Selecting Cases for Supreme Court Review: An Underdog Model

Abstract

In making review decisions, Supreme Court justices are predisposed to support underdogs and upperdogs. disproportionately but, also, are motivated to hide any "bias" that may be at work in determining votes.In balancing these two values, justices may be expected to vote their "bias" more frequently (1) when that vote will determine outcome, and (2) when the "bias" will be harder to detect. The latter goal may be served by voting the "bias" more frequently in close cases and less frequently otherwise.In an analysis of the voting patterns of five justices in the decade 1947–56, I found that two liberal and two conservative justices conformed to these expectations. A fifth, or control justice, defined as neither liberal nor conservative, did not pattern his votes in the manner predicted for liberals and conservatives. This relationship held when four projected intervening variables were controlled individually and collectively.

Keepers of the Covenant or Platonic Guardians? Decision Making on the U.S. Supreme Court

“…Perhaps the most notable factor is policy or issue area. In their studies of case selection and the Court's agenda, Perry (1991), Ulmer (1972Ulmer ( , 1978Ulmer ( , 1984, and Pacelle (1991) argue that justices care more about some issues and decisions in those areas are governed more by their values and attitudes. For other issues, the Court's role at the top of the judicial hierarchy takes precedence.…”

An econometric analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court's certiorari decisions

“…Ulmer's sample contained 645 grants of certiorari from which he randomly selected a 55~ sub-sample for use in a contingency table analysis which supports his hypothesis. Later work by Ulmer et al (1972;1973;1975;1978) using the Burton data also supports his original hypothesis. Baum (1977Baum ( , 1979 analyzed the California Supreme Court and obtained results similar to Ulmer's.…”

Abordagens teóricas na pesquisa empírica sobre o poder judiciário: diálogos, pontes, híbridos

“…Eles se voltam, por exemplo, para a análise das regras de funcionamento das cortes, de outros momentos do processo decisório (ULMER, , 1979aULMER, HINTZE e KIRKLOSKY, 1972), das regras judiciais de acesso aos tribunais (ULMER, 1978), e da pressão exercida por grupos e lideranças dentro da Corte sobre o comportamento dos juízes (DANELSKI, 1960;ULMER, 1963). Tudo para mostrar que o comportamento varia conforme questões outras que não somente os valores políticos particulares dos juízes 10 .…”