• Selected
• Entire List

Abstract:
In this article, we examine the proposition that criminal prosecution of sports participants could provide an effective remedy to the problem of sports violence. Section One surveys the widespread violence that has permeated most major sports and explains how sports violence adversely affects the public interest. Section Two considers the viability of criminal prosecutions in sports by discussing foundations that have been laid for sports prosecutions, both in Canada and the US. Finally, section Three analyzes some of the defenses and obstacles that might arise in the prosecution of sports participants.

law, legal, criminal, defense, assault, sports, prosecution, canada, provocation, consent

Abstract:
In this article we assess competing interpretations of the Immigration and Nationalization Act's 'aggravated felony' provisions, specifically the determination of what state drug offenses properly constitute 'aggravated felonies,' thus subjecting non-citizens to deleterious collateral immigration consequences, including deportation. This issue is considered within the broader political and social context of the nation's 'war on drugs' and wide-ranging trends in American immigration policy. We argue that state drug offenses should be analogous to the traditional federal characterizations of a felony (i.e. yielding more than a year of imprisonment) in order to be appropriately considered aggravated felonies. We conclude that interpretations of the aggravated felony provisions that allow offenses falling below this threshold to be considered aggravated felonies are misguided, lead to unwarranted collateral immigration consequences for non-citizens, and fit within a broader pattern of inordinate burden sharing in the war on drugs by historically disempowered groups.

Immigration, crime, criminal, aggravated felony, felony, alien, deportation, drugs, narcotics, prosecution, public policy, law, legal, economic, states, statutory interpretation, constitutional, federalism, war, equity, president, congress, politics, racial, discrimination

Abstract:
Two important perspectives on courts highlight fundamentally different elements of the process of adjudication and yield distinct predictions about judicial outcomes. The Attitudinal Model of judicial voting (AM) posits judge ideology as a strong predictor of court outcomes. Alternatively, the Law and Economics perspective (LE) focuses on the settlement behavior of litigants and reasons that while judges may vote ideologically, litigants adapt to these ideological proclivities, nullifying the effect of judge ideology. This analysis focuses on reconciling expectations about the effects of judge ideology and litigant strategies by examining their contingent nature and the conditioning effects of institutional design. The analysis examines state supreme courts from 1995 through 1998 to identify strong empirical evidence supporting both perspectives. While some state supreme courts have discretionary dockets allowing judges to select cases they want to decide, others lack discretionary control, making outcomes largely litigant driven. The empirical support for each perspective largely hinges on this fundamental feature of institutional design.

state supreme courts, law, economics, ideology, politics, political torts, tort, rational choice, selection society, empirical statistical regression

Abstract:
In the years following the United States Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, the public's support for the judicial system looms as an especially important concern. While studies have confirmed that the Supreme Court's reservoir of public good will has remained largely intact following the politically divisive decision, the status of public support for other American courts has received little attention. This reflects a broader trend in judicial politics scholarship toward placing inordinate attention on explaining public support for the U.S. Supreme Court, while largely ignoring the courts where most of the policy-making in the nation occurs - state courts. We use 2001 survey data from a nationwide sample to assess the factors influencing diffuse citizen support for state courts. We find that many of the considerations affecting diffuse support for state courts parallel the determinants of such support for the nation's high Court. However, we also find important differences between explanations of citizen support for state courts and the Supreme Court.

bush, gore, legitimacy, support, courts, supreme, state, campaign, judicial, politics, economics, empirical, quantitative, regression, public, support, survey, diffuse, opinion

Abstract:
This study uses multivariate regression analysis to assess state-to-state variation in levels of racial incarceration disparity. The results indicate that incarceration disparity is affected by a number of factors including racial disparity in arrest rates and relative economic well being. Further, such disparity appears to be ameliorated by black political mobilization in both conventional and unconventional forms.

