Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T18:43:37.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Transmission of Legal Precedent: A Study of State Supreme Courts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 1985

Gregory A. Caldeira
Gregory A. Caldeira*
Affiliation:
The University of Iowa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the course of making and justifying decisions, judges on state supreme courts often rely on precedents from other jurisdictions. These judicial references across boundaries constitute at least one means of communication and, in turn, demonstrate a complex web of deference and derogation between and among various courts. I attempt to uncover patterns of citation between the several state supreme courts and to evaluate alternative explanations for these patterns, including distance between courts; similarity of political culture; the prestige, professionalism, legal capital, and caseload of the cited court; the social diversity of the environment; differentials between courts on a number of dimensions; and presence in the same legal reporting region. More globally, I ask: Does the intensity of communications between a pair of courts result from the characteristics of the cited court or from differences and similarities between courts or jurisdictions? The results indicate the importance of legal reporting districts, distance between the courts, cultural linkages between the jurisdictions and, especially, characteristics of the cited court.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 79 , Issue 1 , March 1985 , pp. 178 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adamany, D. W. The party variable in judges' voting: Conceptual notes and a case study. American Political Science Review, 1969, 63, 92–110.10.1017/S0003055400261479CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkins, B. M., & Glick, H. R. Environmental and structural variables as determinants of issues in state courts of last resort. American Journal of Political Science, 1976, 20, 97–115.10.2307/2110511CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baum, L. A., & Canon, B. C. State supreme courts as activists: New doctrines in the law of torts. In Porter, M. C. & Tarr, G. A. (Eds.), State supreme courts: Policymaking in the federal system. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982, 83–108.Google Scholar
Beiser, E. N. The Rhode Island Supreme Court: A wellintegrated political system. Law & Society Review, 1973, 8, 167–186.10.2307/3053027CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caldeira, G. A. Legal precedent: Structures of communication. Unpublished.Google Scholar
Caldeira, G. A. On the reputation of state supreme courts. Political Behavior, 1983, 5, 83–108.10.1007/BF00989987CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caldeira, G. A. A tale of two reforms: On the work of the Supreme Court. In Dubois, P. (Ed.), The politics of judicial reform. Lexington: D.C. Heath, 1982, pp. 137–152.Google Scholar
Canon, B. C., & Baum, L. A. Patterns of adoption of tort law innovations: An application of diffusion theory to judicial doctrines. American Political Science Review, 1981, 75, 975–987.10.2307/1962297CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canon, B. C., & Jaros, D. External variables, institutional structure, and dissent on state supreme courts. Polity, 1970, 3, 175–200.10.2307/3233984CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, B. Conclusion: Disputes and reported cases. Law & Society Review, 1975, 9, 369–384.10.2307/3052982CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Casper, G., & Posner, R. A. The workload of the Supreme Court. Chicago: American Bar Foundation, 1976.Google Scholar
Cyert, R., & March, J. G. A behavioral theory of the firm. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963.Google Scholar
Dahl, R. A., & Tufte, E. R. Size and democracy. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Elazar, D. J. American federalism: A view from the states. New York: Crowell, 1966.Google Scholar
Elazar, D. J. Cities of the prairie. New York: Basic Books, 1970.Google Scholar
Eulau, H. The Columbia Studies of personal influence. Social Science History, 1980, 4, 209–228.Google Scholar
Friedman, L. M. Functions of trial courts in the modern world. Presented at the Conference on the Sociology of the Judicial Process, University of Bielefeld, Federal Republic of Germany, September 24–26, 1973.Google Scholar
Friedman, L. M., Kagan, R. A., Cartwright, B., & Wheeler, S. State supreme courts: A century of style and citation. Stanford Law Review, 1981, 33, 773–818.10.2307/1228400CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gastil, R. D. Cultural regions of the United States. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975. (a)Google Scholar
Gastil, R. D. Internal origins of state populations: A supplement to cultural regions of the U.S. Seattle: Battelle Seattle Research Center, 1975. (b)Google Scholar
Glick, H. R. Innovations in state judicial administration: Effects on court management and organization. American Politics Quarterly, 1981, 9, 49–69.10.1177/1532673X8100900103CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glick, H. R., & Vines, K. N. State court systems. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1972.Google Scholar
Goldthorpe, J. H., & Hope, K. Occupational grading and occupation prestige. In Hope, K. (Ed.), The analysis of social mobility. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972, 19–79.Google Scholar
