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Supreme court

About: Supreme court is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 41858 publications have been published within this topic receiving 306787 citations. The topic is also known as: court of last resort & highest court of appeal.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors found that the ideological values of the Eisenhower through Bush appointees correlate strongly with votes cast in economic and civil liberties cases, but the results are less robust for justices appointed by Roosevelt and Truman.
Abstract: Segal and Cover (1989) analyzed the content of newspaper editorials to devise measures of the ideological values of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Because their measures came from sources independent of the judicial vote, scholars have widely adopted them. This note updates, backdates, and extends the Segal and Cover research by adding the two Bush appointees and the seven Roosevelt and four Truman nominees whose service extended beyond the start of the Vinson Court. While we find that the ideological values of the Eisenhower through Bush appointees correlate strongly with votes cast in economic and civil liberties cases, the results are less robust for justices appointed by Roosevelt and Truman.

255 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examined the linkages among institutional legitimacy, perceptions of procedural justice, and voluntary compliance with unpopular institutional decisions within the context of political intolerance and repression, and concluded that to the extent that an institution employs fair decision-making procedures, it is viewed as legitimate and citizens are more likely to comply with its decisions, even when they are unpopular.
Abstract: This research examines the linkages among institutional legitimacy, perceptions of procedural justice, and voluntary compliance with unpopular institutional decisions within the context of political intolerance and repression. Several questions are addressed, including: To what degree do judicial decisions contribute to the acceptance of unpopular political decisions? Do court decisions have a greater power to legitimize than the decisions of other political institutions? Are courts perceived as more procedurally fair than other political institutions? Do perceptions of procedural fairness-be it in a court or legislative institution-contribute to the efficacy of institutional decisions? The basic hypothesis of this research is that to the extent that an institution employs fair decisionmaking procedures, it is viewed as legitimate and citizens are more likely to comply with its decisions, even when they are unpopular. Based on an analysis of national survey data, I conclude that, although perceptions of institutional procedure have little impact on compliance, institutional legitimacy does seem to have some effect. The United States Supreme Court in particular seems to have some ability to elicit acceptance of public policies that are unpopular with the mass public. This effect is greatest among opinion leaders. I conclude with some observations about how these findings fit with the growing literature on procedural justice and with some thoughts about the implications of the findings for the protection of democratic liberty.

253 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the ebb and flow of public esteem for the U.S. Supreme Court across time has been studied, and it was found that apart from a relatively constant core of support, increases in judicial activism, inflation, and solicitude for the rights of the accused decreased confidence in the Court.
Abstract: Systematic study of changes in support for the U.S. Supreme Court across time has not been undertaken. Armed with a time series of observations from 1966 through 1984, I provide a description of the ebb and flow of public esteem for the Court. Then I outline and test several plausible propositions about the dynamics of support. Statistical analyses compel the conclusion that apart from a relatively constant core of support, increases in judicial activism, inflation, and solicitude for the rights of the accused decreased confidence in the Court; the events surrounding Watergate and increases in presidential popularity and the public salience of the Court brought about increased popular esteem for the high bench. Previous scholars, based on cross-sections of individuals, have emphasized the public's ignorance of and disinterest in the Supreme Court and judicial policy making. The responsiveness of public support for the Court in the aggregate to political events and shifts in the behavior of the justices stands in stark contrast to the conventional image of United States citizenry as singularly out of touch with and unmoved by the Supreme Court.

249 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Medical opinions on the inappropriateness of cardiopulmonary resuscitation of certain patients are now openly discussed, as acknowledged by the New Jersey Supreme Court in its recent Quinlan decisi...
Abstract: Medical opinions on the inappropriateness of cardiopulmonary resuscitation of certain patients are now openly discussed, as acknowledged by the New Jersey Supreme Court in its recent Quinlan decisi...

248 citations

Book ChapterDOI
05 Jul 2017
TL;DR: The Supreme Court of the United States is also a political institution, an institution that is to say, for arriving at decisions on controversial questions of national policy, and it is this role that gives rise to the problem of the Court's existence in a political system ordinarily held to be democratic.
Abstract: Considered as a political system, democracy is a set of basic procedures for arriving at decisions. To Consider the Supreme Court of the United States Strictly as a legal institution is to underestimate its significance in the American political system. For it is also a political institution, an institution, that is to say, for arriving at decisions on controversial questions of national policy. Court must choose among controversial alternatives of public policy by appealing to at least some criteria of acceptability on questions of fact and value that cannot be found in or deduced from precedent, statute, and Constitution. It is in this sense that the Court is a national policy-maker, and it is this role that gives rise to the problem of the Court's existence in a political system ordinarily held to be democratic. Justices are typically men who, prior to appointment, have engaged in public life and have committed themselves publicly on the great questions of the day.

246 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20231,077
20222,410
2021599
20201,063
20191,149
20181,225