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The Complexities of State Court Compliance with U.S. Supreme Court Precedent

Authors :
Justin T. Kingsland
Michael P. Fix
Matthew D. Montgomery
Source :
Justice System Journal. 38:149-163
Publication Year :
2017
Publisher :
Informa UK Limited, 2017.

Abstract

The United States Supreme Court has significant influence over the development of legal policy, yet it must rely on external actors to bring to fruition the desired effect of its decisions. Among the most important such actors are state high courts who are often motivated to issue decisions promoting policies at odds with the U.S. Supreme Court and who have mechanisms to legitimize such decisions. This study builds on existing work on state court compliance with U.S. Supreme Court precedent by introducing a new theoretical framework that accounts for the impact of state-specific precedent vitality, or the degree to which the high court of a specific state has positively treated a U.S. Supreme Court precedent, on state high court compliance. Our analysis of state high court treatment of Miller v. California provides strong evidence for the importance of state-specific vitality as a determinant of state high court compliance.

Details

ISSN :
23277556 and 0098261X
Volume :
38
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Justice System Journal
Accession number :
edsair.doi...........c2096048d2505832e2458f1390006c07
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261x.2016.1274245