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

When the U.S. Supreme Court renders a decision, the Court’s opinion becomes a binding precedent. Moreover, Supreme Court opinions serve as the foundation for the language attorneys utilize in their litigation efforts. Given the significance of Supreme Court opinions, it is surprising that scholars have dedicated little systematic research to investigating the factors that contribute to the content of the Court’s opinions. In this paper, we examine whether, and under what conditions, lower courts influence the content of Supreme Court opinions. We argue that lower court opinions will influence the content of the Supreme Court’s opinions based on a number of factors, including the ideological proximity of the lower court to the Supreme Court opinion author, the prestige of the lower court opinion author, and the Supreme Court’s treatment of the lower court’s disposition of the case. We use plagiarism software to compare lower court opinions with the majority opinions of the Supreme Court during the 2002-2004 terms in an effort to connect the language of lower court opinions to the language of Supreme Court opinions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]