Racial, Incarceration, Imprisonment, Legal, States, Disparity, Mobilization, Political

Abstract:
In this study, we build upon the work of Ducat and Dudley's 1989 examination of presidential power and the federal judiciary. Whereas they focused upon presidential fortunes before the federal district courts in cases involving the formal constitutional and statutory powers of the president, we apply a similar model to the voting records of United States Supreme Court Justices in such presidential power cases. Additionally, we offer an extended model of justice voting on presidential power cases that we believe affords a better explanation of the decision-making process. We find that justices' decisions to support the president are conditioned upon presidents' public approval ratings and the justices' ideological inclinations. We also find that presidents receive more voting support in cases involving foreign policy and military affairs than in domestic/nonmilitary cases, thus, lending support to the two presidencies thesis.

President, supreme court, ideology, presidential approval, foreign policy, constitutional

Abstract:
The issue of American litigiousness, especially in the area of tort litigation, has long been a topic of academic debate and political consternation. While some researchers argue over the existence of a 'litigation explosion' or its extent, others seek to understand the root causes of citizen legal mobilization and why governmental entities (states, municipalities, etc.) often have very different experiences concerning citizen legal mobilization and rates of litigation. A number of explanations for variance in state litigation rates have been offered, including political culture, socio-economic dynamics, and legislative intervention (e.g. tort reform), among others. Some of these studies find that litigation and citizens' use of the courts provide an alternative means of political mobilization when more traditional means of political participation may be perceived as less viable. While such studies have provided important insight into citizens' propensity to invoke the state courts to settle disputes, there remain unresolved questions in the literature concerning state litigation rates. In addressing the puzzle of state legal mobilization, existing studies have largely ignored an important theoretical consideration: the institutional structure of state court systems. We draw upon a well-established state politics literature to argue that the structural aspects of state judicial systems, specifically the professionalism of the courts and the method of judicial selection, have important implications for state citizen legal mobilization (litigiousness). We further suggest that the effects of these institutional structural characteristics do not work independently, but are conditioned upon the ideology of the citizenry in which they operate. We consider tort litigation rates in 10 states over 20 years to assess the proposition that these institutional structural characteristics of state court systems affect state citizen legal mobilization, expressed as litigation rates.

tort, posner, priest, selection, litigation, galanter, lawsuits, economic, law, state, courts, trial, regression, lawyers, politics, elections, professionalism

Abstract:
Debate rages over whether Americans have become enormously litigious, but little research considers why Americans file cases in the first place or adequately considers rates of litigation over time. This article examines tort filings in ten representative states over a twenty-year period and analyzes the impact of social, political, policy, and legal system factors that may account for case filings. We find that filing rates vary substantially over time within individual states, which adds to cautions about claims of general litigiousness. Our analysis also demonstrates that social complexity, opportunities for political participation, and social policy are the most important explanations for variations in filing rates. The tendency of Americans to use the courts to resolve disputes is related to the milieu in which they live and how the political system responds to demands for participation and social support.

Tort, litigation, crises, courts, law, lawyers, litigiousness, politics, disputes

Abstract:
In this article we assess the ramifications of the Court's decision in Bush v. Gore for the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Presidency and the Court. In Part I, we briefly explore how the Court came to help determine the outcome of the election, and reflect on several short-term political effects of the decision. In Part II, we examine the political institutions of the Supreme Court and the presidency in light of the Bush v. Gore decision. In Part III, we briefly discuss the theoretical link between institutional legitimacy and effectiveness and examine the impact of Bush v. Gore on public perceptions of institutions' legitimacy. In Part IV, we reconsider the potential consequences of the decision for the Court and the presidency. We conclude that while the decision may have had important short-term effects for both the Court and the President, these institutions' long-term credibility will remain intact.

law, legal, bush, gore, president, court, empirical, survey, election, confirmation, nomination, justices

Abstract:
The Bush Administration will likely have the opportunity to make a number of appointments to the Supreme Court, however such nominations may experience contentious confirmation hearings in the Senate. When such an appointment opportunity does present itself questions are bound to arise concerning the appropriate role of the United States Senate in the confirmation of Supreme Court nominees under the advice and consent provisions of article II of the United States Constitution. Disputes over the Senate's proper role and scope of inquiry have seemed to emerge whenever a nominee has faced the confirmation process, and have been a timeworn subject of legal debate. In this article we assess the proposition that the Senate should have an active role in the confirmation process which includes investigation into a nominee's ideological beliefs and constitutional philosophy. We begin by examining the background of the Constitution's advice and consent phraseology and consider early applications of the confirmation process by senators during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We then discuss the struggle for judicial selection power between the Senate and the President and conclude by suggesting the need for an active Senate response to executive nominations.

