Download or read book Strategic Selection written by Christine L. Nemacheck and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The process by which presidents decide whom to nominate to fill Supreme Court vacancies is obviously of far-ranging importance, particularly because the vast majority of nominees are eventually confirmed. But why is one individual selected from among a pool of presumably qualified candidates? In Strategic Selection: Presidential Nomination of Supreme Court Justices from Herbert Hoover through George W. Bush, Christine Nemacheck makes heavy use of presidential papers to reconstruct the politics of nominee selection from Herbert Hoover's appointment of Charles Evan Hughes in 1930 through President George W. Bush's nomination of Samuel Alito in 2005. Bringing to light firsthand evidence of selection politics and of the influence of political actors, such as members of Congress and presidential advisors, from the initial stages of formulating a short list through the president's final selection of a nominee, Nemacheck constructs a theoretical framework that allows her to assess the factors impacting a president's selection process. Much work on Supreme Court nominations focuses on struggles over confirmation, or is heavily based on anecdotal material and posits the "idiosyncratic" nature of the selection process; in contrast, Strategic Selection points to systematic patterns in judicial selection. Nemacheck argues that although presidents try to maximize their ideological preferences and minimize uncertainty about nominees' conduct once they are confirmed, institutional factors that change over time, such as divided government and the institutionalism of the presidency, shape and constrain their choices. By revealing the pattern of strategic action, which she argues is visible from the earliest stages of the selection process, Nemacheck takes us a long way toward understanding this critically important part of our political system.
Download or read book Answering the Call of the Court written by Vanessa A. Baird and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2008-08-13 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. Supreme Court is the quintessential example of a court that expanded its agenda into policy areas that were once reserved for legislatures. Yet scholars know very little about what causes attention to various policy areas to ebb and flow on the Supreme Court’s agenda. Vanessa A. Baird’s Answering the Call of the Court: How Justices and Litigants Set the Supreme Court Agenda represents the first scholarly attempt to connect justices’ priorities, litigants’ strategies, and aggregate policy outputs of the U.S. Supreme Court. Most previous studies on the Supreme Court’s agenda examine case selection, but Baird demonstrates that the agenda-setting process begins long before justices choose which cases they will hear. When justices signal their interest in a particular policy area, litigants respond by sponsoring well-crafted cases in those policy areas. Approximately four to five years later, the Supreme Court’s agenda in those areas expands, with cases that are comparatively more politically important and divisive than other cases the Court hears. From issues of discrimination and free expression to welfare policy, from immigration to economic regulation, strategic supporters of litigation pay attention to the goals of Supreme Court justices and bring cases they can use to achieve those goals. Since policy making in courts is iterative, multiple well-crafted cases are needed for courts to make comprehensive policy. Baird argues that judicial policy-making power depends on the actions of policy entrepreneurs or other litigants who systematically respond to the priorities and preferences of Supreme Court justices.
Download or read book The American Courthouse written by A. Benjamin Handler and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Judicial Selection in Virginia written by United States Commission on Civil Rights. Virginia State Advisory Committee and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Judicial Tug of War written by Adam Bonica and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a novel theory explaining how and why politicians and lawyers politicise courts.
Download or read book In Defense of Judicial Elections written by Chris W. Bonneau and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-06-02 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ought judges be independent of democratic pressures, or should they be subjected to the preferences and approval of the electorate? In this book, Bonneau and Hall use empirical data to shed light on these normative questions and offer a coherent defense of judicial elections.
Download or read book Of Courtiers and Princes written by Todd C. Peppers and published by Constitutionalism and Democrac. This book was released on 2020-11-27 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for In Chambers: "This new collection of essays, including some by former clerks, takes readers inside justices' chambers for a look at clerkship life.... [T]he best parts of the book are the behind-the-scenes descriptions of life at the court."-- Associated Press "An excellent book... It's interesting for many different reasons, not the least of which as a reminder of how much of a bastion of elitism the Court has always been."-- Atlantic Monthly In his earlier books, In Chambers and Of Courtiers and Kings, Todd C. Peppers provided an insider's view of the Supreme Court from the perspective of the clerks who worked closely with some of its most important justices. With Of Courtiers and Princes, he concludes the trilogy by examining the understudied yet equally fascinating role of lower court clerks--encompassing pioneering women and minorities. Drawing on contributions from former law clerks and judicial scholars--including an essay by Ruth Bader Ginsburg--the book provides an inside look at the professional and personal bonds that form between lower court judges and their clerks. While the individual essays often focus on a single judge and his or her corps of law clerks, including their selection process, contributions, and even influence, the book as a whole provides a macro-level view of the law clerk's role in the rapidly changing world of lower federal and state courts, thereby offering an unusual yet crucial perspective on the inner workings of our judicial system.
