The Unanimous Decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada as a Test of the Attitudinal Model

Most of the empirical work on the decision making of justices on the Supreme Court of Canada has taken as its exclusive focus the divided decisions of the Court. In contrast to this extensive body of research on divided decision, the much more limited knowledge of unanimous decisions is troubling because such decisions constitute nearly three-quarters of all of the formal decisions of the Court. The analysis reported below provides a first step towards understanding the neglected nature of unanimous decisions. This investigation of the nature and causes of unanimity in the Supreme Court of Canada explores two competing explanations: one drawn from the most widely accepted general explanation of judicial voting (that is, the attitudinal model) and the other from the perspectives of the justices themselves. To determine that perspective, the author interviewed ten of the current or recent justices on the Court. After describing these two alternative accounts of unanimity, empirical tests are conducted of the implications of each view. We find substantially more support for the perspectives of the justices than for the perspective derived from the attitudinal model on unanimity

The Impact of the Supreme Court on Trends in Economic Policy Making in the United States Courts of Appeals

Previous impact research has primarily investigated controversial civil liberties decisions. The present study examines the response of the United States Courts of Appeals to changes in the labor and antitrust policies announced by the Supreme Court between 1950 and 1977. Significant impact was discovered. In each policy area, the decisional trends of the courts of appeals underwent a significant change after each of two policy shifts on the Supreme Court. Changes in the decisional trends of the courts of appeal were in the predicted direction even after controls were introduced for judges\u27 party and holdover effects

Party Capability and the U.S. Courts of Appeals: Understanding Why the “Haves” Win

While many studies have examined party capability theory, few have empirically examined the potential causal mechanisms underlying the theory. We do this by combining quantitative analyses with qualitative data drawn from interviews with over 60 US courts of appeals judges. We find that the “haves,” or repeat players, hire better lawyers and that these lawyers independently contribute to the success of the repeat players. We also find that the advantages of the haves extend to all parties, though to a lesser extent than the advantages enjoyed by the US government. These results remain robust after controlling for ideology

Nonpublication in the Eleventh Circuit: An Empirical Analysis

This Article examines the criteria used by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in determining whether or not a judicial opinion should be published. Through an empirical study and analysis, the authors conclude that the written rule governing publication offers little guidance to the judges and is often applied inconsistently within the circuit

The View from the Bench and Chambers: Examining Judicial Process and Decision Making on the U.S. Courts of Appeals

For most of their history, the U.S. courts of appeals have toiled in obscurity, well out of the limelight of political controversy. But as the number of appeals has increased dramatically, while the number of cases heard by the Supreme Court has remained the same, the courts of appeals have become the court of last resort for the vast majority of litigants. This enhanced status has been recognized by important political actors, and as a result, appointments to the courts of appeals have become more and more contentious since the 1990s. This combination of increasing political salience and increasing political controversy has led to the rise of serious empirical studies of the role of the courts of appeals in our legal and political system. At once building on and contributing to this wave of scholarship, The View from the Bench and Chambers melds a series of quantitative analyses of judicial decisions with the perspectives gained from in-depth interviews with the judges and their law clerks. This multifaceted approach yields a level of insight beyond that provided by any previous work on appellate courts in the United States, making The View from the Bench and Chambers the most comprehensive and rich account of the operation of these courts to date.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1137/thumbnail.jp

Do Bills of Rights Matter? An Examination of Court Change, Judicial Ideology, and the Support Structure for Rights in Canada

Competing theories regarding the development of a rights revolution in Canada have appeared in the judicial and constitutional literature in recent years. On the one hand, scholars argue that the profound effects often attributed to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are substantially overstated, and conventional analyses have overlooked the more important role of changes in what is called the support structure for rights. Others have advanced a competing theory that the Charter created an expansion of civil liberties. We take advantage of an extensive dataset on the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada to provide a more systematic test of these competing theories. We conclude that the adoption of the Charter had effects on both the rights agenda and the constitutional issues agenda of the Court, which were both substantively large and statistically significant. There was some indication that changes in agenda control mattered, but the effects were not consistent across our time-series models. The more limited claim that increases in the support structure are one of multiple factors that are associated with agenda change received only mixed support. In short, we found that bills of rights do matter