Law, legal, Supreme Court, senate, confirmation, nomination, president, founders, advice and consent, Bork, constitution

Abstract:
In assessing how the social forces of public opinion shape U.S. Supreme Court justices’ decision making, scholars have traditionally considered public opinion as somewhat of a monolith. In other words, it has been presumed that there is one, singular public opinion and that it affects the individual justices in largely the same fashion. We suggest that it is more likely the case that justices’ world views are informed and shaped by a myriad of social concerns and group identities upon which these individuals structure and process their experiences and develop and refine their personal schemas.

While some have already begun to question the proposition of a monolithic public opinion influence on judicial behavior and have begun to think carefully about what we term the “micro-publics” that may inform Supreme Court justices’ decision making, the more tangible questions of whether justices respond to publics that are distinguishable from broad-based national public opinion and what those micro-publics might be remains largely unanswered. In this paper we offer useful insights toward addressing this important puzzle in judicial decision making by providing a direct empirical test of the proposition that justices' case voting behavior is influenced by distinct social groups or micro-publics with which they identify.

Our study focuses on the potential influence of localized and personal micro-publics and the possibility of partisan based elite influence on judicial behavior. We test our hypotheses by analyzing Supreme Court justice voting on civil liberties cases from 1977 to 2000 and find encouraging initial support for our theory.

supreme court, social psychology, group identity, regression, statistical, attitudinal, strategic, case, public opinion, greenhouse effect, audiences, justices

Abstract:
Recent findings from the literature on imprisonment policy suggest that in addition to traditional social and economic variables, imprisonment rates are also strongly related to changes in the state political environment. In this study, we extend this literature by testing a theory of state punitiveness which posits that (1) the political environment of states influences the degree to which they incarcerate their citizens, and (2) the political determinants of state punitiveness may be conditional upon the racial sub-population being incarcerated. Our results suggest that increases in state political conservatism in recent decades have contributed to increases in both the growth in black imprisonment rates and black imprisonment disparity (relative to whites), but that these effects are, to a degree, tempered by countervailing political conditions.

Law, legal, courts, economics, political, prison, incarceration, race, racial, state, justice, criminal

Abstract:
Two prominent theories of legal decision making provide seemingly contradictory explanations for judicial outcomes. In political science, the Attitudinal Model suggests that judicial outcomes are driven by judges' sincere policy preferences - judges bring their ideological inclinations to the decision making process and their case outcome choices largely reflect these policy preferences. In contrast, in the law and economics literature, Priest and Klein's well-known Selection Hypothesis posits that court outcomes are largely driven by the litigants' strategic choices in the selection of cases for formal dispute or adjudication - forward thinking litigants settle cases where potential judicial outcomes are readily discernable (e.g. judicial attitudes are known), hence nullifying the impact of judicial ideological preferences on case outcomes. We believe that the strategic case sorting process proposed in the law and economics literature does, in fact, affect the influence of judge ideology or attitudes on judicial outcomes. However, these two perspectives can be effectively wed to provide an integrated model of judicial decision making that accounts for the influences of both the strategic behavior of litigants and the attitudinal preferences of judges. We test this integrated model of decision making on case outcomes in the U.S. Supreme Court and employ an interactive specification to assess the influence of judicial ideology on Supreme Court outcomes while simultaneously accounting for litigants' (and justices) strategic case sorting behavior.

selection hypothesis, litigants, judicial, politics, political, ideology, attitudinal, decision, supreme court, criminal procedure, criminal, regression, empirical, interaction, legal, strategic

