This paper estimates the voter registration, turnout, and party registration in the 2008 general election for men with felony convictions in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, and North Carolina. The findings indicate that turnout among felons is much lower than previous research has shown. Ex-felon turnout in 2008 varied by state, averaging 22.2 percent. People captured and convicted for their first offense after the election voted at similarly low rates. Also contrary to the expectations of previous literature, the ex-felon population does not seem overwhelmingly Democratic. In North Carolina and Florida, two states for which the data are available, party registration varies by race. Among registered black male ex-felons, 71.7 percent in North Carolina and 84.2 percent in Florida are registered Democrats. Among whites, however, only 35.3 percent and 36.4 percent of ex-felons are registered Democrats in North Carolina and Florida, respectively.

This article investigates possible ideological differences between circuits of the U.S. Courts of Appeals. It looks at the distribution of three-judge panel ideologies on the circuits and at differences in decisionmaking patterns, testing several theoretical approaches to circuit differences: the attitudinalist approach, arguing that different judicial ideologies account for intercircuit differences; historical-institutionalist approaches that argue that circuit norms lead to differences in the proportion of conservative decisions and in the effects of judicial ideologies; and the rational-choice institutionalist argument that overall circuit preferences constrain three-judge panel decisions through the en banc process. Using a multilevel logit model, the study finds some support for the attitudinalist and historical-institutionalist accounts of circuit differences. It also finds that intercircuit ideological differences contribute comparatively little to the prediction of appeals court outcomes.

Do the causal determinants of legal change differ for controversial and noncontroversial laws? Using rape law reforms as an example of legal change, I answer this question via a longitudinal examination of the intrastate characteristics and interstate processes that affect the adoption of both controversial and noncontroversial rape law reforms. The results show that the adoption of partial reforms significantly decreases a state's likelihood of passing a stronger version of the reform only for controversial rape law reforms. Other factors, such as women's economic power and the interstate process of diffusion similarly affect both controversial and noncontroversial reforms. Thus, contrary to the idea that the process of diffusion operates differently for controversial reforms, the results indicate that spatial proximity negatively affects the adoption of both controversial and noncontroversial rape law reforms. These findings have important implications for theoretical explanations of legal change, research on rape law reforms, and social movement research and activism.

The constitution of South Africa mandates equitable redress for individuals and communities evicted from their properties during colonialism and apartheid. The Commission on Restitution of Land Rights' institution-wide assumption is that the financial awards given as equitable redress had no long-term economic impact on recipients because the money is gone and they are still in poverty, whereas if people had received land, the economic impact would have been lasting. Consequently, in recent years, the commission has adopted a policy of using its soft power to force claimants to choose land restitution instead of financial awards. However, the interviews I conducted with financial award recipients show that in 30 percent of the cases, the award did produce a long-term economic benefit because respondents invested in their homes. This empirical evidence suggests that the commission should rethink its recent shift in policy and not totally discount the potential of financial awards to produce a lasting economic benefit.

Does understanding how U.S. Supreme Court justices actually decide cases undermine the institutional legitimacy of the nation's highest court? To the extent that ordinary people recognize that the justices are deciding legal disputes on the basis of their own ideological biases and preferences (legal realism and the attitudinal model), the belief that the justices merely “apply” the law (mechanical jurisprudence and the myth of legality) is difficult to sustain. Although it is easy to see how the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, the most unaccountable of all American political institutions, is nurtured by the view that judicial decisionmaking is discretionless and mechanical, the sources of institutional legitimacy under legal realism are less obvious. Here, we demonstrate, using a nationally representative sample, that the American people understand judicial decisionmaking in realistic terms, that they extend legitimacy to the Supreme Court, and they do so under the belief that judges exercise their discretion in a principled and sincere fashion. Belief in mechanical jurisprudence is therefore not a necessary underpinning of judicial legitimacy; belief in legal realism is not incompatible with legitimacy.

