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Supreme Court Decisions

About: Supreme Court Decisions is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1804 publications have been published within this topic receiving 17066 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Clark et al. as mentioned in this paper show that Congress is more likely to pass override legislation the further ideologically removed a decision is from pivotal legislative actors, and that Congress rationally anticipates Court rejection of override legislation, avoiding legislation when the current Court is likely to strike it down.
Abstract: Studies of Court-Congress relations assume that Congress overrides Court decisions based on legislative preferences, but no empirical evidence supports this claim. Our first goal is to show that Congress is more likely to pass override legislation the further ideologically removed a decision is from pivotal legislative actors. Second, we seek to determine whether Congress rationally anticipates Court rejection of override legislation, avoiding legislation when the current Court is likely to strike it down. Third, most studies argue that Congress only overrides statutory decisions. We contend that Congress has an incentive to override all Court decisions with which it disagrees, regardless of their legal basis. Using data on congressional overrides of Supreme Court decisions between 1946 and 1990, we show that Congress overrides Court decisions with which it ideologically disagrees, is not less likely to override when it anticipates that the Court will reject override legislation, and acts on preferences regardless of the legal basis of a decision. We therefore empirically substantiate a core part of separation-of-powers models of Court-Congress relations, as well as speak to the relative power of Congress and the Court on the ultimate content of policy.The separation of powers (SOP)-how the different branches of government collaborate in the making and implementing of public policy-represents a vital aspect of American politics. One SOP relationship garnering substantial attention concerns the interactions between the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court. Scholars have examined the dealings between these institutions in multiple ways, including the extent to which Congress influences Supreme Court decisions (e.g., Clark 2011; Gely and Spiller 1990; Hansford and Damore 2000; Harvey and Friedman 2009; Owens 2010; Sala and Spriggs 2004; Segal 1997; Spiller and Gely 1992), whether the Court constrains congressional decisionmaking (e.g., Martin 2001), and the circumstances under which Congress legislatively overrides Supreme Court decisions (e.g., Blackstone 2013; Eskridge 1991a; Hausegger and Baum 1999; Hettinger and Zorn 2005; Ignagni and Meernik 1994; Ignagni, Meernik, and King 1998). Collectively, the literature uncovers a rich and complex interdependency between these two important American political institutions.A core element of SOP studies is a spatial model of the policy process, in which political actors make decisions as a function of their preferences over the existing status quo and alternatives to it, as well as the preferences of other relevant politicians. Researchers thus assume that preferences over outcomes are a fundamental part of the policy-making process. Of particular interest to us, previous studies either (1) apply theoretical models that assume legislators respond to Court decisions based on their preferences over them (e.g., Gely and Spiller 1990; Segal 1997) or (2) explicitly hypothesize that ideological disagreement with Court decisions causes Congress to pass legislation overriding them (Eskridge 1991a, 1991b; Hettinger and Zorn 2005; Ignagni, Meernik, and King 1998; Staudt, Lindstadt, and O'Connor 2007). This perspective seems reasonable in light of the centrality of policy preferences in contemporary explanations of congressional decisionmaking (Aldrich and Rohde 2000; Cox and McCubbins 2005, 2007; Krehbiel 1991, 1998). Indeed, the congressional literature offers convincing empirical evidence that ideology plays a key role in explaining Members' votes on bills and the passage of legislation (e.g., Poole and Rosenthal 2007). Yet, the literature examining federal legislation overriding Court decisions uncovers no systematic evidence they result from Congress' preferences regarding them.To be fair, existing studies illustrate that preferences play a role in explaining some of Congress' interactions with the Court. One area in which policy preferences matter is in sponsorship (but not passage) of court-curbing bills, or bills aimed at limiting judicial power (Clark 2011; Curry 2007). …

24 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Supreme Court ruled that the Medicaid expansion in the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutionally coercive toward the states, but which ACA Medicaid reforms are affected, how far the Court's new coercion doctrine goes, and how states will respond remain unclear.
Abstract: The Supreme Court ruled that the Medicaid expansion in the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutionally coercive toward the states. But which ACA Medicaid reforms are affected, how far the Court's new coercion doctrine goes, and how states will respond remain unclear.

