Drew Noble Lanier

Explaining Judicial Diversity: The Differential Ability of Women and Minorities to Attain Seats on State Supreme and Appellate Courts

Representation in political institutions, including the judiciary, is an important consideration for both political scientists and citizens. What factors systematically influence diversity among judges? In particular, does the method of selection affect the relative success of political minorities in attaining a seat on the bench? The answers to these questions have substantial normative and theoretical implications. We examine judges on all state supreme and intermediate appellate courts in 1985 and 1999 to assess the influence of various structural, political, and demographic factors on judicial diversity. We demonstrate that the ability of political minorities to attain a place in the judiciary is not solely a function of any single factor. Instead, their success is influenced by a multifaceted combination of factors contingent on time and the level of the court, and these influences differ for women and for minorities.

Acclimation effects for Supreme Court Justices: A cross-validation, 1888-1940

Theory: As they learn a new role, Justices experience an initial period of adjustment to the Supreme Court, which creates voting instability. Hypothesis: Justices during the time 1888-1940 are more likely to experience acclimation effects than those in the modem era. Those with judicial experience, however, may not experience such shifts. Methods: Difference of means tests are employed to consider the differences in voting behavior between the first two years of a justices tenure on the Court and the remaining years. Results: Twenty-five freshman justices from 1888-1940 experienced a weaker acclimation effect than those in the modern era. Those who lacked judicial experience were particularly prone to experience acclimation effects, especially in judicial power cases.

Diversity in State and Federal Appellate Courts: Change and Continuity Across 20 Years

We examine the levels of racial, ethnic, and gender diversity and use of selection systems in state and federal appellate courts in the United States for the year 2005 and compare them with our earlier findings for a twenty-year period. We observe no recent increases in the number of state courts employing the merit system of selection, and other systems also remain stable, as continuity currently defines the types of selection systems used in the states. However, we find an increasing number and percentage of state and federal appellate judges who are women and members of racial and ethnic minorities, with change being the order of the day for these nontraditional judges joining the bench. Finally, we show that particular methods of selection are unrelated to rates of judicial diversity. Specifically, we find that the merit system, once derided by some as disfavoring nontraditional judges, continues to have no apparent association with diversity. While there are myriad rationales for state policy makers to choose one particular selection method over any other, our findings affirm, once again, that associated levels of diversity need not be included in that decision.

Dissensual Decision Making Revisiting the Demise of Consensual Norms within the U.S. Supreme Court

This analysis seeks to understand the decline of Supreme Court consensual norms often attributed to the failed leadership of Chief Justice Stone. A new unit of analysis—justice-level dissent and concurrence rates—supports an alternative view of observed increases in dissensual decision making. When these measures are estimated with time-series techniques, results offer evidence of multiple changepoints in this norm of the Court that both lead and lag Stone’s elevation. Broader contextual explanations related to the alteration of the Court’s discretionary issue agenda and its ideological and demographic composition also contribute to fractures in the once-unanimous voting coalitions.

The Supreme Court, 1888-1940: An Empirical Overview

Studies of decision making on the modern Supreme Court have drawn on readily available empirical data to explore the details of how the Court conducts its business (Segal and Spaeth 1993; Spaeth 1995). Sadly, however, such empirical studies have not been plentiful for periods of the Court’s history before the appointment of Chief Justice Earl Warren. Some discussion has occurred dating from the chief justiceship of William Howard Taft beginning in 1910, but these studies have limited scope (Bowen and Scheb 1993; Leavitt 1970; Pritchett 1948; Renstrom 1972; Slotnick 1979; Tate and Handberg 1991). The result is a plethora of studies concerning the modern Court and a dearth of systematic information on earlier Courts (Aliotta 1988; Brenner and Spaeth 1995; Epstein and Kobylka 1992; George and Epstein 1992; Handberg 1976; Schubert 1965, 1974; Segal 1984; Tate 1981; Ulmer 1970). The picture we do have concerning earlier Courts is largely drawn from biographical or doctrinal studies. While both of these enterprises are immensely useful, they lack the systematic quality of an empirical analysis that considers all cases (not just the important ones) and all justices (not just the intellectual or social leaders). We seek to create an empirical context out of which those outstanding justices and decisions arose. Our study allows confirmation of findings of previous studies of individuals and doctrine and provides a more complete picture of the Court during a tumultuous time in its history.

Elder criminal victimization: Its relative rate compared to non-elders, 1992–2005

Abstract The literature is replete with the finding that persons who are relatively younger have a comparably higher incidence of crime victimization than those who are older. Comparable systematic studies of the crime rates among those who are 65 and older with those who are younger across time are virtually nonexistent. The present study provides these analyses. Data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) by month and year were used to study the relative victimization rate among elders in the United States. The results provide descriptive evidence over time, using a national sample, that crime against older adults is notably lower than that committed against younger cohorts and that there are significant differences in the relative rate of property and personal crimes for both subpopulations. These findings are consistent for each of the 168 months of the studys period of analysis and confirm similar findings based on other databases.