Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Judges
Blurring Institutional Boundaries: Judges' Perceptions Of Threats To Judicial Independence, Alyx Mark, Michael A. Zilis
Blurring Institutional Boundaries: Judges' Perceptions Of Threats To Judicial Independence, Alyx Mark, Michael A. Zilis
Political Science Faculty Publications
The legislature wields multiple tools to limit judicial power, but scholars have little information about how judges interpret variant threats and which they find most concerning. To provide insight, we conduct original interviews regarding legislative threats to courts with over two dozen sitting federal judges, representing all tiers of the federal judiciary. We find that judges have a nuanced understanding of threats and tend to identify components of legislative proposals that threaten formal institutional powers as more concerning than those challenging policy set by judges. This distinction has broad implications for our understanding of judicial behavior at the federal level.
Courts And Executives, Jeffrey L. Yates, Scott S. Boddery
Courts And Executives, Jeffrey L. Yates, Scott S. Boddery
Political Science Faculty Publications
William Howard Taft was both our twenty-seventh president and the tenth Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court -- the only person to have ever held both high positions in our country. He once famously commented that "presidents may come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever" (Pringle 1998). His remark reminds us that presidents serve only four-year terms (and are now limited to two of them), but justices of the Supreme court are appointed for life and leave a legacy of precedent-setting cases after departing the High Court. Of course, presidents also leave a legacy of important …