Showing papers on "Supreme Court Decisions published in 1970"

Methodological Concerns in Studying Supreme Court Efficacy

Abstract: Only a few years ago it was customary and appropriate to begin an essay on Supreme Court efficacy by lamenting the paucity of empirical studies dealing with this problem. Such an introduction is no longer in order, since we have recently witnessed a flourishing of research on the actual consequences of judicial decisions. Both the appearance of at least one book of readings on Supreme Court impact (Becker, 1969) and the focusing of panels around this topic at political science conventions are indications of the emergence of "legal impact" as a significant field of scholarly inquiry. Ironically, however, the proliferation of impact studies has muddled our understanding of judicial effectiveness as much as it has clarified it. After surveying the literature reporting the reactions of police, school teachers, draft board members, and the like to various Supreme Court decisions, one is bewildered if he attempts to relate, reconcile, or "propositionalize" the hodgepodge of findings that has accrued. We are left with the common sense truism that patterns of compliance and defiance with the Supreme Court vary-from decision to decision, from community to community, and from individual to individual. Such a trivial conclusion could have been reached by anyone who simply reads Time Magazine and notes, say, the continuation of police harassment of minorities and the decline of sex censorship.