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Understanding Judicial Power

Divided Government, Institutional Thickness, and High-Court Influence on State Incarceration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Matthew E. K. Hall  and
Jason Harold Windett
Matthew E. K. Hall*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
Jason Harold Windett
Affiliation:
Saint Louis University
*
Contact the corresponding author, Matthew Hall, at matt.hall@nd.edu.
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Abstract

High courts are widely believed to influence the criminal justice system, yet judicial impact varies widely across political and institutional contexts. Here, we seek to identify the factors that constrain judicial influence on state incarceration rates. We find that the preferences of justices on state courts of last resort and the US Supreme Court influence incarceration; however, high-court impact is conditional on two factors. Judicial influence is stronger in states with divided partisan governments and occurs more quickly in states that lack intermediate appellate courts. Our findings suggest that legislative gridlock and institutional thickness significantly constrain judicial impact.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , Spring 2015 , pp. 167 - 191
Copyright
© 2015 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

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Footnotes

Thanks to Nathan Kelly, Geoffrey Layman, Wendy Martinek, and Christopher Witko for their thoughtful and insightful comments. Supporting information and replication data are available at https://sites.google.com/site/matthewhallphd/.

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