Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T15:28:05.734Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Structure of Legal Doctrine in a Judicial Hierarchy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Claire B. Wofford
Claire B. Wofford*
Affiliation:
College of Charleston
*
Contact the author at woffordcb@cofc.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Political scientists interested in the structure of legal doctrine are especially attuned to the impact of the judicial hierarchy. They generally frame the issue as whether a higher court will issue a rigid “rule” to prevent shirking or a vague “standard” to give more discretion to lower courts. This “rules versus standards” debate rests on two presumptions: jurists write doctrine, and doctrine varies in flexibility. Using the US Supreme Court, I offer an initial empirical evaluation of these presumptions. The findings reveal that the justices almost always adopt doctrine suggested to them and that these doctrines differ little in flexibility.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , Fall 2019 , pp. 263 - 280
Copyright
© 2019 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This research was supported with funding from the College of Charleston and the National Science Foundation (SES 1023952). I would like to thank Natalie Prince and Melissa Neri for their excellent research assistance and the reviewers and editor for their helpful suggestions. I would also like to thank Jennifer Bowie, Micheal Giles, Thomas Walker, and Tom Clark for their comments on previous versions of this article.

References

Baker, Scott and Pauline, T. Kim. 2012. “A Dynamic Model of Doctrinal Choice.” Journal of Legal Analysis 4 (2): 329–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, Ryan C., and James F. Spriggs II. 2008. “An Empirical Analysis of the Length of U.S. Supreme Court Opinions.” Houston Law Review 45 (3): 621–82.Google Scholar
Breitmeier, Helmut, Oran R. Young and Michael, Zürn. 2006. Analyzing International Environmental Regimes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, Charles M., and Lewis, Kornhauser. 2006. “Appeals Mechanisms, Litigant Selection, and the Structure of Judicial Hierarchies.” In Institutional Games and the U.S. Supreme Court, ed. Jon Bond. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Carrubba, Clifford J., and Tom, S. Clark. 2012. “Rule Creation in a Political Hierarchy.” American Political Science Review 106 (3): 622–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Tom S. 2015. “Scope and Precedent: Judicial Rule-Making under Uncertainty.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 28 (3): 353–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, Brady. 2001. “Lord Denning and Justice Cardozo: The Judge as Poet-Philosopher.” Rutgers Law Journal 32:485–518.Google Scholar
Collins, Paul M. Jr., Pamela, C. Corley, and Jesse, Hamner. 2014. “Me Too? An Investigation of Repetition in U.S. Supreme Court Amicus Curiae Briefs.” Judicature 97 (5): 228–34.Google Scholar
Corley, Pamela C. 2008. “The Supreme Court and Opinion Content: The Influence of Parties’ Briefs.” Political Research Quarterly 61 (3): 468–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corley, Pamela C., and Justin, Wedeking. 2014. “The (Dis)advantage of Certainty: The Importance of Certainty in Language.” Law and Society Review 48 (1): 35–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crane, Daniel A. 2007. “Rules versus Standards in Antitrust Adjudication.” Washington and Lee Law Review 64 (1): 49–110.Google Scholar
Cross, Frank B., Tonja, Jacobi, and Emerson, Tiller. 2012. “A Positive Political Theory of Rules and Standards.” University of Illinois Law Review 12 (1): 1–41.Google Scholar
Cross, Frank B., and James, W. Pennebaker. 2012. “The Language of the Roberts Court.” ExpressO working paper. http://works.bepress.com/frank_cross/4.Google Scholar
Diver, Colin S. 1983. “The Optimal Precision of Administrative Rules.” Yale Law Journal 93 (1): 65–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Lee. 2016. “Some Thoughts on the Study of Judicial Behavior.” William and Mary Law Review 57 (6): 2017–73.Google Scholar
Feinstein, Alvan R., and Domenic, V. Cicchetti. 1990. “High Agreement but Low Kappa: I. The Problems of Two Paradoxes.” Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 43:543–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feng, G. C. 2014. “Intercoder Reliability Indices: Disuse, Misuse, and Abuse.” Quality and Quantity 48 (3): 1803–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feng, G. C. 2015. “Mistakes and How to Avoid Mistakes in Using Intercoder Reliability Indices.” Methodology: European Journal of Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social Sciences 11 (1): 13–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freelon, Deen G. 2010. “ReCal: Intercoder Reliability Calculation as a Web Service.” International Journal of Internet Science 5 (1): 20–33.Google Scholar
Hammond, Thomas H., Chris, W. Bonneau, and Reginald, S. Sheehan. 2005. Strategic Behavior and Policy Choice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansford, Thomas G., James F. Spriggs II, and Anthony, A. Stenger. 2013. “The Informational Dynamics of Vertical Stare Decisis.” Journal of Politics 75 (4): 894–906.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heytens, Toby J. 2008. “Doctrine Formulation and Distrust.” Notre Dame Law Review 83 (5): 2045–2104.Google Scholar
