Individual justices and the solicitor general: The amicus curiae cases, 1953-2000

Judicature

Volumn 89, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 68-77

  Deen, Rebecca E ^a   Ignagni, Joseph ^a   Meernik, James ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 28044436505     PISSN: 00225800     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (43)

1. See, e.g., Bond and Fleisher, THE PRESIDENT IN THE LEGISLATIVE ARKNA (Chicago: University of (Chicago Press, 1990);
2. Edwards, Presidential Influence in Congress: If We Ask the Wrong Questions, We Get the Wrong Answers, 35 AM. J. POL. SCI. 724-737 (1991);
3. Sullivan, The Bank Account Presidency, 35 AM. J. POL. SCI. 686-723 (1991).
4. Eskridge, Reneging on History? Playing the Court/Congress/President Civil Rights Game, 79 CAL. L. REV. 613-684 (1991);
5. Meernik and Ignagni, Judicial Review and Coordinate Construction of the Constitution, 41 AM. J. POL. SCI. 447-467 (1997);
6. Vanberg, Legislative-Judicial Relations: A Game-Theoretic. Approach to Constitutional Review, 45 AM. J. POL. SCI. 346-361 (2001).
7. But see Segal and Reedy, The Supreme Court and Sex Discrimination: The Role of the Solicitor General, 41 W. POL. Q. 553-568 (1988).
8. Segal, Amics Curiae Briefs by the Solicitor General During the Warren and Buger Courts, 41 W. POL. Q. 136 (1988).
9. See, e.g., Meinhold and Shull, Policy Congruence. Between the President and the Solicitor General 51 POL. RES. Q. 527-537 (1998);
10. Puro, The United States as Amicus Curiae, in Ulmer, ed., COURTS, LAW AND THE JUDICIAL PROCESS (New York; Free Press, 1981);
11. Salokar, THE SOLICITOR GENERAL: THE POLITICS OF LAW (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992);
12. Scigliano, THE SUPREME COURT AND THE PRESIDENCY (New York: Free Press, 1971);
13. Segal, supra n. 3.
14. Pacelle, BETWEEN LAW & POLITICS: THE SOLICITOR GENERAL AND THE STRUCTURING OF RACE, GENDER AND THE REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS LITIGATION 23 (College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press, 2003).
15. Yates, POPULAR JUSTICE: PRESIDENTIAL PRESTIGE AND EXECUTIVE SUCCESS IN THE SUPREME COURT 99 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002).
16. Abraham, THE JUDICIAL PROCESS, 7th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
17. Deen, Ignagni and Meernik, The solicitor general as amicus, 1953-2000: How influential? 87 JUDICATURE 60 (2003).
18. Yates, supra n. 6, at 96.
19. Deen, Ignagni, and Meernik. supra n. 8.
20. Caplan, THE TENTH JUSTICE: THE SOLICITOR GENERAL AND THE RULE OF LAW (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987);
21. Scigliano, supra n. 4;
22. Werdegar, The Solicitor General and Administrative Due Process, 36 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 481-514 (1967).
23. Baum, THE SUPREME COURT (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1998);
24. Caldeira and Wright, Organized Interests and Agenda Setting in the Supreme Court, 82 AM. POL. SCI. REV. 1109-1127 (1988);
25. Salokar, supra n. 4;
26. Scigliano, supra n. 4;
27. Segal, supra n. 3.;
28. Wasby, THE SUPREME COURT IN THE FEDERAL JUDICIAL SYSTEM (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984).
29. McGuire, Explaining Executive Success in the U.S. Supreme Court, 51 POL. RES. Q. 505-526 (1998);
30. Deen, Ignagni, and Meernik, supra n. 8.
31. Segal and Spaeth, THE SUPREME COURT AND THE ATTITUDINAL MODEL 65 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
32. See, e.g., Brace and Hall, Integrated Models of Judicial Dissent, 55 J. POL. 914-945 (1993);
33. Clayton and Gillman, eds., SUPREME COURT DECISION MAKING: NEW INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVES (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999);
34. Knight and Epstein, THE CHOICES JUSTICES MAKE (Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1998).
35. In all of the cases, multiple coders recorded the presence and direction of solicitor general amicus involvement, as indicated by the U.S. Reports. In 50 instances, the U.S. Reports were unclear about the position taken by the solicitor general; these cases were excluded from our analysis.
36. This was done because we were attempting to study trends or success rates when the executive branch chose to make its policy positions known to the Supreme Court. It was possible that there would be a difference in the behavior of the solicitor general when he was asked or felt forced to respond to the Supreme Court (or that the justices acted differently in such circumstances). It turned out that such invitations were quite uncommon (6 instances), and our review of these cases found nothing significant about them. However, consistent with previous research in this field, we did not investigate whether the solicitor general was invited to submit a brief at the certiorari stage. It is a reasonable concern that an invitation at an earlier point in the process might affect later decisions. We contacted a number of sources (including officials at the solicitor general's office and the U.S. Supreme Court), who indicated that invitations to submit briefs are more common at the certiorari stage than at the merits; however, there is no connection between them. Following earlier work and these professional sources, we thus treated these two types of invitations as separate phenomena. It is our hope that the question of the influence of these earlier invitations will be studied more thoroughly in future research.
37. U.S. Supreme Court Database, Harold Spaeth, principal investigator. These include full decisions, per curium, and memoranda decisions.
38. Deen, Ignagni and Meernik, supra n. 8.
39. Spaeth, SUPREME COURT POLICY MAKING (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1979);
40. Segal and Cover, Ideological Values and the Votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices 83 AM. POL. SCI. REV. 557 (1989);
41. Segal, Epstein, Cameron and Spaeth, Ideological Values and the Votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Revisited 57 J. POL 812-23 (1995).
42. Spaeth, supra n. 20.
43. Pacelle, THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE SUPREME COURT'S AGENDA (Boulder: Westview, 1991).