24 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: A complex history of the development of the right to refuse antipsychotic drugs and the complex legal, medical, and ethical issues involved are discussed in this article, where the authors examine the potential effects of the Harper decision on the right of an individual to refuse anti-psychotic drugs outside the prison environment.
Abstract: The article presents a complex history of the disordered development of the right to refuse antipsychotic drugs and attempts to analyze the complex legal, medical, and ethical issues involved. The article begins by describing the dual nature of the medication in providing therapeutic benefits while posing a substantial risk of hazardous side effects. After depicting the circumstances which led to the initial "right to refuse" litigation, the article analyzes the various legal grounds on which courts have based the right to refuse. Even when based on a constitutional source, the right to refuse is not absolute. The right must be balanced against the government's reasons for infringement. The article examines this balancing process by taking into account the private interests at stake, the level of intrusiveness presented by antipsychotic drugs, and the government's objectives behind forced treatment.The article addresses the two governmental interests which are used to justify forced medication. First, the government’s police power interest in preventing a mentally ill individual from harming himself or others is explained. Second, the government’s parens patriae interest in caring for those individuals who are unable to care for themselves is examined. A traditional precondition to forced treatment based on the parens patriae authority is a finding that the patient is incompetent to make his own treatment decisions. The article examines the concept of competency and describes recent medical research which documents that many drug refusals by mentally ill individuals are the product of rational and considered decisions. An emergency exception to the competency limitation on the parens patriae authority is also discussed. In addition, the article addresses whether the least restrictive alternative doctrine is applicable as another restriction on the government's ability to compel treatment under either the police power or the parens patriae authority. Next, the issue of procedural due process is addressed. The article describes the various models of procedural review adopted by courts in refusal cases, ranging from the implementation of a full array of due process procedures to unqualified deference to institutional decision making. A detailed analysis of the appropriateness of these review systems is undertaken.Finally, the article analyzes the substantive and procedural components of the United States Supreme Court's recent opinion on the refusal issue in Washington v. Harper. Although this decision is limited to a convicted prisoner’s right to refuse antipsychotic drugs, its interpretation could impact thousands of mentally ill and developmentally disabled individuals confined in civil institutions.In addition, as one commentator noted, the ramifications of Harper could extend to "even larger numbers of individuals residing in the community who are released from civil hospitals, diverted from the criminal justice system, or paroled from prison, on the basis that they accept treatment as a condition of their release." The article, therefore, concludes by examining the potential effects of the Harper decision on the right of an individual to refuse antipsychotic drugs outside the prison environment. This examination includes an analysis of the Supreme Court's recent opinion in Riggins v. Nevada in which the Court addressed the right of a pretrial detainee to refuse the administration of antipsychotic drugs.

24 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A Vermont law prohibited the sale of physicians' prescribing data, which facilitate pharmaceutical companies' marketing efforts and increase the use of brand-name drugs over less expensive generics.
Abstract: A Vermont law prohibited the sale of physicians' prescribing data. These data facilitate pharmaceutical companies' marketing efforts and increase the use of brand-name drugs over less expensive generics. On June 23, the Supreme Court ruled that the law was unconstitutional.

24 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examines the different conceptions of racial identity and "geography" in two landmark Supreme Court decisions, Shaw v. Reno (1993) and Easley v. Cromartie (2001).
Abstract: This article examines the different conceptions of racial identity and ‘geography’ in two landmark Supreme Court decisions, Shaw v. Reno (1993) and Easley v. Cromartie (2001). Both decisions evaluated similar Congressional redistricting plans in North Carolina, but reached opposite conclusions. In Reno, the Court based its reasoning on the ‘objective’, ‘natural’ and ‘rational’ geography of North Carolina. Such geographic relationships create political communities and constrain the way in which state legislatures can draw electoral districts. In contrast, the Easley decision based its reasoning on voting behaviour, and makes an implicit appeal to deliberative democratic principles. From this perspective, political relationships create the geographic relationships defined by Congressional district boundaries. Where the Reno decision treats race as an arbitrary social distinction that the state should not use as the basis of political representation, the Easley opinion argues that the state can consider diff...

24 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
202311
202221
202118
202026
201938
201832