Hollis-Brusky, Amanda and Joshua, C. Wilson. 2017. “Playing for the Rules: How and Why New Christian Right Public Interest Law Firms Invest in Secular Litigation.” Law and Policy 39 (2): 121–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huber, John D., and Charles, R. Shipan. 2002. Deliberate Discretion? The Institutional Foundations of Bureaucratic Autonomy. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobi, Tonja and Emerson, H. Tiller. 2007. “Legal Doctrine and Political Control.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 23 (2): 326–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplow, Louis. 1992. “Rules versus Standards: An Economic Analysis.” Duke Law Journal 42 (3): 557–629.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kastellec, Jonathan. 2017. “The Judicial Hierarchy: A Review Essay.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia in Politics, ed. William R. Thompson. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://oxfordre.com/politics/.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Duncan. 1976. “Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication.” Harvard Law Review 89:1685–1778.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kornhauser, Lewis. 1995. “Adjudication by a Resource-Constrained Team: Hierarchy and Precedent in a Judicial System.” Southern California Law Review 68 (3): 1605–29.Google Scholar
Korobkin, Russell B. 2000. “Behavioral Analysis and Legal Form: Rules vs. Standards Revisited.” Oregon Law Review 79 (1): 23–60.Google Scholar
Landis, J. R. and Koch., G. G. 1977. “The Measurement of Observer Agreement for Categorical Data.” Biometrics 33 (1): 159–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Law, David S., and David, Zaring. 2010. “Law versus Ideology: The Supreme Court and the Use of Legislative History.” William and Mary Law Review 51 (5): 1653–1747.Google Scholar
Lax, Jeffrey R. 2012. “Political Constraints on Legal Doctrine: How Hierarchy Shapes the Law.” Journal of Politics 74 (3): 765–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Edward. 2002. “Rules and Standards for Cyberspace.” Notre Dame Law Review 77 (5): 1275–1372.Google Scholar
Nance, Dale A. 2006. “Rules, Standards, and the Internal Point of View.” Fordham Law Review 75 (3): 1287–1316.Google Scholar
Overton, Spencer. 2002. “Rules, Standards, and Bush v. Gore: Form and the Law of Democracy.” Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 37 (1): 65–102.Google Scholar
Owens, Ryan J., and Justin, P. Wedeking. 2011. “Justices and Legal Clarity: Analyzing the Complexity of Supreme Court Opinions.” Law and Society Review 45 (4): 1027–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owens, Ryan J., Justin, P. Wedeking, and Patrick, C. Wohlfarth. 2013. “How the Supreme Court Alters Opinion Language to Evade Congressional Review.” Journal of Law and Courts 1 (1): 35–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Lance J. 2010. “The Implications of IFRS on the Functioning of the Securities Antifraud Regime in the United States.” Michigan Law Review 108 (4): 603–31.Google Scholar
Radin, Margaret Jane. 1991. “Presumptive Positivism and Trivial Cases.” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 14 (3): 823–37.Google Scholar
Randazzo, Kirk, Richard W. Waterman and Jeffrey, A. Fine. 2006. “Checking the Federal Courts: The Impact of Congressional Statutes on Judicial Behavior.” Journal of Politics 68 (4): 1006–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schauer, Frederick. 1991. “Rules and the Rule of Law.” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 14 (3): 645–94.Google Scholar
Schlag, Pierre J. 1985. “Rules and Standards.” UCLA Law Review 33 (2): 379–430.Google Scholar
Shavel, Steven. 1995. “The Appeals Process as a Means of Error Correction.” Journal of Legal Studies 24 (2): 379–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Joseph L., and James, A. Todd. 2015. “Rules, Standards, and Lower Court Decisions.” Journal of Law and Courts 3 (2): 257–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spaeth, Harold J., Lee, Epstein, Andrew, D. Martin, Jeffrey, A. Segal, Theodore, J. Ruger, and Sara, C. Benesh. 2018. Supreme Court Database, version 2005. http://Supremecourtdatabase.org.Google Scholar
Spiller, Pablo T., and Matthew, L. Spitzer 1992. “Judicial Choice of Legal Doctrine.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 8 (1): 8–46.Google Scholar
Spriggs, James F., II. 1997. “Explaining Federal Bureaucratic Compliance with Supreme Court Opinions.” Political Research Quarterly 50 (3): 567–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Staton, Jeffrey K., and Georg, Vanberg. 2008. “The Value of Vagueness: Delegation, Defiance, and Judicial Opinions.” American Journal of Political Science 58 (3): 504–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sullivan, Kathleen M. 1992. “Foreword: The Justices of Rules and Standards.” Special section, “The Supreme Court, 1991 Term.” Harvard Law Review 106 (1): 22–123.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. 1995. “Problems with Rules.” California Law Review 83 (4): 953–1026.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tiller, Emerson H., and Frank, B. Cross. 2006. “What Is Legal Doctrine?” Northwestern University Law Review 100 (1): 517–33.Google Scholar
Wofford, Claire. 2015. “Assessing the Anecdotes: Amicus Curiae, Legal Rules, and the U.S. Supreme Court.” Justice Systems Journal 26 (3): 274–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wofford, Claire. 2018. “Says Who? Case Participants and Legal Doctrine in the U.S. Supreme Court.” Journal of Political Science 46:35–65.Google Scholar
Zhao, Xinshu, Jun S. Liu and Ke, Deng. 2013. “Assumptions behind Intercoder Reliability Indices.” In Communication Yearbook 36, ed. Charles T. Salmon, 419–80. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar