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.

Bargaining and Opinion Assignment on the US Supreme Court

Abstract: We formulate a new game-theoretic model of bargaining on the US Supreme Court. In the model, a degree of monopoly power over policy endogenously accrues to the assigned writer despite an “open rule” permitting other justices to make counteroffers. We assume justices are motivated ultimately by a concern for judicial policy, but that the policy impact of an opinion depends partly on its persuasiveness, clarity, and craftsmanship—its legal quality. The effort cost of producing a high-quality opinion creates a wedge that the assignee can exploit to move an opinion from the median without provoking a winning counteroffer. We use this bargaining model as the foundation for a formal analysis of opinion assignment. Both the bargaining and opinion assignment models display rich and tractable comparative statics, allowing them to explain well-known empirical regularities, as well as to generate new propositions, all within a unified and internally consistent framework.

Why (and when) judges dissent: a theoretical and empirical analysis

Abstract: This paper develops and tests a model of self-interested judicial behavior to explore the phenomenon of judicial dissents, and in particular what we call ‘‘dissent aversion,’’ which sometimes causes a judge not to dissent even when he disagrees with the majority opinion. We examine dissent aversion using data from both the federal courts of appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. Our empirical findings are consistent with the predictions of the model. In the court of appeals, the frequency of dissents is negatively related to the caseload and positively related to ideological diversity among judges in the circuit and circuit size (i.e., the fewer the judges, the greater the collegiality costs of dissenting and therefore, other things being equal, the fewer dissents). We also find that dissents increase the length of majority opinions (imposing collegiality costs by making the majority work harder) and are rarely cited either inside or outside the circuit (reducing the value of dissenting to dissenters). In the Supreme Court, we find that the dissent rate is negatively related to the caseload and positively related to ideological differences, that majority opinions are longer when there is a dissent, and that dissents are rarely cited in either the courts of appeals or the Supreme Court.

The Politics of Dissents and Concurrences on the U.S. Supreme Court

Abstract: Why do justices author or join separate opinions? Most attempts to address the dynamics of concurrence and dissent focus on aggregate patterns across time or courts. In contrast, we explain why an ...

The Institutionalization of the U.S. Supreme Court

Abstract: In pursuing their goals, members of the U.S. Supreme Court are affected by their institutional setting. How has that institutional environment changed over time and what have been the political consequences of those changes? Despite considerable analysis of the institutional dynamics of legislatures and executives, political scientists have been slow to bring time series techniques to the study of the Supreme Court, and as a result much less is known about its evolutionary path. Measuring a variety of organizational characteristics, I construct an index of the institutionalization of the Supreme Court from 1790 to 1996. This indicator suggests that the integration of the Court into the system of federal policy making has better enabled the justices to satisfy their objectives. To demonstrate this empirically, I test a series of error correction models of judicial influence, each of which confirms that the nature of the Supreme Court’s character has had considerable implications for the scope of the justices’ legal and political impact. These results underscore the need for judicial scholars to examine the Court’s policy making in longitudinal perspective.

Appellate Court Supervision in the Federal Judiciary: A Hierarchical Perspective

Abstract: In this article, we examine factors that influence appellate supervision in the lower tiers of the federal judicial hierarchy. Drawing on the insights of agency theory, we develop a framework to assess the determinants of circuit panel decisions to affirm or reverse federal district court rulings. Our analysis of U.S. Courts of Appeals' published civil rights decisions over a 29-year period (1971-1999) offers support for several hypothesized relationships. As expected, the outcome of appellate review varied with the level of agreement between the preferences of the circuit (as principal) and the policy position of the trial court (as agent). In addition, we found that circuits were more likely to affirm trial court decisions that were contrary to the preferences of the federal district court judge, suggesting that circuit judges may rely on ideological signals when evaluating appeals before them. We also hypothesized that the monitoring activities of circuits would be influenced by individual circuits' relationship with their principal, the Supreme Court. Consistent with these expectations, panels were more likely to reverse district court rulings that were incongruous with the policy predisposition of the High Court. In addition, as Supreme Court scrutiny of a circuit increased, the likelihood of a circuit panel subsequently reversing a district court also increased. Although further inquiry is necessary to clarify the interpretation of this result, the finding does suggest that district courts are more likely to engage in decision making that deviates from circuit preferences when that circuit faces more intense supervision from the Supreme Court. Introduction "In theory,... federal judges form a pyramid that supports the will of [Supreme Court] Justices. In reality, federal judicial power is widely diffused among lower court judges who are insulated by deep traditions of independence" (Howard 1981:3). As this quote describes, the federal judicial hierarchy is designed to enable the Supreme Court, sitting at the system's apex, to impose its collective will on lower federal judges. Yet the Court's control is far from absolute: the decentralized structure of the federal judicial system, in combination with the Court's limited institutional capacity, provide lower court judges with considerable discretion to fashion case outcomes in accordance with their own legal and policy preferences. These cross-pressures in the federal court system have led scholars to examine the extent to which the High Court successfully influences the decisional outputs of the courts below (Johnson 1979; Gruhl 1980; Songer 1987; Songer, Segal, & Cameron 1994; Cameron, Segal, & Songer 2000; Baum 1994). Appellate supervision over lower courts is not exercised solely by the U.S. Supreme Court. In the lower tiers of the hierarchy, circuit courts are expected to monitor the decisional outputs of the federal district courts (Baum 1980). Of course, the most significant supervisory tool available to the circuit court is the power to reverse or affirm the lower court. Although the power to reverse is exercised relatively infrequently by the circuit courts, it nevertheless serves as a compelling mechanism to shape lower court decision making and to signal the circuit's preferences concerning legal policy. Affirmances also serve to signal the circuit court's preferences and shape lower court decisional outcomes by confirming the approach adopted by the trial court. In this article, therefore, we ask how appellate courts use this significant power of review to control decision making in the lower courts. In particular, we seek to identify the critical determinants underlying appeals court judges' choices to alter the status quo created by the lower court's ruling. As part of that effort, we recognize that this decision may be influenced by an institutional environment in which resources are scarce and caseloads are high. Drawing from a theoretical perspective that recognizes the interplay between attitudes and institutional structures in models of judicial decision making, we identify and evaluate the determinants of circuit court decisions to affirm or reverse the judgment of the district court in civil rights and liberties cases over a 29-year period. …