Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x24gv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-16T10:51:54.617Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Nature of Circuit Court Gatekeeping Decisions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Abstract

This article provides an analysis of the nature of circuit court threshold decisions. Specifically, a model sensitive to the institutional context of the circuits is developed and tested across all threshold decisions in the sample and in more limited samples of proper party and proper forum votes. The results suggest that circuit court gatekeeping is a function of multiple factors, including circuit court law, litigant status, the lower court decision, and, at times, the ideological preferences of the circuit judge or that of his or her circuit.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© 2010 Law and Society Association.

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

References

Atkins, Burton, & Taggart, William (1982) “Substantive Access Doctrines and Conflict Management in the U.S. Supreme Court: Reflections on Activism and Restraint,” in Halpern, S. C. & Lamb, C. M., eds., Supreme Court Activism and Restraint. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Brace, Paul, & Hall, Melinda Gann (1993) “Integrated Models of Judicial Dissent,” 55 J. of Politics 914–35.Google Scholar
Coffin, Frank M. (1994) On Appeal: Courts, Lawyering, and Judging. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Cohen, William, & Varat, Jonathan D. (1997) Constitutional Law, 10th ed. Westbury, NY: Foundation Press.Google Scholar
Cross, Frank (2007) Decision Making in the U. S. Courts of Appeals. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galanter, Marc (1974) “Why the Haves Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change,” 9 Law & Society Rev. 95160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gates, John B. (1991) “Theory, Methods, and the New Institutionalism in Judicial Research,” in Gates, J. B. & Johnson, C., eds., The American Courts: A Critical Assessment. Washington, DC: CQ Press.Google Scholar
George, Tracey (1999) “The Dynamics and Determinants of the Decision to Grant En Banc Review,” 74 Washington Law Rev. 213–74.Google Scholar
Goldman, Sheldon, & Jahnige, Thomas P. (1971) The Federal Courts as a Political System. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Hettinger, Virginia A., et al. (2003) “Acclimation Effects and Separate Opinion Writing in the U.S. Courts of Appeals,” 84 Social Science Q. 792810.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hettinger, Virginia A., et al. (2006) Judging on a Collegial Court. Charlottesville, VA: Univ. of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Howard, J. Woodford Jr. (1981) Courts of Appeals in the Federal Judicial System: A Study of the Second, Fifth, and District of Columbia Circuits. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphries, Martha Anne, & Songer, Donald R. (1999) “Law and Politics in Judicial Oversight of Federal Administrative Agencies,” 61 J. of Politics 207–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaheny, Erin B., et al. (2008) “Change Over Tenure: Voting, Variance, and Decision Making on the U.S. Courts of Appeals,” 52 American J. of Political Science 490503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, David E. (2002) Making Law in the United States Courts of Appeals. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, Walter F., et al. (2002) Courts, Judges, and Politics, 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Orren, Karen (1976) “Standing to Sue: Interest Group Conflict in the Federal Courts,” 70 American Political Science Rev. 723–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierce, Richard J. Jr. (1999) “Is Standing Law or Politics?,” 77 North Carolina Law Rev. 1741–89.Google Scholar
Poole, Keith T. (1998) “Recovering a Basic Space from a Set of Issue Scales,” 42 American J. of Political Science 954–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rathjen, Gregory J., & Spaeth, Harold J. (1979) “Access to the Federal Courts: An Analysis of Burger Court Policy Making,” 23 American J. of Political Science 360–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rathjen, Gregory J., & Spaeth, Harold J. (1983) “Denial of Access and Ideological Preferences: An Analysis of the Voting Behavior of the Burger Court Justices, 1969–1976,” 36 Western Political Q. 7187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowland, C. K., & Todd, Bridget Jeffery (1991) “Where You Stand Depends on Who Sits: Platform Promises and Judicial Gatekeeping in the Federal District Courts,” 53 J. of Politics 175–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A., & Spaeth, Harold J. (2002) The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A., et al. (2005) The Supreme Court in the American Legal System. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Mark, & Ginsberg, Benjamin (1987) “The Supreme Court and the New Politics of Judicial Power,” 102 Political Science Q. 371–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Laura A. (1993) “Justiciability and Judicial Discretion: Standing at the Forefront of Judicial Abdication,” 61 The George Washington Law Rev. 1548–615.Google Scholar
Songer, Donald R. (1991) “The Circuit Courts of Appeals,” in Gates, J. B. & Johnson, C., eds., The American Courts: A Critical Assessment. Washington, DC: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Songer, Donald R., & Davis, Sue (1990) “The Impact of Party and Region on Voting Decisions in the United States Courts of Appeals, 1955–1986,” 43 Western Political Q. 317–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Songer, Donald R., & Ginn, Martha Humphries (2002) “Assessing the Impact of Presidential and Home State Influences on Judicial Decisionmaking in the United States Courts of Appeals,” 55 Political Research Q. 299328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Songer, Donald R., Ginn, Martha Humphries, et al. (2003) “Do Judges Follow the Law When There Is No Fear of Reversal?,” 24 Justice System J. 137–61.Google Scholar
Songer, Donald R., & Haire, Susan (1992) “Integrating Alternative Approaches to the Study of Judicial Voting: Obscenity Cases in the U.S. Courts of Appeals,” 36 American J. of Political Science 963–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Songer, Donald R., & Sheehan, Reginald S. (1992) “Who Wins on Appeal? Upperdogs and Underdogs on the United States Courts of Appeals,” 36 American J. of Political Science 235–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Songer, Donald R., Sheehan, Reginald S., et al. (2000) Continuity and Change on the United States Courts of Appeals. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taggart, William A., & DeZee, Matthew R. (1985) “A Note on Substantive Access Doctrines in the U.S. Supreme Court: A Comparative Analysis of the Warren and Burger Courts,” 38 Western Political Q. 8493.Google Scholar
Wasby, Stephen L. (1976) Continuity and Change: From the Warren Court to the Burger Court. Pacific Palisades, CA: Goodyear Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Wasby, Stephen L. (1984) The Supreme Court in the Federal Judicial System, 2nd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Stanton, et al. (1987) “Do the ‘Haves’ Come Out Ahead? Winning and Losing in State Supreme Courts, 1870–1970,” 21 Law & Society Rev. 403–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Cases Cited

Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003).Google Scholar
Hopwood v. State of Texas, 78 F.3d 932 (5th Cir. 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
International Labor Rights Education and Research Fund v. Bush, 954 F.2d 745 (D.C. Cir. 1992).Google Scholar