Rational Judicial Behavior: A Statistical Study
Fair Courts E-lert
Bibliographic Info:
Author: William M. Landes and Richard A. Posner
Source: Social Science Research Network
Date: April 2008
A statistical study by University of Chicago Law School's William M. Landes and Richard Posner analyzes the "connection between ideology and voting of judges using a large sample of court of appeals cases decided since 1925 and Supreme Court cases decided since 1937." The study, which looked at variables including the party of the appointing President and the relative number of Republican and Democratic Senators at the time of the judge's confirmation, yielded results showing "how a judge's voting is affected by the voting of the other judges he serves with." The study also found a "political-polarization" effect among Justices appointed by Democratic Presidents, i.e., that "the fewer the judges appointed by Democratic Presidents, the more liberally they voted."