Abstract:
This short essay discusses trends and challenges in the study of state courts. It was part of a symposium on this topic at the annual American Political Science Association conference in Boston, MA in September 2008.

states, courts, supreme, trial, intermediate, appellate, policy, politics, statistics, empirical, regression, docket, attitudinal, politics, political, economics, social science, data

Abstract:
Presidency scholars suggest that the federal bureaucracy has become presidentialized and that the federal agencies have become a primary tool for presidential policy implementation. However, in its review of federal agency litigation, the Supreme Court stands as an important monitor of executive bureaucratic action. Here, the conditions under which Supreme Court justices choose to facilitate executive bureaucratic action are assessed. This study evaluates whether Supreme Court justices' voting decisions to support the president's bureaucratic agents are conditioned upon theoretically interesting extra-legal factors. I find that justices' voting decisions on presidential bureaucratic power are influenced by attitudinal, political, and external concerns. I employ the results of this study to suggest potential strategies for the executive in dealing with agency litigation before the Supreme Court.

supreme court, law, legal, bureaucratic, agency, federal, justices, policy, economic

Abstract:
One of the president's main leadership tools for influencing the direction of American legal policy is public rhetoric. Numerous studies have examined the president's use of the "bully pulpit" to lead policy by influencing Congress or public opinion, or by changing the behavior of public agencies. We argue that the president can use rhetoric to change the behavior of public agencies and that this can have important social consequences. We focus on the disproportionate impact of presidential rhetoric on different "target populations" in the context of the War on Drugs. Specifically, we observe that presidential rhetoric had a greater impact on state arrest rates for African Americans than for whites, even when controlling for alternative explanations. These findings suggest that presidential rhetoric is filtered through social constructions of public policy problems when public officials act upon them.

law, implementation, policy, narcotics, enforcement, president, arrests, race, racial, disparity

Abstract:
In this study, we examine agenda setting by the U.S. Supreme Court, and ask the question of why the Court allocates more or less of its valuable agenda space to one policy issue over others. Our study environment is the policy issue composition of the Court's docket: the Court's attention to criminal justice policy issues relative to other issues. We model the Court's allocation of this agenda space as a function of internal organizational demands and external political signals. We find that this agenda responds to the issue priorities of the other branches of the federal government and the public. We also find that the Court's internal ideological balance influences issue prioritization. In contrast, organizational maintenance considerations have no impact on the Court's allocation of its agenda.

law, legal, economic, agenda, supreme court, issue, criminal, political, congress, president

Abstract:
The empirical evidence regarding the implementation and impact of the federal Patient Self-Determination Act is examined in this article. The Act was designed to increase the use of advance mdeical directives in light of the US Supreme Court's Cruzan decision. Research shows that the law has had little effect and that the use of advance directives has scant relation to medical care and treatment. Various policy alternatives for the right to die are also examined. The authors conclude with an analysis of the likely impact of medical costs, fruitless treatment, and rationed health care on limiting life prolonging treatment.

law, legal, act, treatment, euthanasia, right to die, advance directives, Cruzan, rationed care, policy, court

Abstract:
The article addresses problems and concerns related to the upturn of elderly prisoners in recent years. The authors address end-of-life care in prison and the effect of sentencing guidelines on inmate populations among other concerns.

prison, policy, incarceration, elderly, demographics, sentencing guidelines, POPS, end-of-life care

Abstract:
One consequence of the president's use of rhetoric to shape the public agenda, the media, and congressional attention is less recognized: presidential rhetoric shapes the priorities of the administrative agents over whom he seeks managerial control. We present statistical tests of the managerial power of presidential policy signals in the case of the United States Attorneys' implementation of the federal War on Drugs. We find that presidential policy signals shifted the composition of the Attorneys' caseload, although not to the exclusion of other pertinent local, national, and internal factors. Yet, the consequences of presidential rhetoric for executive governance remain real and substantial.

law, legal, economic, political science, bureaucracy, prosecutors, attorneys, war on drugs, policy, rhetoric, president, executive, agenda setting