Paul M. Collins

Friends of the Supreme Court : interest groups and judicial decision making

Author Biography Dedication Acknowledgements I. Introduction II. Interest Group Litigation III. Amicus Curiae Participation in the Supreme Court IV. Amici Curiae and Judicial Decision Making V. Amici Curiae and the Consistency of Judicial Decision Making VI. Amici Curiae and Dissensus on the Supreme Court VII. Conclusions and Implications Appendix: Data and Data Reliability References Table of Cases Index

Lobbyists before the U.S. Supreme Court Investigating the Influence of Amicus Curiae Briefs

Despite the fact that amicus curiae participation is the most common method of interest group activity in the judicial arena, there is little consensus as to whether this means of participation influences the decision making of the U.S. Supreme Court. To redress this state of affairs, this research investigates the affect of amicus briefs on the ideological direction of the Courts decisions, with particular attention given to theoretical and methodological issues that have gone unexplored in previous studies. Analyzing group influence during the 1946 to 1995 terms, the results provide particularly robust evidence that pressure groups are effective in shaping the Courts policy outputs. These findings therefore indicate that elite decision makers can be influenced by persuasive argumentation presented by organized interests.

Lower Court Influence on U.S. Supreme Court Opinion Content

Despite the importance of Supreme Court opinions for the American polity, scholars have dedicated little systematic research to investigating the factors that contribute to the content of the justices’ opinions. In this article, we examine the ability of lower federal courts to shape the content of Supreme Court opinions. We argue that lower court opinions will influence the content of the Court’s opinions to the extent that the justices perceive that integrating language from lower court opinions will aid them in making efficacious law and policy. Utilizing plagiarism detection software to compare lower federal court opinions with the majority opinions of the Supreme Court during the 2002–2004 terms, we uncover evidence that the Court systematically incorporates language from the lower federal courts into its majority opinions.

The Consistency of Judicial Choice

Despite the fact that scholars of judicial politics have developed reasonably well-specified models of the voting behavior of U.S. Supreme Court justices, little attention has been paid to influences on the consistency of the choices justices make. Aside from the methodological problems associated with failure to account for heteroskedasticity with regard to the justices’ voting behavior, I argue that variance in judicial choice is also of theoretical import. Simply put, by uncovering influences on the stability of judicial choice, a more complete understanding of judicial decision making is provided. I explore this possibility by developing a theoretical framework that identifies influences on the consistency of judicial choice, which are then subjected to empirical testing. I show that the stability of judicial decision making is affected by attitudinal and strategic factors, as well as the Courts informational environment. The result is a more fully integrated model of Supreme Court decision making.

The Solicitor General's Amicus Curiae Strategies in the Supreme Court:

Scholars have devoted a great deal of research to investigating the role and influence of the U.S. solicitor general (SG) as amicus curiae in the Supreme Court. Yet, we know little about the SGs decision to file an amicus brief and how this relates to the SGs success on the merits. We fill this void by examining legal, political, and administrative factors that affect the SGs decision to participate as amicus curiae. We subject our hypotheses to empirical testing using data on the 1953 to 1999 Supreme Court terms by linking the SGs decision to file an amicus brief to the SGs ultimate success on the merits, employing a Heckman-style selection model. We find that the SGs decision to file an amicus brief is influenced by legal, political, and administrative considerations, suggesting that the SG is best viewed through the incorporation of a variety of theoretical perspectives.

The Small Group Context: Designated District Court Judges in the U.S. Courts of Appeals

Decision making in the U.S. courts of appeals occurs primarily in three-judge panels. A substantial number of cases are decided by panels that include a judge who is a district court judge serving temporarily on the appeals bench. This means that court of appeals decision making is often a function of small groups with temporary members. Here, we examine whether designated district court judges behave differently than their court of appeals colleagues when they cast their votes in cases they are deciding as members of three-judge appellate panels. In doing so, we suggest a profitable direction for theory building vis-a-vis judicial decision making. Our analysis of the ideological direction of the votes judges cast, as well as the variance in those votes, indicates that judges on three-judge panels are influenced by the preferences of their fellow panelists, and that designated district court judges, while no more variable than their court of appeals colleagues, are more susceptible to the influence of their peers than are regular members of the courts of appeals in a nontrivial number of cases.

Counteractive Lobbying in the U.S. Supreme Court

Theories of counteractive lobbying assert that interest groups lobby for the purpose of neutralizing the advocacy efforts of their opponents. We examine the applicability of counteractive lobbying to explain interest group amicus curiae participation in the U.S. Supreme Courts decisions on the merits. Testing the counteractive lobbying hypotheses from 1953 to 2001, we provide strong support for the contention that interest groups engage in counteractive lobbying in the nations highest court. Our findings indicate that, like the elected branches of government, the Supreme Court is properly viewed as a battleground for public policy in which organized interests clash in their attempts to etch their policy preferences into law.

ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PUBLIC OPINION AND DECISION MAKING IN THE U.S. COURTS OF APPEALS

The authors explore whether the federal courts act as countermajoritarian institutions by investigating the influence of public mood on decision making in the U.S. Courts of Appeals from 1961 to 2002. The results indicate that public opinion affects courts of appeals decision making indirectly through judicial replacements and institutional constrains from Congress, but the authors fail to uncover evidence that courts of appeals judges respond directly to changes in public opinion. They conclude that, absent membership turnover in the circuit or in Congress, the courts of appeals are not responsive to the will of the public.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE ON THE U.S. SUPREME COURT

This research examines the applicability of cognitive dissonance theory to explain a judge’s decision to author or join a separate opinion. The author proposes that, when a judge casts a counterattitudinal vote, that judge will endeavor to reduce the aversive consequences of being viewed as an inconsistent decision maker by justifying his or her attitudinally incongruent vote choice to the public in a separate opinion. The author tests this possibility by examining U.S. Supreme Court justices’ decisions to author or join concurring and dissenting opinions during the 1946 to 2001 terms. The empirical results provide qualified support for the use of separate opinions as dissonance reduction mechanisms, suggesting that dissonance theory both is applicable to the actions of elite decision makers and enjoys validity outside of a laboratory setting.

Judges and Friends The Influence of Amici Curiae on U.S. Court of Appeals Judges

We contribute to the literature on political psychology, interest groups, and judicial decision making by examining whether ideology mediates the effect of amicus curiae briefs on decision making in the U.S. courts of appeals. Using an original data set, we find evidence that moderate and conservative judges are influenced by amicus briefs, but that liberal judges do not respond to these persuasion attempts. We conclude that this form of interest group lobbying influences judicial decision making by at least some judges and that understanding the efficacy of this interest group strategy requires an appreciation of how political actors process persuasive information.