Interventions and Power in Judicial Hierarchies: Appellate Courts in England and the United States

Haves and Have-Nots before the Law Lords

“…Generally, only a minority of appeals in the Court of Appeal or the Lords succeed (Atkins, 1990). It is not clear why this is so.While the discretion exercised by the Law Lords in selecting cases is not as great as the discretion exercised in the US Supreme Court, Burton Atkins (1990) nonetheless predicted similar rates of reversal between the two courts, a prediction proven wrong. Consequently, I expect lower rates of success for appellants compared to respondents (H6).…”

“…The first concerns the likelihood of success by appellants as opposed to respondents. Generally, only a minority of appeals in the Court of Appeal or the Lords succeed (Atkins, 1990). It is not clear why this is so.…”

Understanding Judicial Hierarchy: Reversals and the Behavior of Intermediate Appellate Judges

“…In most common-law systems, the judiciary has operated at the outer perimeter of the political process, so questions about the political impact of decisions are relatively new (Epp 1998;McCormick 2000;Pierce 2002), and study of intermediate appellate courts lags behind those works. Atkins (1990), in his study of the reversal rates of the Court of Appeal in Britain and the U.S. courts of appeals, argues that one might expect the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse more lower court decisions (reverse a greater percentage of the cases they review) than do the Law Lords. Some of the reasons for this expectation are systemic: the centralization of the English courts, their status relative to Parliament, and the relative homogeneity of the judiciary all serve to limit the amount of conflict between the two levels relative to what would be expected in the American federal judiciary.…”

“…Some of the reasons for this expectation are systemic: the centralization of the English courts, their status relative to Parliament, and the relative homogeneity of the judiciary all serve to limit the amount of conflict between the two levels relative to what would be expected in the American federal judiciary. But cases that filter up from trial courts to the Court of Appeal are more likely to present novel issues (issues that present an unsettled question of law) than those that move up from the U.S. district courts, so one might expect closer supervision of the Court of Appeal than of decisions made by the U.S. courts of appeals (Atkins 1990).…”

“…Particularly in systems where review by the second-level appellate court is discretionary, higher courts reverse lower courts in pursuit of making broader policy statements, so the process takes on added importance. Work that assesses decisions by high courts to grant leave to appeal (Atkins 1990;Caldeira et al 1999;Cameron et al 2000;Flemming 2004;Flemming & Krutz 2002;Perry 1991;Provine 1980) offers important insight into how second-level courts select their cases. But the factors that determine courts' decisions to review each case may not offer a complete pic-ture of the relationship between first-and second-level appellate courts.…”