Gray, V. Innovations in the states: A diffusion study. American Political Science Review, 1973, 67, 1174–1185.10.2307/1956539CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grossman, J. B., & Sarat, A. D. Litigation in the federal courts: A comparative perspective. Law & Society Review, 1975, 9, 321–346.10.2307/3052980CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grupp, F. W., & Richards, A. R. Variations in elite perceptions of American states as referents for public policymaking. American Political Science Review, 1975, 69, 850–858.10.2307/1958394CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, P. Problematic cases and the judicial search for authority. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Law & Society Association, Madison, Wisconsin, 1980.Google Scholar
Harris, P. Some predictors of the interstate diffusion of state common law, 1870–1970. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Law & Society Association, San Francisco, California, 1979.Google Scholar
Jaros, D., & Canon, B. C. Dissent on state supreme courts: The differential significance of the characteristics of judges. American Journal of Political Science, 1972, 16, 322–346.Google Scholar
Johnson, C. A. Citations to judicial authority in Supreme Court opinions: Exploring judicial decisionmaking by taking judicial opinions seriously. Unpublished manuscript. Department of Political Science, Texas A & M University, 1980.Google Scholar
Kagan, R. A., Cartwright, B., Friedman, L. M., & Wheeler, S. The business of state supreme courts. Stanford Law Review, 1977, 50, 121–156.10.2307/1228176CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kagan, R. A., Cartwright, B., Friedman, L. M., & Wheeler, S. The evolution of state supreme courts. Michigan Law Review, 1978, 76, 961–1005.10.2307/1287860CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kingdon, J. Congressmen's voting decisions (2nd ed.). New York: Harper and Row, 1981.Google Scholar
Knoke, D., & Kuklinski, J. H. Network analysis. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1982.Google Scholar
Landes, W. M., & Posner, R. A. Legal precedent: A theoretical and empirical analysis. Journal of Law and Economics, 1976, 19, 249–307.10.1086/466868CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landau, M. Redundancy, rationality, and the problem of duplication and overlap. Public Administration Review, 1969, 29, 346–358.10.2307/973247CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laumann, E. O., & Heinz, J. P. Specialization and prestige in the legal profession: The structure of deference. American Bar Foundation Research Journal, 1977, 155–216.10.1111/j.1747-4469.1977.tb00723.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, G. C. Sir An essay on the influence of authority on matters of opinion (2nd ed.). London: Longmans, 1875.Google Scholar
Llewellyn, K. N. The common law tradition: Deciding appeals. Boston: Little, Brown, 1960.Google Scholar
March, J. G., & Simon, H. A. Organizations. New York: Wiley, 1958.Google Scholar
Marvell, T. B. Appellate courts and lawyers: Information gathering in the adversary system. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1978.Google Scholar
Marvell, T. B., & Kuykendall, M. Appellate courts—facts and figures. State Court Journal, 1980, 4, 9–14, 33–37.Google Scholar
Mason, M. P. Courting reversal: The supervisory role of state supreme courts. Yale Law Journal, 1978, 57, 1191–1218.Google Scholar
Matthews, D. R., & Stimson, J. A. Yeas and nays: Normal decision-making in the U.S. House of Representatives. New York: Wiley, 1975.Google Scholar
McIntosh, W. Private uses of a public forum: A long range view of the dispute processing role of courts. American Political Science Review, 1983, 77, 991–1010.10.2307/1957571CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merryman, J. H. The authority of authority: What the California Supreme Court cited in 1950. Stanford Law Review, 1954, 6, 613–673.10.2307/1226493CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merryman, J. H. Toward a theory of citations: An empirical study of the citation practice of the California Supreme Court in 1950, 1960, and 1970. Southern California Law Review, 1977, 50, 381–428.Google Scholar
Mott, R. Judicial influence. American Political Science Review, 1936, 30, 295–315.10.2307/1947260CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, S. S. Sociometric relations among American courts. Southwestern Social Science Quarterly, 1962, 43, 136–142.Google Scholar
Posner, R. A. An economic approach to legal procedure and judicial administration. Journal of Legal Studies, 1973, 2, 399–458.10.1086/467503CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posner, R. A. An economic analysis of law. Boston: Little, Brown, 1977.Google Scholar
Rubin, P. H. Why is the common law efficient? Journal of Legal Studies, 1977, 6, 51–82.10.1086/467562CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Savage, R. L. Patterns of multilinear evolution in the American states. Publius, 1973, 3, 75–108.Google Scholar
Schwartz, R. D., & Miller, J. C. Legal evolution and societal complexity. American Journal of Sociology, 1964, 70, 159–169.10.1086/223791CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, M. Decentralized decision-making in the law of torts. In Ulmer, S. S. (Ed.), Political decision-making. New York: Van Nostrand, 1970, 44–75.Google Scholar
Shapiro, M. Stability and change in judicial decision-making: Incrementalism or stare decisis? Law in Transition Quarterly, 1965, 2, 134–157.Google Scholar
Shapiro, M. Toward a theory of stare decisis. Journal of Legal Studies, 1972, 1, 125–134.10.1086/467480CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, J. L. The diffusion of innovations among the American states. American Political Science Review, 1969, 63, 880–899.10.1017/S0003055400258644CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, J. L. Innovations in state politics. In Jacob, H. & Vines, K. N. (Eds.), Politics in the American states. Boston: Little, Brown, 1971, 354–387.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.