Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m42fx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T21:53:27.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reevaluating the Implications of Decision-Making Models

The Role of Summary Decisions in US Supreme Court Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Ali S. Masood  and
Donald R. Songer
Ali S. Masood*
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
Donald R. Songer
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
*
Contact the corresponding author, Ali Shiraz Masood, at masoodas@email.sc.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Most empirical analyses of the US Supreme Court are limited to the Court’s plenary decisions. We contend that summary decisions are an important component of the total decisional output of the Court and, as such, should be included in any overall assessment of the decision making of the Court or its impact on the courts below. We analyze the universe of the Court’s summary decisions from 1995 to 2005. We assess the conventional wisdom that a conservative Court should primarily disturb liberal lower-court decisions and that, in all cases granted certiorari, the policy preferences of the justices should have a major impact on their votes. We find support for neither of these expectations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , Fall 2013 , pp. 363 - 389
Copyright
© 2013 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.)

References

Borochoff, Elise. 2008. “Lower Court Compliance with Supreme Court Remands.” Touro Law Review 24:849–80.Google Scholar
Brenner, Saul, and Marc Stier. 1996. “Retesting Segal and Spaeth’s Stare Decisis Model.” American Journal of Political Science 40:1036–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caldeira, Gregory A., Wright, John R. and Christopher J. W. Zorn. 1999. “Sophisticated Voting and Gatekeeping in the Supreme Court.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 15:549–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chemerinsky, Erwin. 2003. “Understanding the Rehnquist Court: An Admiring Reply to Professor Merrill.” Saint Louis University Law Journal 47:659–75.Google Scholar
Epstein, Lee, Valerie Hoekstra, Segal, Jeffrey A. and Spaeth, Harold J. 1998. “Do Political Preferences Change? A Longitudinal Study of U.S. Supreme Court Justices.” Journal of Politics 60:801–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Lee, and Jack Knight. 1998. The Choices Justices Make. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly.Google Scholar
Epstein, Lee, and Segal, Jeffrey A. 2000. “Measuring Issue Salience.” American Journal of Political Science 44:66–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flamm, Michael W. 2005. Law and Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
George, Tracey E., and Lee Epstein. 1992. “On the Nature of Supreme Court Decision Making.” American Political Science Review 86:323–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammond, Thomas H., Bonneau, Chris W. and Sheehan, Reginald S. 2005. Strategic Behavior and Policy Choice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansford, Thomas G., and Spriggs, James F. 2006. The Politic of Precedent on the U.S. Supreme Court. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haynie, Stacia L., Sheehan, Reginald S. Songer, Donald R. and C. Neal Tate. 2007. “High Courts Judicial Database.” Judicial Research Initiative, University of South Carolina. http://www.cas.sc.edu/poli/juri.Google Scholar
Hellman, Arthur D. 1984. “Granted, Vacated and Remanded: Shedding Light on a Dark Corner of Supreme Court Practice.” Judicature 67:389–401.Google Scholar
Hensley, Thomas R., and Johnson, Scott P. 1998. “Unanimity on the Rehnquist Court.” Akron Law Review 31:387–408.Google Scholar
Howard, Robert M., and Segal, Jeffrey A. 2004. “A Preference for Deference? The Supreme Court and Judicial Review.” Political Research Quarterly 57:131–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Timothy R. 2001. “Information, Oral Arguments, and Supreme Court Decision Making.” American Politics Research 29:331–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Timothy R., Wahlbeck, Paul J. and James F. Spriggs II. 2006. “The Influence of Oral Arguments on the U.S. Supreme Court.” American Political Science Review 100:99–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knight, Jack, and Lee Epstein. 1996. “The Norm of Stare Decisis.” American Journal of Political Science 40:1018–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kritzer, Herbert M., J. Mitchell Pickerill, and Mark Richards. 1998. “Bringing the Law Back In: Finding a Role for Law in Models of Supreme Court Decision-Making.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Lindquist, Stephanie A., Segal, Jeffrey A. and Chad Westerland. 2011. “Congress, the Supreme Court, and Judicial Review: Testing a Constitutional Separation of Powers Model.” American Journal of Political Science 55:89–104.Google Scholar
Lindquist, Stephanie A., and Rorie Spill Solberg. 2007. “Judicial Review by the Burger and Rehnquist Courts: Explaining Justices’ Responses to Constitutional Challenges.” Political Research Quarterly 60:71–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maltzman, Forrest, Spriggs, James F. and Wahlbeck, Paul J. 2000. Crafting Law on the Supreme Court: The Collegial Game. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Martin, Andrew D., and Quinn, Kevin M. 2002. “Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953–1999.” Political Analysis 10:134–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGuire, Kevin T., Georg Vanberg, Charles E. Smith Jr., and Caldeira, Gregory A. 2009. “Measuring Policy Content on the U.S. Supreme Court.” Journal of Politics 71:1305–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, H. W., Jr. 1991. Deciding to Decide: Agenda Setting in the United States Supreme Court. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rohde, David W., and Spaeth, Harold J. 1976. Supreme Court Decision-Making. San Francisco: Freeman.Google Scholar
Schubert, Glendon. 1965. The Judicial Mind: The Attitudes and Ideologies of Supreme Court Justices, 1946–1963. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A., and Cover, Albert D. 1989. “Ideological Values and the Votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices.” American Political Science Review 83:557–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A., Lee Epstein, Cameron, Charles M. and Spaeth, Harold J. 1995. “Ideological Values and the Votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Revisited.” Journal of Politics 57:812–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A., and Spaeth, Harold J. 1993. The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A. 1996a. “The Influence of Stare Decisis on the Votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices.” American Journal of Political Science 40:971–1003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A. 1996b. “Norms, Dragons, and Stare Decisions.” American Journal of Political Science 40:1064–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A. 2002. The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Songer, Donald R., and Stephanie Lindquist. 1996. “Not the Whole Story: The Impact of Justices’ Values on Supreme Court Decision Making.” American Journal of Political Science 40:1049–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spaeth, Harold J., and Segal, Jeffrey A. 1999. Majority Rule or Minority Will: Adherence to Precedent on the U.S. Supreme Court. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spaeth, Harold J. 2000. “The U.S. Supreme Court Judicial Data Base: Providing New Insights into the Court.” Judicature 83:228–35.Google Scholar
Spriggs, James F., II, and Hansford, Thomas G. 2001. “Explaining the Overruling of U.S. Supreme Court Precedent.” Journal of Politics 63:1091–1111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spriggs, James F. 2002. “The U.S. Supreme Court’s Incorporation and Interpretation of Precedent.” Law and Society Review 36 (1): 139–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tate, C. Neal. 1981. “Personal Attribute Models of the Voting Behavior of U.S. Supreme Court Justices: Liberalism in Civil Liberties and Economic Decisions, 1946–1978.” American Political Science Review 75:355–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ulmer, S. Sidney. 1973. “Social Background as an Indicator to the Votes of Supreme Court Justices in Criminal Cases: 1947–1956 Terms.” American Journal of Political Science 17:622–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
US Supreme Court. 2013. “Rules of the Supreme Court of the United States.” Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, DC. http://www.supremecourt.gov/ctrules/2013RulesoftheCourt.pdf.Google Scholar