The United States Supreme Court and Lower Court Compliance

Abstract

Vol. 36:2How can courts achieve higher compliance from lower courts? I identify and examine 2,771 lower court treatments of a random sample of 110 Supreme Court cases, and find that lower courts are more likely to positively treat and less likely to negatively treat Supreme Court majority opinions that more thoroughly discuss cited legal authorities. These findings suggest that Supreme Court justices, when crafting opinions, have the ability to influence the degree of compliance by lower courts by dedicating more attention to discussing precedents cited in the majority opinions