Beyond accountability and independence Judicial selection and state court performance

Judicature

Volumn 90, Issue 5, 2007, Pages 226-232

  Cann, Damon ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA   (United States)

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EID: 34249737951     PISSN: 00225800     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. Rae, POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF ELECTORAL LAW (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1967).
2. Richard Davis, ELECTING JUSTICE: FIXING THE SUPREME COURT NOMINATION PROCESS (London: Oxford University Press, 2005)
3. Bradley Canon, The Impact of Formal Selection Processes on' the Characteristics of Judges - Reconsidered, 6 LAW & SOC'Y. REV. 579 (1972).
4. Henry Glick and Craig Emmert, Selection Systems and Judicial Characteristics: The Recruitment of State Supreme Court Justices, 70 JUDICATURE 228 (1987).
5. Hall, State Supreme Courts in American Democracy: Probing the Myths of Judicial Reform 95 AM. POL. SCI. REV. 315 (2001).
6. Damon Cann, Campaign Contributions and Judicial Behavior, 23 AM. REV. POL. 261 (2002).
7. Stephen J. Ware, Money, Politics, and Judicial Decisions: A Case Study of Arbitration Law in Alabama, 25 J, D POL. 645 (1999). McCall and McCall also find an association between contributions and decisions but do not attempt to substantiate a causal relationship.
8. See Madhavi M. McCall and Michael McCall, Campaign contributions, judicial decisions, and the Texas Supreme Court: Assessing the appearance of impropriety, 90 JUDICATURE 21.4 (2007).
9. S. For a comprehensive discussion, see John R. Wright, INTEREST GROUPS AND CONGRESS: LOBBYING, CONTRIBUTIONS, AND INFLUENCE, (Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1996).
10. For examples, see Patrick W. Dunn Judicial Selection and the States: A Critical Study with Proposals for Reform, 4 HOFSTRA L. REV. 285
11. and Phillip Dubois, FROM BALLOT TO BENCH: JUDICIAL ELECTIONS AND THE QUEST FOR ACCOUNTABILITY (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1980).
12. Larry Baum, Explaining the Vote in Judicial Elections: The 1984 Ohio Supreme Court Elections, 40 WEST. POL. Q. 361 (1987).
13. Nicholas Lovrich and Charles Sheldon, Voters in Contested, Nonpartisan Judicial Elections: A Responsible Electorate or Problematic Public? 36 WEST. POL. Q. 241 (1983).
14. Hall, supra n, 5.
15. The survey took place November 2001-January 2002. The response rate for this mail survey is unknown because the survey firm did not report it. However, it is possible to estimate minimum response rates for the survey based on the number of judges in each state. While it would be easy to survey all state supreme court judges (there are 334 of them), it would be a mammoth task to survey all state trial court judges (there are nearly 10,000). The survey contains responses from 188 supreme court judges, 527 appellate court judges, and 1713 lower (trial) court judges. By dividing the number of responses at each level by the number of all judges at each level, I estimate minimum response rates as 56.3% for supreme court level, 57.1% for the appellate level, and 18.2% for the lowest level. Considering the healthy response rates for the higher levels, it appears that not all lower court judges were surveyed. Thus, 18.2% is a minimum response rate; the true rate is likely much higher. Judges from New Jersey were advised by their state not to participate in the study, so New Jersey judges were dropped from the sample. Because there are fewer supreme court judges than appellate court judges, and more trial court judges than appellate and supreme court judges combined, the raw data overwhelmingly reflect the attitudes of lower courts. To address this issue, I weight the data by level so that the opinions of judges at all levels have equal weight.
16. See, e.g., Christopher Bonneau, What Price Justice(s)? Understanding Campaign Spending in State Supreme Court Elections 5 STATE POL. & POL'Y Q. 107-125 (2005);
17. Deborah Goldberg and Samantha Sanchez , THE NEW POLITICS OF JUDICIAL ELECTIONS 2002. (Washington, DC.: Justice at Stake Campaign, 2003);
18. and Laura Langer's State Supreme Courts Natural Courts Database www.u.arizona.edu/~llanger/NSFSESLANGER.ht m from which these data were obtained.
19. A third possible problem is that many states fill mid-term court vacancies through appointment even in elective states. Still, these individuals must ultimately face election, which could still affect judges' evaluations of how well their court system functions.
20. The index is developed in Paul Brace and Melinda Gann Hall, "Haves" versus "Have Nots" in State Supreme Courts: Allocating Docket Space and Wins in Power Asymmetric Cases, 35 L. & SOC'Y. REV. 393 (2001)
21. A table containing the statistical results is available at http://dcann.myweb.uga.edu/judres.pdf.
22. Further, a likelihood ratio test shows that this model fits the data significantly better than the model with the elected/appointed dummy.
23. In an ordered probit model, the effects of a variable are conditional upon the values of all other variables in the model. To generate these predicted probabilities, I varied the mode of selection while setting state court professionalism and age to their respective means and assumed a state judiciary that is somewhat extreme (the modal category), and a respondent who is a white male trial court judge (again reflecting the modal categories).
24. To generate these predicted probabilities, I varied the extremity of the state judiciary while setting state court professionalism and age to their respective means mean and assumed a merit selection system (the modal category), and a respondent who is a white male trial court judge.