Download or read book Virginia Government written by Liliokanaio Peaslee and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2013-10-07 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Equally at home as a companion to an introductory text or as a stand-alone resource, Virginia Government offers an excellent introduction to the political institutions, actors, and policy processes of the Old Dominion State. Paying special attention to the governing arrangements that make Virginia unique, from statewide city-county separation to a single-term governor to shifting electoral alignments, Peaslee and Swartz strike the perfect balance, combining necessary background and historical analysis with current events and policy issues to make the information relevant and engaging for today’s students. Grounded in the comparative method, the text provides useful comparisons with governing institutions, political processes, and public polices in other states and localities.
Download or read book The Impact of Judicial Selection Method on State Supreme Court Policy written by Daniel R. Pinello and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1995-10-24 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique empirical study investigates how the method of judicial selection significantly affects state-supreme-court policies in several important areas of law—business, criminal procedure, and family law. After examining different theories and surveying the research about judicial selection, this comparative study of policies in six states—Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, West Virginia—challenges current assumptions. The author finds that appointed judges prefer the interests of the individual over those of the state in criminal-procedure cases and are the most innovative in business law; that elected judges prefer the interests of the state over the individual; and that legislatively selected judges acquiesce to the policy preferences of other branches of government and are the most inactive in terms of policy initiation. For students and teachers in law, political science, and history; for lawyers and judges; for interest groups concerned about state policy; and for policymakers and other professionals concerned with American government and public administration.
Download or read book The People s Courts written by Jed Handelsman Shugerman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States, almost 90 percent of state judges have to run in popular elections to remain on the bench. In the past decade, this peculiarly American institution has produced vicious multi-million-dollar political election campaigns and high-profile allegations of judicial bias and misconduct. The People’s Courts traces the history of judicial elections and Americans’ quest for an independent judiciary—one that would ensure fairness for all before the law—from the colonial era to the present. In the aftermath of economic disaster, nineteenth-century reformers embraced popular elections as a way to make politically appointed judges less susceptible to partisan patronage and more independent of the legislative and executive branches of government. This effort to reinforce the separation of powers and limit government succeeded in many ways, but it created new threats to judicial independence and provoked further calls for reform. Merit selection emerged as the most promising means of reducing partisan and financial influence from judicial selection. It too, however, proved vulnerable to pressure from party politics and special interest groups. Yet, as Shugerman concludes, it still has more potential for protecting judicial independence than either political appointment or popular election. The People’s Courts shows how Americans have been deeply committed to judicial independence, but that commitment has also been manipulated by special interests. By understanding our history of judicial selection, we can better protect and preserve the independence of judges from political and partisan influence.
Download or read book Courthouse Violence written by Victor Flango and published by SAGE Publications, Incorporated. This book was released on 2001-07 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Violence in courthouses is very prevalent. The courthouses themselves are filled with individuals have committed crimes against individuals and society, and these individuals can often become explosive. This volume of The Annals discusses the violence seen in courthouses. It delves in to how this violence transcends the courthouse walls and expands to the homes of the individuals who work in the courthouses. This volume, Courthouse Violence: Protecting the Judicial Workplace, cites specific examples of violence and how the victims may even be trying to help the accused individual. This volume of The Annals focuses on citing examples and research to help better the reader's understanding of what kind of violence is out there and how it can be avoided. The purpose of this volume is to identify the basic issues involved in courthouse violence so that appropriate security measures can be discussed, decided upon, and implemented in the courthouse setting. Some of the issues that are discussed for clarification are: · The type of violence seen in courthouses · Who's at risk for becoming victims? · What types of courts are most susceptible? · Who's likely to become violent in the courthouse setting? · What are their motives for becoming violent? Finally, the volume discusses planning that is being done or can be done to help limit or even eliminate the threats of violence on courthouse officials. It discusses the financial implications as well as physical and architectural changes that must be made to make the courthouses safe for all that work there or need to visit.
Download or read book Electing Judges written by James L. Gibson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-09-20 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Electing Judges, James L. Gibson responds to the growing chorus of critics who fear that the politics of running for office undermine judicial independence. While many people have opinions on the topic, few have supported them with empirical evidence. Gibson rectifies this situation, offering the most systematic study to date of the impact of campaigns on public perceptions of fairness, impartiality, and the legitimacy of elected state courts-and his findings are both counterintuitive and controversial"--Page [four] of cover.
