions are generally supportive of the policies emerging from other political institutions. Consideration of the way Dahl interprets his own evidence, of Court decisions since 1957, and of other relevant evidence that is excluded from his analysis (particularly the activities of the Court in statutory construction and in cases arising out of states and localities) suggests that the Court participates more significantly in national policy making than Dahl's argument admits.

Popular Perceptions of Supreme Court Rulings

Abstract: out the basic points therein. The public itself is stratified by the degree ~ its knowledge. Some 25-30% know virtually nothing about judicial rulings. The remaining 70-75% constitute the Court’s mass public: these people heed its most controversial decisionssegregation, school prayers. Nestled within the mass audience is a more attentive elite public, amounting to 30-35% of the total potential audience. These individuals take note of even the less notable decisions, such as defendants’ rights. Knowledge of judicial rulings is monotonic; most respondents knowledgeable on the defendants’ rights decisions (the attentive elite) also knew about prayer, while many who knew about prayer had no familiarity with defendants’ rights (the mass public). Obversely, very few respondents were knowledgeable on defendants’ rights while ignorant on prayer. By the same token, the public is also stratified by the richness of information in its perceptions of rulings. Most of the mass public is not sufficiently sophisticated to articulate details of the prayer decisions, let alone to bring out the constitutional reasoning underpinning the Court’s decision. In contrast, the attentive public, the people able to reflect on the criminal procedure cases, could focus somewhat better on the details of that ruling. III. DIFFERENTIATION AND APPROVAL Differentiated perceptions of court rulings have been viewed as a possible outlet for cognitive dissonance.9 People in a quandary between their esteem for the Supreme Court and their disapproval of its acts might develop differentiated perceptions

roe v. Wade: the rhetoric of fetal life.

Abstract: Court decisions themselves, and not just arguments before courts, are rhetorical works The Supreme Court majority opinion in the publicized 1973 abortion case Roe v Wade demonstrated this rhetorical nature of decisions both in its choice of arguments and evidence and in its effort to organize symbolically the world of the medical and legal considerations surrounding abortion

Public opinion and presidential ethos

Abstract: (1976). Public opinion and presidential ethos. Western Speech Communication: Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 196-206.

The Supreme Court Looks at Testing for Employment

Abstract: T Supreme Court of the United States is in the process of reviewing a lower court decision in a class action suit (Washington vs Davis) involving employment testing and alleged racial discrimination that could have wide-spread ramifications for the entire testing field. Because of the importance of the case, the Educational Testing Service has filed a brief as amicus curiae (friend of the court) in effort to persuade the court to avoid a ruling which would unnecessarily hamper professionally accepted validation of employment testing in the future. The case revolves around an employment test (Test 21) which was developed by the U.S. Civil Service Commission and is used by the District of Columbia's Metropolitan Police Department as an aid in selecting among new applicants for the force. In 1970, a class action suit on behalf of all blacks who had failed the test since 1968 was filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia charging that Test 21 had a disproportionate racial impact and was not shown to be job related. On the surface Test 21 appears to be innocuous enough. It is a test for verbal ability consisting of vocabulary, reading comprehension, interpretation of reading passages, and general information items. It was used to predict the success of applicants in the Training Academy of the Police Department. To pass, an applicant must achieve a minimum score of 40 out of a possible score of 80. The problem was that blacks taking the test failed at a considerably higher rate than did white applicants. Among applicants tested in 1970 and 1971 (the most recent statistics available) 56 percent of the blacks failed the test while only 15 percent of the whites failed. In a city that has a black majority (71 percent of the District of Columbia is black) and is under increasing pressure to integrate its services, that meant trouble. In filing its brief the ETS indicated that it had no interest in the outcome of the case other than to insure that the test validation issue presented by the case be carefully considered by the court. At issue was a criterion-related study conducted in 1967 on Test 21 by David L. Futransky, a Civil Service Commission employee. Futransky, in cooperation with the Commission, looked into the relationship between applicant scores on Test 21 and various aspects of subsequent performance. The outcome of the \"Futransky Study\" was never conclusive (testing professionals testified on both sides of the case) but it provided a basis for the ETS brief because the lower court rulings used the information in reaching its decisions. A source familiar with the ETS brief, who asked that he not be identified, explained that the broad objective of the brief was to sensitize the court to the fact that the case before it was \"a single case, presenting a single validation issue\" and to urge that they be sensitive to the broad range of testing issues in reaching their decision. In the Summary of Argument in their brief, ETS protests \"the tendency to utilize technical evidence of test validation alone (emphasis added] to measure compliance with basic legal requirements of fairness and rationality in classifications made for employ ment selection purposes.\" \"Courts should consider fin the issue of whether the knowledge