Recruitment of Chief Justices on State Supreme Courts: A Choice between Institutional and Personal Goals

Langer, Laura; McMullen, Jody; Ray, Nicholas P.

doi:10.1111/1468-2508.00206

Cited by 26 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…4. Langer et al (2003) contend that the method of recruiting state supreme court chief justices and whether justices make choices based on personal goals or institutional goals largely turns on whether the chief justice controls the assignment of opinions. Although such concerns may affect which justice is elevated to the position of chief justice, under the conception of institutional leadership herein, the method of selection would not affect the expectations of institutional maintenance placed upon whichever individual is named as chief justice.…”

Section: Declaration Of Conflicting Interestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leadership and Election Litigation in State Supreme Courts

Boyea

Farrar-Myers

2011

State and Local Government Review

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Elections in the American states are important mechanisms for legitimizing state governments by facilitating the involvement of citizens in electing political leaders. Elections, however, receive scrutiny through challenges in state courts on issues such as contested elections and the structure and context of election ballots. Capitalizing on attention to the role of leadership in institutional maintenance, the analysis presented examines the effects of leadership and other essential political and legal characteristics on building decision consensus in election cases. An empirical test using 203 election decisions by state supreme courts from 1995 to 1998 illustrates that, among other factors, the authority of leadership facilitates consensus where considered jointly with the resources of courts, the state as a litigant, and internal rules that prioritize seniority.

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Section: Declaration Of Conflicting Interestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leadership and Election Litigation in State Supreme Courts

Boyea

Farrar-Myers

2011

State and Local Government Review

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“…The measure has been used in research appearing in our profession's leading journals (e.g., Hall 2001;Langer et al 2003). …”

Section: Data and Measurement: Capitalizing On Recent Advancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

State Public Opinion, the Death Penalty, and the Practice of Electing Judges

Brace¹,

Boyea²

2008

American J Political Sci

183

140

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Do state supreme courts act impartially or are they swayed by public opinion? Do judicial elections influence judge behavior? To date these questions have received little direct attention due to the absence of comparable public opinion data in states and obstacles to collecting data necessary for comprehensive analysis of state supreme court outcomes. Advances in measurement, data archiving, and methodology now allow for consideration of the link between public opinion and judicial outcomes in the American states. The analysis presented considers public opinion's influence on the composition of courts (indirect effects) and its influence on judge votes in capital punishment cases (direct effects). In elective state supreme courts, public support for capital punishment influences the ideological composition of those courts and judge willingness to uphold death sentences. Notably, public support for capital punishment has no measurable effect on nonelective state supreme courts. On the highly salient issue of the death penalty, mass opinion and the institution of electing judges systematically influence court composition and judge behavior.

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“…Additionally, the chief may be able to assign herself the more important opinions and garner more citations that way (cf. Langer 2003). Also included is the number of years between 1998 and 27 To control for the effects of court control of its docket on quality, we run the regressions with a control variable for the ratio of cases resulting from mandatory appeal to the total number of cases.…”

Section: Judge Controlsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Judges Overpaid?: A Skeptical Response to the Judicial Salary Debate

Choi¹,

Gulati²,

Posner

2009

Journal of Legal Analysis

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The public debate over the need to raise judicial salaries has been one-sided. Sentiment appears to be that judges are underpaid. But neither theory nor evidence provides much support for this view. The primary argument being made in favor of a pay increase is that it will raise the quality of judging. Theory suggests that increasing judicial salaries will improve judicial performance only if judges can be sanctioned for performing inadequately or if the appointments process reliably screens out low-ability candidates. However, federal judges and many state judges cannot be sanctioned, and the reliability of screening processes is open to question. An empirical study of the high court judges of the fifty states provides little evidence that raising salaries would improve judicial performance.

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Recruitment of Chief Justices on State Supreme Courts: A Choice between Institutional and Personal Goals

Cited by 26 publications

References 29 publications

Leadership and Election Litigation in State Supreme Courts

Leadership and Election Litigation in State Supreme Courts

State Public Opinion, the Death Penalty, and the Practice of Electing Judges

Are Judges Overpaid?: A Skeptical Response to the Judicial Salary Debate

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