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American trial court judges’ roles and behavior vary greatly from their appellate court brethren. One such area of difference has to do with opinion writing behavior, an area where trial judges hold a great deal of discretion in determining whether to write an opinion and, if they do, how long the opinion should be. To examine what factors determine opinion writing behavior among district court judges, this study relies on analyses of an original dataset of civil cases that terminated in eighteen federal district courts from 2000 to 2006. The results indicate that legal, hierarchical, and institutional features are critical in motivating opinion writing and opinion length and that personal factors have very limited effects. The fruits of this exercise have important implications for how we view and model the behavior of trial court judges in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Judicial deference to administrative agencies is often viewed as a dichotomous choice between full deference and no deference, ignoring considerations of institutional and political context. I argue that a court's decision on whether to defer to an administrative agency is more complex and is conditional on the political salience of the substantive issue in the case. I test this theory in the context of the U.S. Courts of Appeals using a sample of cases decided between 1961 and 2002. The results show that when dealing with non-salient cases, the level of deference to agencies is static, but in salient cases the level of deference is strongly related to the ideological congruence between the court and the agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We seek to understand the Supreme Court's "Grant, Vacate, and Remand" (GVR) dispositions and the reaction to those dispositions by the U.S. Court of Appeals. Drawing on data from four Court terms, we trace the reaction of the lower courts to GVR orders, culling information about the meaning of the GVR to those lower courts from their responses and from our interviews with several unnamed circuit court judges. We then code the lower-court decisions to systematically detail how circuit courts react to GVRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our analysis of federal district court decisions in USA PATRIOT Act cases after September 11 shows that while district courts exhibit great deference to the executive during times of war, especially in terrorism threat and immigration cases, they are not inclined to protect civil rights and liberties during times of domestic or international conflict. While judicial ideology does not influence case outcomes, the presence of a civil-libertarian interest group decreases the chance of a deferential decision, and a more conservative Senate and president increases the chance of judicial deference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research uses amicus curiae participation as a measure of case salience to investigate the effects of case salience on dissenting votes at the Texas Supreme Court. These decisions are analyzed within the context of a partisan electoral system to see how interest-group participation influences the willingness of state judges to dissent. I constructed an original data set of Texas Supreme Court decisions from 1990-2009 to address this question. The results show that amicus participation is a significant predictor of dissent, but the relationship depends on whether the judge is a freshman or a veteran judge. While interest groups are able to influence new members on the court through amicus briefs, veteran judges are mostly unaffected. Overall, the findings suggest that case salience increases dissensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent judicial decisions and political developments have elevated the issue of impartiality among elected judges as a topic of public and scholarly interest. Using a data set of all donations to candidates for the Supreme Court of Alabama from 1994 through 2010, we explore one potential proposal for limiting the appearance of judicial bias and its effects on the behavior of campaign donors--per se recusal. Our results indicate that the existence of a per se recusal statute significantly decreases the likelihood of observing large donations from several categories of donors. In auxiliary analysis, we find that attorney donors have increasingly funneled contributions through PACs since this statute's enactment--presumably, because such contributions are exempted from the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration is an increasingly important area of decision making for federal judges. The recent increase in appeals of immigration cases to the courts of appeals raises the question whether judges deciding these cases behave in ways consistent with the extant attitudinal literature or if other factors, such as case characteristics and institutional concerns, weigh more heavily on the decision making of judges. It is possible, for example, that the country of origin for the alien, or the panel on which a judge serves, also influences decision making. Using an original data set of immigration cases drawn from the Third, Fifth, and Ninth circuits, this article presents models that examine whether and how ideology influences the decision making of courts of appeals judges in immigration-removal cases, given other case and institutional factors that might temper the effects of ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Congress passes statutes defining particular areas of the law, but the Supreme Court can interpret those statutes. This tension over the meaning of the rule of law has profound implications for democratic theory and the separation of powers. Though scholars have examined whether the Supreme Court issues decisions against the preferences of Congress, there has been little focus on whether legislators can constrain the Court. Our study examines how much discretion Congress provides in statutes it enacts into law. Our basic argument is that ideological decision making by Supreme Court justices depends upon the level of discretion Congress incorporates into the law. The greater the discretion, the less constraint federal judges and justices will encounter, making them more likely to vote according to their individual ideologies. Conversely, more detailed statutes will reduce the judges' discretion. Using data on 1953-96 Supreme Court decisions, our analysis supports this model of contingent discretion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, application of the United States Sentencing Guidelines among district court judges adjudicating substantially similar drug cases is compared. When district court judges use the Guidelines, either applying ranges from the sentencing table or explicitly departing from them, average sentences and sentence variation among the circuits analyzed are very similar. However, rates of departure from the Guidelines by district court judges in some circuits vary significantly. Further, district court judges in the circuits analyzed reacted differently than judges nationwide to three significant legal events: the PROTECT Act (2003) (limiting judicial discretion), Blakely v. Washington (2004), and United States v. Booker (2005) (expanding judicial discretion). This analysis suggests that long-existing federal Sentencing Guideline schemes, whether mandatory or advisory, reduce disparities in sentences when judges apply the Guideline ranges, but not disparities associated with the choice of whether to apply those ranges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chief justice of California is empowered to select a pro tempore justice when one or more of the court's regular justices are absent. Chief Justice Rose Bird was accused of using this power to manipulate case outcomes. Contemporary scholarly investigations came to mixed conclusions. Bird's successors have adopted the nondiscretionary method of alphabetical selection. The present study compares the agreement rates of temporary justices with Bird and with her two immediate successors, Malcolm Lucas and Ronald George. It finds evidence of vote bias for Bird, particularly in close cases and cases before April 1981. It does not find evidence of vote bias for Chief Justices Lucas or George, suggesting that a nondiscretionary selection procedure should be formally required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including U.S. Congress's impact on U.S. Supreme Court decisions, ideological discretion of judges, and litigant behavior in the Supreme Court.