Recently added articles from Duke Law Journal:
Economic trends and judicial outcomes: a macrotheory of the court.(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... ABSTRACT We investigate the effect of economic conditions on the voting behavior of U.S. Supreme Court Justices. We theorize that Justices are akin to voters in political elections; specifically, we posit that the Justices will view short-term and relatively minor economic ...
The warp and woof of statutory interpretation: comparing Supreme Court approaches in tax law and workplace law.(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... ABSTRACT Debates about statutory interpretation--and especially about the role of the canons of construction and legislative history--are generally framed in one-size-fits-all terms. Yet federal judges--including most Supreme Court Justices--have not approached statutory ...
Judicial evaluations and information forcing: ranking state high courts and their judges.(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... ABSTRACT Judges and courts get evaluated and ranked in a variety of contexts. The President implicitly ranks lower-court judges when he picks some rather than others to be promoted within the federal judiciary. The ABA and other organizations evaluate and rank these same ...
Judging the judges.(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... ABSTRACT The evaluation of judges, especially circuit court judges, has commanded increased attention, with the quantitative analyses of Stephen Choi and Mitu Gulati. However, the proper dimensions for the evaluation of judges remains much disputed. Critics have challenged Choi ...
Remaking the United States Supreme Court in the Courts' of Appeals image.(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... ABSTRACT We argue that Congress should remake the United States Supreme Court in the U.S. courts' of appeals image by increasing the size of the Court's membership, authorizing panel decisionmaking, and retaining an en banc procedure for select cases. In so doing, Congress ...
The "hidden judiciary": an empirical examination of executive branch justice.(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... ABSTRACT Administrative law judges attract little scholarly attention, yet they decide a large fraction of all civil disputes. In this" Article, we demonstrate that these executive branch judges', like their counterparts" in the judicial branch, tend to make predominantly ...
Are empiricists asking the right questions about judicial decisionmaking?(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... INTRODUCTION This is a conference organized around the general topic of measuring judges and justice. The mandate for the conference raises a number of interesting and challenging questions, of both a positive and normative nature, about judicial decisionmaking. The main theme ...
Predicting court outcomes through political preferences: the Japanese Supreme Court and the chaos of 1993.(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... ABSTRACT Empiricists routinely explain politically sensitive decisions of the U.S. federal courts through the party of the executive or legislature appointing the judge. That they can do so reflects the fundamental independence of the courts. After all, appointment politics ...
Are appointed judges strategic too?(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... ABSTRACT The conventional wisdom among many legal scholars is that judicial independence can best be achieved with an appointive judiciary; judicial elections turn judges into politicians, threatening judicial autonomy. Yet the original supporters of judicial elections ...
Justices as economic fixers: a response to a macrotheory of the court.(response to article by Thomas Brennan and others in this issue p. 1191)(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... INTRODUCTION In Economic Trends and Judicial Outcomes: A Macrotheory of the Court (Economic Trends), (1) Professors Thomas Brennan, Lee Epstein, and Nancy Staudt advance a new theory of judicial decisionmaking. They posit that Justices respond like voters to economic conditions ....
The continuing search for a meaningful model of judicial rankings and why it (unfortunately) matters.(response to article by Stephen J. Choi and others in this issue, p. 1313)(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... INTRODUCTION Judicial Evaluations and Information Forcing: Ranking State High Courts and Their Judges (Judicial Evaluations), (1) by Professors Stephen Choi, Mitu Gulati, and Eric Posner is an important effort to create and apply an objective methodology for evaluating the ...
Probing the effects of judicial specialization.(response to article by Chris Guthrie and others in this issue, p. 1477)(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... Americans typically think of judges as generalists. For some people, this quality is highly desirable or even inherent in the role of judge. (1) But in reality, the judiciary includes a good deal of specialization, and the extent of that specialization has increased over time. People ...
A response to Professors George and Guthrie, remaking the United States Supreme Court in the Courts' of Appeals image.(response to article by Tracey E. George and Chris Guthrie in this issue, p. 1439)(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... "Form," according to architect Louis Sullivan, "follows function" (he was not the first to say so). (1) So what one wants from the Supreme Court governs its design. In a nutshell, if the aim is error correction resolving circuit conflicts, a fifteen-member Supreme Court sitting in panels ...
A response to Professor Ramseyer, predicting court outcomes through political preferences.(response to article by J. Mark Ramseyer in this issue, p. 1557)(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... Two quotations derived from Professor Ramseyer's article provide a point of departure. One is from Judge Harry Edwards who, apropos of a study correlating appointing presidents with voting patterns on the D.C. Circuit, remarks on "the heedless observations of academic scholars who ...
No warrant for radical change: a response to Professors George and Guthrie.(response to article by Tracey E. George and Chris Guthrie in this issue, p. 1439)(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... INTRODUCTION Professors George and Guthrie have written a provocative article proposing radical changes to the Supreme Court. (1) They propose increasing the size of the Supreme Court from nine to fifteen Justices to increase the Court's capacity. Of course, there is nothing ...
Do judges think? Comments on several papers presented at the Duke Law Journal's conference on measuring judges and justice.(response to article by J. Mark Ramseyer in this issue, p. 1557)(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... I accepted an invitation to speak on this Symposium's panel addressing Professor Ramseyer's article on the political preferences of the Japanese Supreme Court--despite the danger of citation to foreign law. (1) But I have also been invited to comment on all of the Symposium's articles, and ...
A response to Professor Knight, are empiricists asking the right questions about judicial decisionmaking?(response to article by Jack Knight in this issue, p. 1531)(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... Although I was honored by the invitation to comment on Jack Knight's article, I was also a little puzzled. I do not do the sort of work to which this Symposium is devoted, nor do I even read very much of it. When I do dip into empirical studies of the courts, I often find them rather ...
On doctors and judges.(response to article by David F. Levi and Mitu Gulati in this issue, p. 1181)(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... In convening the Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice and assembling this impressive Symposium, Dean David Levi and Professor Mitu Gulati urged the participating judges, political scientists, and law professors to "live in fragments no longer." (1) Within that same spirit of ...
Just because you can measure something, does it really count?(response to article by Stephen J. Choi and others in this issue, p. 1313)(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... I am pleased to have an opportunity to comment on Judicial Evaluations and Information Forcing: Ranking State High Courts and Their Judges by Professor Stephen J. Choi, Professor Mitu Gulati, and Professor Eric A. Posner. (1) In this day in which computer models are used to analyze so many ...
Does the Supreme Court follow the economic returns? A response to a macrotheory of the court.(response to article by Thomas Brennan and others in this issue, p. 1191)(Conference on Measuring Judges and Justice)
Apr 01, 2009; ... INTRODUCTION Finley Peter Dunne's fictional political sage, Mr. Dooley, famously said that the Supreme Court "follows th' iliction returns." (1) In their contribution to this Symposium, Thomas Brennan, Lee Epstein, and Nancy Staudt argue instead that Supreme Court decisions ...