Judicial Independence on Unelected State Supreme Courts
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Author/Creator ORCID
Date
2018-02-02
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Citation of Original Publication
William D. Blake (2018) Judicial Independence on Unelected State Supreme Courts, Justice System Journal, 39:1, 21-38, DOI: 10.1080/0098261X.2017.1385431
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This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.
This is an original manuscript / preprint of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Justice System Journal on 02 Feb 2018, available online: http:// www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0098261X.2017.1385431.
This is an original manuscript / preprint of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Justice System Journal on 02 Feb 2018, available online: http:// www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0098261X.2017.1385431.
Subjects
Abstract
The state supreme court literature often overlooks the twelve states that use traditional appointment systems or fails to explore differences in their judicial designs. Eight states require justices to be reappointed at the end of a fixed term, while a different set of eight states currently use judicial commissions to limit the discretion of partisan elites to appoint judges. I develop a principal-agent theory of judicial independence to test how unelected judges under different institutional arrangements respond to elite preferences. An analysis of business cases from 1995–2010 indicates justices selected by judicial commissions are significantly less sensitive to elite ideology than justices nominated by partisan elites. The most responsive behavior occurs among justices subject to periodic reappointment who are chosen by partisan elites, while tenured judges chosen by judicial commissions behave independently of elite ideology. The data also provide evidence that state tort reforms significantly increase the probability of pro-business votes.