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Law, Politics, and Judicial Decision Making: Lower Federal Court Uses of Supreme Court Decisions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Charles A. Johnson
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Abstract

Lower federal courts are crucial to the interpretation and implementation of Supreme Court decisions. Research demonstrates considerable variation in their responses to these decisions. Explanations of these responses are not well developed, and few efforts test competing hypotheses. My research tests the hypotheses derived from two models of lower court behavior—a legal model and a political model. The analysis demonstrates that the legal model accounts for more variation in the use of Supreme Court decisions by lower federal courts.

Type
Research Notes
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , 1987 , pp. 325 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 The Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

This paper is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant SES-8011040, “Analytic Techniques for Judicial Decision Research.” Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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