U.S. Supreme Court Decision Making, Case Salience, and the Attitudinal Model

Unah, Isaac; Hancock, Angie Marie

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9930.2006.00228.x

Cited by 72 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Some scholars have posited that cases differ in their salience to judges and have probed the possible effects of these differences on decision making (Epstein and Segal 2000;Langer 2002;Unah and Hancock 2006;Bartels 2006). But in most research, judges are assumed to bring the same goals to all of their cases and to every part of their work.…”

Section: The Place Of Motivation In the Scholarship On Judicial Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

1 Motivation and Judicial Behavior: Expanding the Scope of Inquiry

Baum¹

2010

The Psychology of Judicial Decision Making

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This chapter analyzes judicial decision making from the perspective of motivation. Students of judicial behavior have focused on judges’ motivations, but their inquiries into motivation could be broader and deeper. The chapter presents four issues on which scholarship in psychology can enhance our understanding of judges’ motivations: the linkage between proximate goals (such as achieving good public policy) and more fundamental motivations, the energizing dimension of motivation (the level of effort devoted to a task), variation in motivation across judges and situations, and the relationship between motivation and cognition. The chapter concludes by considering the implications of its inquiry into motivation for the key questions in the study of judicial behavior, including the relative importance of legal and policy considerations in judges’ decision making and the extent to which judges behave strategically.

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Section: The Place Of Motivation In the Scholarship On Judicial Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

1 Motivation and Judicial Behavior: Expanding the Scope of Inquiry

Baum¹

2010

The Psychology of Judicial Decision Making

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“…Within the field of judicial politics, several studies suggest that a justice's attitudes operate particularly strongly in cases that are salient to that justice (Bartels 2005;Segal 1986: 939;Spaeth and Segal 1999: 309-311;Unah and Hancock 2003). Cases that are salient to a justice stand out on the Court's docket and are thus accorded a disproportionate amount of attention by that justice.…”

Section: The Justicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cases that are salient to a justice stand out on the Court's docket and are thus accorded a disproportionate amount of attention by that justice. This results in that justice asking more questions during oral argument, pressing for greater clarity on issues (Unah and Hancock 2003; see also Epstein and Knight 1998: 74;Schubert, Peterson, Schubert, and Wasby 1992). In short, when a justice attaches personal importance to an issue, the expectation is that he or she will become more cognitively engaged in that issue, leading to more stable voting behavior.…”

Section: The Justicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Consistency of Judicial Choice

Collins

2008

The Journal of Politics

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Despite the fact that judicial scholars 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 uncovers influences on the consistency of judicial choice which are then subjected to empirical validation. I show that the stability of judicial decision making is affected by attitudinal and strategic factors, as well as the Court's informational environment.

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“…Slotnick and Segal (1998) confirm many of these findings, but add that cases that draw more amicus curiae briefs, cases decided in June, and cases that are decided on a day with relatively few competing cases are more likely to receive coverage on television news. 5 Sill and colleagues (2013) and Unah and Hancock (2006) also find that liberal decisions are more likely to be reported on the front page of the New York Times than conservative decisions. This finding is particularly important as it seems to reinforce accusations of media bias, but we have no indication whether this finding applies to the front-page of one paper, or more broadly to print media coverage of the Court.…”

Section: Explaining Media Coverage Of Supreme Court Casesmentioning

confidence: 87%

Making the Cases “Real”: Newspaper Coverage of U.S. Supreme Court Cases 1953–2004

Collins

Cooper²

2015

Political Communication

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Which U.S. Supreme Court cases are deemed newsworthy enough to appear on the front page of a major newspaper? Which are covered, but do not appear on the front page, and which are not covered at all? We answer these questions using a unique data set of newspaper coverage of Supreme Court cases in four newspapers from 1953 to 2004-a data set spanning more than 6,200 observations, 25 natural courts, and the tenure of three Chief Justices. We find that the overall proportion of Supreme Court cases covered has declined over this period (from a peak of nearly 100%), although the proportion of cases on the front page has remained more constant. The results of a selection model also suggest that, in the aggregate, coverage patterns on the front page are explained by established norms of newsworthiness, but coverage elsewhere in the paper often follows different criteria. When examining different newspapers in isolation, we also find that individual papers do vary, to a limited degree, in their selection of newsworthy cases. These results are important for those concerned about citizen information about politics, the relationship between the courts and the public, and media gatekeeping.

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U.S. Supreme Court Decision Making, Case Salience, and the Attitudinal Model

Cited by 72 publications

References 33 publications

1 Motivation and Judicial Behavior: Expanding the Scope of Inquiry

1 Motivation and Judicial Behavior: Expanding the Scope of Inquiry

The Consistency of Judicial Choice

Making the Cases “Real”: Newspaper Coverage of U.S. Supreme Court Cases 1953–2004

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