Download or read book How Judges Think written by Richard A. Posner and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-05-01 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A distinguished and experienced appellate court judge, Richard A. Posner offers in this new book a unique and, to orthodox legal thinkers, a startling perspective on how judges and justices decide cases. When conventional legal materials enable judges to ascertain the true facts of a case and apply clear pre-existing legal rules to them, Posner argues, they do so straightforwardly; that is the domain of legalist reasoning. However, in non-routine cases, the conventional materials run out and judges are on their own, navigating uncharted seas with equipment consisting of experience, emotions, and often unconscious beliefs. In doing so, they take on a legislative role, though one that is confined by internal and external constraints, such as professional ethics, opinions of respected colleagues, and limitations imposed by other branches of government on freewheeling judicial discretion. Occasional legislators, judges are motivated by political considerations in a broad and sometimes a narrow sense of that term. In that open area, most American judges are legal pragmatists. Legal pragmatism is forward-looking and policy-based. It focuses on the consequences of a decision in both the short and the long term, rather than on its antecedent logic. Legal pragmatism so understood is really just a form of ordinary practical reasoning, rather than some special kind of legal reasoning. Supreme Court justices are uniquely free from the constraints on ordinary judges and uniquely tempted to engage in legislative forms of adjudication. More than any other court, the Supreme Court is best understood as a political court.
Download or read book Judicial Merit Selection written by Greg Goelzhauser and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-22 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The judicial selection debate continues. Merit selection is used by a majority of states but remains the least well understood method for choosing judges. Proponents claim that it emphasizes qualifications and diversity over politics, but there is little empirical evidence regarding its performance. In Judicial Merit Selection, Greg Goelzhauser amasses a wealth of data to examine merit selection’s institutional performance from an internal perspective. While his previous book, Choosing State Supreme Court Justices, compares outcomes across selection mechanisms, here he delves into what makes merit selection unique—its use of nominating commissions to winnow applicants prior to gubernatorial appointment. Goelzhauser’s analyses include a rich case study from inside a nominating commission’s proceedings as it works to choose nominees; the use of public records to examine which applicants commissions choose and which nominees governors choose; evaluation of which attorneys apply for consideration and which judges apply for promotion; and examination of whether design differences across systems impact performance in the seating of qualified and diverse judges. The results have critical public policy implications.
Download or read book Burns V Sullivan written by and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Mindfulness and Judging 2016 written by Federal Judicial Center and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a primer on mindfulness and its uses in judging. Mindfulness involves slowing down one's mental processes enough to allow one to notice as much as possible about a given moment or situation, and then to act thoughtfully based on what one has noticed. Much of the discussion of mindfulness in relation to judges so far has focused on health and wellness, but mindfulness also has obvious implications for the actual work that judges do. The purpose of mindfulness is not to tell one what to think or do but rather to help one think and act as one chooses with the benefit of deeper reflection and more fully conscious intent. For judges, whose judgments can have profound effects on others, it can be both an enormously effective tool and a key to a more satisfying professional life. Related products: Judicial Branch and Federal Courts collection can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/judicial-branch-federal-courts
Download or read book Supreme Disorder written by Ilya Shapiro and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-09-22 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2021: POLITICS BY THE WALL STREET JOURNAL "A must-read for anyone interested in the Supreme Court."—MIKE LEE, Republican senator from Utah Politics have always intruded on Supreme Court appointments. But although the Framers would recognize the way justices are nominated and confirmed today, something is different. Why have appointments to the high court become one of the most explosive features of our system of government? As Ilya Shapiro makes clear in Supreme Disorder, this problem is part of a larger phenomenon. As government has grown, its laws reaching even further into our lives, the courts that interpret those laws have become enormously powerful. If we fight over each new appointment as though everything were at stake, it’s because it is. When decades of constitutional corruption have left us subject to an all-powerful tribunal, passions are sure to flare on the infrequent occasions when the political system has an opportunity to shape it. And so we find the process of judicial appointments verging on dysfunction. Shapiro weighs the many proposals for reform, from the modest (term limits) to the radical (court-packing), but shows that there can be no quick fix for a judicial system suffering a crisis of legitimacy. And in the end, the only measure of the Court’s legitimacy that matters is the extent to which it maintains, or rebalances, our constitutional order.
