Law Commons^™

Law, Fact, And Discretion In The Federal Courts: An Empirical Study, Robert Anderson

Robert Anderson IV

The organization of the federal judiciary rests upon a division of labor between trial courts and appellate courts. Central to this division of labor is the standard of review, which requires that appellate courts review factual and discretionary decisions deferentially. The conventional wisdom is that appellate courts almost never reverse trial court findings of fact and rarely reverse discretionary decisions. The prevailing view, however, is greatly oversimplified. Data from federal cases suggest that standards of review operate in a much more complex and nuanced way than the conventional account would indicate. The empirical evidence suggests that the appellate courts routinely …