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Full-Text Articles in Law

Judicial Independence And The Ambiguity Of Article Iii Protections, Tracey E. George Jan 2003

Judicial Independence And The Ambiguity Of Article Iii Protections, Tracey E. George

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Is the federal judiciary truly an independent body? A quick glance at the Constitution would suggest the answer is yes. The Constitution provides for life tenure and a difficult removal process for federal judges that together, as the common wisdom goes, shield federal judges from the shifting winds of the more political branches and the public at large. The author of this essay argues, however, that on a closer examination of the protections provided for by the Constitution, judicial independence might be more mirage than truism. Threats to judicial independence arise not only externally through the actions of the other …


The Dimension Of The Supreme Court, Paul H. Edelman Jan 2003

The Dimension Of The Supreme Court, Paul H. Edelman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Lawrence Sirovich introduced two novel mathematical techniques to study patterns in recent Supreme Court decisions. One of these methods, information theory, has never been applied previously. The other method, singular value decomposition, is closely related to other methods that have previously been employed.

In this paper I give an explication of these two methods and evaluate their use in the context of understanding the Supreme Court. I conclude that information theory holds some promise for furthering our understanding but singular value decomposition, as applied by Sirovich, is …


The Federal Court System: A Principal-Agent Perspective, Tracey E. George, Albert H. Yoon Jan 2003

The Federal Court System: A Principal-Agent Perspective, Tracey E. George, Albert H. Yoon

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Professor Merrill ably demonstrates that Supreme Court decisions should be examined as the product of an inherently political institution. Observers who assert that Justices are best understood as prophets of the law are practicing an intellectual sleight of hand that allows them to ignore the non­ doctrinal factors that affect judicial behavior. Such an effort is understandable. The Court is a much more complicated subject if its rulings reflect nonlegal factors as well as legal ones. The desire, however, to ignore the true character of the Court produces accounts of its behavior that are inadequate, incorrect, or wholly without content. …