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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence
Interconstituted Legal Agents, Christian Turner
Interconstituted Legal Agents, Christian Turner
Scholarly Works
Legal theory and doctrine depend on underlying assumptions about human nature and sociality. Perhaps the most common and basic assumption is that we are separate persons who communicate imperfectly with one another. While this separation thesis has been questioned, it still dominates legal theory. However, I show that understanding separation and connection as alternative perspectives, rather than as ontologically true or false, reveals that legal conflict often arises when these perspectives give rise to clashing intuitions concerning the meaning of community and what constitutes goals and harms. This Article organizes perspectives on social relationships in increasing order of intersubjectivity: isolation, …
A Judge Never Writes More Freely: A Separate-Opinions Citation-Network Approach To Assessing Judicial Ideology, Joseph S. Miller
A Judge Never Writes More Freely: A Separate-Opinions Citation-Network Approach To Assessing Judicial Ideology, Joseph S. Miller
Scholarly Works
What do judges really care about? Scholars have used various methods to identify a judge’s policy preferences. The standard method in political science, called the Martin-Quinn score, counts a judge’s votes for conservative or liberal outcomes. But judges don’t just vote, they give reasons in written opinions. Reason-giving is not only part of the tradition of common-law decision making but is also central to rule-of-law ideals, concerns that are not the focus most empirical methodologies. What’s more, the reasons a judge gives for reaching a conclusion provide powerful evidence for what the judge herself cares about. That is especially the …