The Business of State Supreme Courts, 1870-1970

Exploring the Participation of Organized Interests in State Court Litigation

“…I chose these for the same reasons they offer4 and the additional one that I would benefit from the insights (and the data) generated by their research. Second, my study-like Kagan et al' (1977)-limits itself to state courts of last resort. There is no theoretical reason to believe that the 4 Collecting data for all fifty states is an arduous and, perhaps, unnecessary task, as Kagan et al (1977) and so many other scholars have demonstrated (e.g., Tarr and Porter 1988).…”

“…Second, my study-like Kagan et al' (1977)-limits itself to state courts of last resort. There is no theoretical reason to believe that the 4 Collecting data for all fifty states is an arduous and, perhaps, unnecessary task, as Kagan et al (1977) and so many other scholars have demonstrated (e.g., Tarr and Porter 1988). That is because it is possible to draw a representative sample of state courts and reach generalizable conclusions based on that sample.…”

“…That is because it is possible to draw a representative sample of state courts and reach generalizable conclusions based on that sample. In seeking to select a representative sample of the states, Kagan et al (1977), for example, aggregated the forty-eight states (excluding Hawaii and Alaska) into five clusters (plain states, urban industrialized states, southern states, rocky mountain states and a "geographical mix of states that shared certain socioeconomic characteristics"). Those groupings were based on "population, industrialization, urbanization, per capita income," racial composition, and legislative innovativeness (see Meeker 1986: 19-20).…”

“…Idaho, for instance, evinces rather erratic patterns, with the total number of amicus cases failing to reach 10 for any given year; Tennessee's numbers are consistently low over the 25-year period.Differences among the states are even more vivid if we consider the proportion of full opinion cases containing at least one amicus curiae brief. Not surprisingly, asTable 3indicates, quite a bit of variation exists; the 1990proportions, for example, had a mean of .13, with a range of .54 and a standard deviation of .15.16 Thus, while amicus curiae participation-however measured-is on the rise, differences among the states are evident.PROPORTION OF FULL OPINION CASES WITH ONE OR MOREAMIcusCURIAE BRIEFS, 1965-1990 Year Mean Proportion of full opinion cases Range Standard with at least one amicus curiae brief Deviation Note: The proportion = n of cases containing one or more amicus curiae brief total n of cases decided with a signed opinion of the court Sources: Data for the denominator come from three sources: author correspondence with adminstrators of the various state courts, annual reports of the National Center for State Courts, andKagan et al 1977.…”

Federalism and Legal Process: Historical and Contemporary Analysis of the American System

“…A "macro" view of the state supreme courts is offered by Kagan andothers (1977, 1978) in studies of institutional structure, caseload, and subject-matter distribution. Examining how the courts functioned in this area and with what effects, and how this related to the work of the legislature and to major economic interests, Friedman provided a series of "deep probes" for three different periods of time.…”