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Behavior of Federal Judges A Theoretical and Empirical Study of Rational Choice

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ISBN-10: 0674049896

ISBN-13: 9780674049895

Edition: 2012

Authors: Lee Epstein, William M. Landes, Richard A. Posner

List price: $62.00
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Description:

Judges play a central role in the American legal system, but their behavior as decision makers is not well understood, even among themselves. The system permits judges to be quite secretive (and most of them are), so indirect methods are required to make sense of their behavior. Here, a political scientist, an economist, and a judge work together to construct a unified theory of judicial decision-making. Using statistical methods to test hypotheses, they dispel the mystery of how judicial decisions in district courts, circuit courts, and the Supreme Court are made.The authors derive their hypotheses from a labor-market model, which allows them to consider judges as they would any other…    
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Book details

List price: $62.00
Copyright year: 2012
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 1/7/2013
Binding: Hardcover
Pages: 440
Size: 6.13" wide x 9.25" long x 1.50" tall
Weight: 2.068
Language: English

Lee Epstein (PhD, Emory University) is Provost Professor of Law and Political Science and Rader Family Trustee Chair in Law at the University of Southern California. She is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Political and Social Science. She is the author, coauthor and/or editor of fifteen books, including The Supreme Court Compendium : Data, Decisions, and Developments , Fifth Edition , with Jeffrey A. Segal, Harold J. Spaeth, and Thomas G. Walker; Courts, Judges and Politics, Sixth Edition , with Walter F. Murphy, C. Herman Pritchett, and Jack Knight; The Choices Justices Make with Jack Knight, which won the C. Herman Pritchett Award for…    

William M. Landes is the Clifton R. Musser Professor Emeritus of Law and Economics at the University of Chicago Law School.

Richard A. Posner is Circuit Judge, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.

List of Figures
List of Tables
General Introduction
Technical Introduction
Linear Regression
Logistic Regression
Miscellaneous Points
A Realistic Theory of Judicial Behavior
Three Concepts of Legal Realism
The Labor-Market Theory of Judicial Behavior
The Judicial Utility Function
The Legalist Countertheory of Judicial Behavior
Antirealism Personified: Judge Harry Edwards.
The Previous Empirical Literature
History
Ideology Measures
Previous Studies of Judicial Ideology
Other Influences
Appendix: Empirical Studies of Judicial Behavior
The Supreme Court
Data
Ideological Voting by Justices
Changes in Justices' Ideology
Unanimous Decisions: The Role of Ideology
Non-unanimous Decisions: The Role of Ideology
Non-unanimous Decisions: Group Effects.
Appendix: The Corrected U.S. Supreme Court Database.
The Courts of Appeals
Data
Explaining the Judges' Votes (1)
Explaining the Judges' Votes (2)
Group Influences in the Songer Data.
Ideology, Conformity, and Panel Composition Effects in the Sunstein Data
The Original and Corrected Songer Database
The Original and Expanded Sunstein Database
Measures of Ex Ante Ideology of Supreme Court Justices, 1937-2009.
The District Courts and the Selection Effect
District Court Decisions Derived from the Sunstein Database
Ideological Influence on District Judges
Reversals
Dismissals
Another Selection Effect
The Paradox of Discretion
Ideology in Sentencing
Dissents and Dissent Aversion
Costs and Benefits of Dissenting
The Effect of Panel Composition
A Formal Model of Deciding Whether to Dissent
Empirical Analysis
Effects of Senior Status and Age on Dissent Rates
The Questioning of Lawyers at Oral Argument
Empirical Analysis
Number of Questions or Number of Words?
Explaining Variations in the Number of Questions and the Total Number of Words in Questions
Individual Justices
The Auditioners
Appointment and Promotion in the Federal Judiciary
Auditioning for the Supreme Court
Voting Behavior of Auditioners for the Supreme Court
Auditioning for the Courts of Appeals
Voting Behavior of Auditioners for the Courts of Appeals.
Appendix: Court of Appeals Judges in the Supreme Court Promotion Pool, 1930-2010
Conclusion: The Way Forward
Acknowledgments
Index