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Partisan Panel Composition And Reliance On Earlier Opinions In The Circuit Courts, Stuart Minor Benjamin, Byungkoo Kim, Kevin M. Quinn
Partisan Panel Composition And Reliance On Earlier Opinions In The Circuit Courts, Stuart Minor Benjamin, Byungkoo Kim, Kevin M. Quinn
Faculty Scholarship
Does the partisan composition of three-judge panels affect how earlier opinions are treated and thus how the law develops? Using a novel data set of Shepard's treatments for all cases decided in the U.S. courts of appeals from 1974 to 2017, we investigate three different versions of this question. First, are panels composed of three Democratic (Republican) appointees more likely to follow opinions decided by panels of three Democratic (Republican) appointees than are panels composed of three Republican (Democratic) appointees? Second, does the presence of a single out-party judge change how a panel relies on earlier decisions compared to what …