A rich theoretical literature describes the disadvantages facing plaintiffs who suffer multiple, or intersecting, axes of discrimination. This article extends extant literature by distinguishing two forms of intersectionality: demographic intersectionality, in which overlapping demographic characteristics produce disadvantages that are more than the sum of their parts, and claim intersectionality, in which plaintiffs who allege discrimination on the basis of intersecting ascriptive characteristics (e.g., race and sex) are unlikely to win their cases. To date, there has been virtually no empirical research on the effects of either type of intersectionality on litigation outcomes. This article addresses that lacuna with an empirical analysis of a representative sample of judicial opinions in equal employment opportunity (EEO) cases in the U.S. federal courts from 1965 through 1999. Using generalized ordered logistic regression and controlling for numerous variables, we find that both intersectional demographic characteristics and legal claims are associated with dramatically reduced odds of plaintiff victory. Strikingly, plaintiffs who make intersectional claims are only half as likely to win their cases as plaintiffs who allege a single basis of discrimination. Our findings support and elaborate predictions about the sociolegal effects of intersectionality.

This article addresses the question of how states can best promote citizens' compliance with laws that regulate livelihoods. Based on ethnographic data from fishing communities in three countries—Norway, Canada, and South Africa—the article compares compliance motivations that exist under different socioeconomic and political conditions. The comparisons give rise to a typology of three compliance motivations: deterrence, moral support for the law's content, and the legislator's authority. This article then identifies three governable preconditions—enforcement, empowerment of citizens, and civic identity—that respectively explain these motivations. The article argues that the compliance discourse in a given type of state must be framed such that it includes at least the governable preconditions for compliance that have not been met in that state. Consequently, a functional compliance strategy would vary between different state types. The article thus questions the transferability of the developed world's compliance discourses to the developing world.

Because voters rely on judicial performance evaluations when casting their ballots, policymakers should work diligently to compile valid, reliable, and unbiased information about our sitting judges. Although some claim that judicial performance evaluations are fair, the systematic research needed to establish such a proposition has not been done. By the use of attorney judicial performance survey data from Clark County, Nevada, this analysis shows that objective measures of judicial performance cannot explain away differences in scores based on race and sex. Minority judges and female judges score consistently and significantly lower than do their white and male counterparts, all other things being equal. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that judicial performance evaluation surveys may carry with them unexamined and unconscious gender/race biases. Future research must compare judicial performance evaluation structure, content, and execution across states in order to identify those evaluation mechanisms least susceptible to unconscious gender and race bias.

Legal clarity is important to understand and measure because of its connection to the rule of law. We provide the first systematic examination of the clarity of Supreme Court opinions and discover five important results. First, certain justices systematically craft clearer opinions than others. Justices Scalia and Breyer write the clearest opinions, while Justice Ginsburg consistently writes the most complex opinions. Second, ideology does not predict clarity in majority or concurring opinions. Third, all justices write clearer dissents than majority opinions, while minimum winning coalitions produce the clearest majority opinions. Fourth, justices across the board write clearer opinions in criminal procedure cases than in any other issue area. Finally, opinions that formally alter Court precedent render less clear law, potentially leading to a cycle of legal ambiguity.

This article advances a new account of judicial behavior: the thesis of tactical balancing. Building on existing models of judicial decision making, the thesis posits that high court justices balance a discrete set of considerations—justices' ideologies, their institutional interests, the potential consequences of their rulings, public opinion, elected leaders' preferences, and law—as they decide important cases. Variation in a high court's balancing of those considerations as it decides different cases leads it to alternate between challenging and endorsing the exercise of government power. The way in which high courts carry out this “tactical balancing” reflects their broader strategy for prioritizing the different roles they can play in a polity, and thus has significant implications for the rule of law and regime stability in developing democracies. The thesis is illustrated through a detailed analysis of the Brazilian high court's rulings on cases concerning crucial economic policies (1985–2004).

Why do some states diversify their supreme courts sooner than others? Using original data on the first black and female state supreme court justices, I contend that political and institutional pressures influence when states diversify their high courts. The results suggest that selection systems, institutions affecting turnover, and the appointment of political minorities to the United States Supreme Court are associated with states seating their first black and female justices. The findings have implications for our understanding of the political and institutional circumstances that promote judicial diversity.