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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Supreme Court And The People: Communicating Decisions To The Public, Barry Sullivan, Ramon Feldbrin
The Supreme Court And The People: Communicating Decisions To The Public, Barry Sullivan, Ramon Feldbrin
Faculty Publications & Other Works
Although the individual Justices of the Supreme Court frequently speak to the public, the Court as an entity holds fast to the purportedly ancient principle that courts should speak only through their official written opinions—the meaning of which is for others to figure out. Over the years, the Court’s decisions have become more complex, prolix, and fractured, making it difficult and time-consuming for anyone outside the professional elites to determine what the Court has held. Even journalists, who attempt to explain the Court’s decisions to the public, struggle to make sense of the Justices’ opinions under the pressures generated by …
Constitutional Rhetoric, Jamal Greene
Constitutional Rhetoric, Jamal Greene
Faculty Scholarship
For close to a century, students of judicial behavior have suggested that what judges think is not altogether the same as what they say. Within the legal academy, this claim has long been associated with legal realists who have argued that the formal legal rules explicated in judicial opinions are at least partly epiphenomenal, masking the influence that the personal characteristics and dispositions of adjudicators exercise over legal outcomes. Political scientists have argued, variously, that such outcomes are determined by ideology, social background, or political, professional, or other institutional constraints.
The notion that at least some “extralegal” factors influence judicial …
Forum, Federalism, And Free Markets: An Empirical Study Of Judicial Behavior Under The Dormant Commerce Clause Doctrine, Mehmet K. Konar-Steenberg, Anne F. Peterson
Forum, Federalism, And Free Markets: An Empirical Study Of Judicial Behavior Under The Dormant Commerce Clause Doctrine, Mehmet K. Konar-Steenberg, Anne F. Peterson
Faculty Scholarship
This study examines judicial behavior under the dormant Commerce Clause doctrine by drawing on an original database of 459 state and Federal appellate cases decided between 1970 and 2009. The authors use logit regression to show that state judges are more likely to uphold state and local laws against dormant Commerce Clause attack than their Federal judicial counterparts, a result that is consistent with the interstate rivalry issues animating the doctrine. The study also finds that Republican-dominated judicial panels at the state level are more likely to side with tax challengers invoking the dormant Commerce Clause doctrine than are Democratic …
Looking Off The Ball: Constitutional Law And American Politics, Mark A. Graber
Looking Off The Ball: Constitutional Law And American Politics, Mark A. Graber
Faculty Scholarship
“Looking Off the Ball” details how and why constitutional law influences both judicial and public decision making. Treating justices as free to express their partisan commitments may seem to explain Bush v. Gore*, but not the judicial failure to intervene in the other numerous presidential elections in which the candidate favored by most members of the Supreme Court lost. Constitutional norms and standards generate legal agreements among persons who dispute the underlying merits of particular policies under constitutional attack. The norms and standards explain constitutional criticism, why only a small proportion of the political questions that occupy Americans are normally …
The Phantom Philosophy? An Empirical Investigation Of Legal Interpretation, Jason J. Czarnezki
The Phantom Philosophy? An Empirical Investigation Of Legal Interpretation, Jason J. Czarnezki
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This Article tests a model of judicial decisionmaking that incorporates elements of both the attitudinal model and the legal model, along with measures of institutional and judicial background characteristics such as collegiality and trial court experience. We develop a measure of interpretive philosophy relying primarily on judicial opinions, which we code for certain indicators of traditional interpretive approaches (i.e., the use of interpretive tools). The critical question is whether judges with similar interpretive philosophies are more likely to agree with one another when deciding cases. Our general finding is that ideology and interpretive philosophy are not significant predictors of agreement. …
The Dynamics And Determinants Of The Decision To Grant En Banc Review, Tracey E. George
The Dynamics And Determinants Of The Decision To Grant En Banc Review, Tracey E. George
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The ability of U.S. Courts of Appeals to control the development of law within their respective circuits has been strained by the practice of divisional sittings, the growing caseload at the circuit court level, the increasing number of judges sitting within each circuit, and the decreasing probability of Supreme Court intervention. The primary method of maintaining coherence and consistency in doctrinal development within a federal circuit is en banc review. Yet, many critics contend that en bane rehearing is a time-consuming, inefficient procedure that fails to serve its intended purpose and too often is abused for political ends. This Article …