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Friends of the Supreme Court: Interest Groups and Judicial Decision Making

Author: Paul M. Collins, Jr.

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2008-08-15

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0199707227

The U.S. Supreme Court is a public policy battleground in which organized interests attempt to etch their economic, legal, and political preferences into law through the filing of amicus curiae ("friend of the court") briefs. In Friends of the Supreme Court: Interest Groups and Judicial Decision Making, Paul M. Collins, Jr. explores how organized interests influence the justices' decision making, including how the justices vote and whether they choose to author concurrences and dissents. Collins presents theories of judicial choice derived from disciplines as diverse as law, marketing, political science, and social psychology. This theoretically rich and empirically rigorous treatment of decision-making on the nation's highest court, which represents the most comprehensive examination ever undertaken of the influence of U.S. Supreme Court amicus briefs, provides clear evidence that interest groups play a significant role in shaping the justices' choices.

Chimpanzee Rights

Author: Kristin Andrews

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-08-30

Total Pages: 124

ISBN-13: 0429865619

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Since 2013, an organization called the Nonhuman Rights Project has brought before the New York State courts an unusual request—asking for habeas corpus hearings to determine whether Kiko and Tommy, two captive chimpanzees, should be considered legal persons with the fundamental right to bodily liberty. While the courts have agreed that chimpanzees share emotional, behavioural, and cognitive similarities with humans, they have denied that chimpanzees are persons on superficial and sometimes conflicting grounds. Consequently, Kiko and Tommy remain confined as legal "things" with no rights. The major moral and legal question remains unanswered: are chimpanzees mere "things", as the law currently sees them, or can they be "persons" possessing fundamental rights? In Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers’ Brief, a group of renowned philosophers considers these questions. Carefully and clearly, they examine the four lines of reasoning the courts have used to deny chimpanzee personhood: species, contract, community, and capacities. None of these, they argue, merits disqualifying chimpanzees from personhood. The authors conclude that when judges face the choice between seeing Kiko and Tommy as things and seeing them as persons—the only options under current law—they should conclude that Kiko and Tommy are persons who should therefore be protected from unlawful confinement "in keeping with the best philosophical standards of rational judgment and ethical standards of justice." Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers’ Brief—an extended version of the amicus brief submitted to the New York Court of Appeals in Kiko’s and Tommy’s cases—goes to the heart of fundamental issues concerning animal rights, personhood, and the question of human and nonhuman nature. It is essential reading for anyone interested in these issues.

Deciding to Decide

Author: H. W. Perry

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-06-01

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9780674042063

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Of the nearly five thousand cases presented to the Supreme Court each year, less than 5 percent are granted review. How the Court sets its agenda, therefore, is perhaps as important as how it decides cases. H. W. Perry, Jr., takes the first hard look at the internal workings of the Supreme Court, illuminating its agenda-setting policies, procedures, and priorities as never before. He conveys a wealth of new information in clear prose and integrates insights he gathered in unprecedented interviews with five justices. For this unique study Perry also interviewed four U.S. solicitors general, several deputy solicitors general, seven judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and sixty-four former Supreme Court law clerks. The clerks and justices spoke frankly with Perry, and his skillful analysis of their responses is the mainspring of this book. His engaging report demystifies the Court, bringing it vividly to life for general readers--as well as political scientists and a wide spectrum of readers throughout the legal profession. Perry not only provides previously unpublished information on how the Court operates but also gives us a new way of thinking about the institution. Among his contributions is a decision-making model that is more convincing and persuasive than the standard model for explaining judicial behavior.

The Supreme Court Bar

Author: Kevin T. McGuire

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9780813914497

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Who represents litigants in the Supreme Court of the United States? Kevin T. McGuire shows that the most sophisticated of them have the advantage of representation by an elite counsel made up of former clerks to the justices, alumni of the Office of the Solicitor General, partners in powerful Washington law firms, and public interest lawyers, all of whom serve as gatekeepers to the Court. In this study, the first to characterize the bar of the Supreme Court as a whole, McGuire uses survey, archival, and interview data to explore the history and social structure of the community of Supreme Court specialists. In so doing, he assesses the strategic politics of Supreme Court practice, the ways in which dominant litigators can shape the Court's decisions, and what the existence of such an elite implies for judicial fairness.

The Use of Social Science Data in Supreme Court Decisions

Author: Rosemary J. Erickson

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9780252066610

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The cultures of law and social science differ markedly as to the kinds of truth they pursue. Law is deductive, presenting its findings as certainties; social science is largely inductive, presenting its conclusions as subject to revision and contingency. Yet the legal community traditionally draws at will and unsystematically on the findings of social science, sometimes with unfortunate results. The authors of this study explore this issue by focusing on the manner in which the United States Supreme Court uses social science data in reaching its decisions. Concentrating on decisions involving the issues of abortion, sex discrimination, and sexual harassment, they show that the use of such data has increased over the last twenty years, but they also show that whether such data are used appears to hinge more on the liberal, conservative, or longheld positions of the judges and the types of cases involved, rather than on the objectivity or validity of the data. By offering insights into how data are used by the Supreme Court, the authors hope to show social scientists how to make their research more suitable for courtroom use and to show the legal community how such data can be used more effectively.

Supreme Court Decision-Making

Author: Cornell W. Clayton

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 9780226109541

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What influences decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court? For decades social scientists focused on the ideology of individual justices. Supreme Court Decision Making moves beyond this focus by exploring how justices are influenced by the distinctive features of courts as institutions and their place in the political system. Drawing on interpretive-historical institutionalism as well as rational choice theory, a group of leading scholars consider such factors as the influence of jurisprudence, the unique characteristics of supreme courts, the dynamics of coalition building, and the effects of social movements. The volume's distinguished contributors and broad range make it essential reading for those interested either in the Supreme Court or the nature of institutional politics. Original essays contributed by Lawrence Baum, Paul Brace, Elizabeth Bussiere, Cornell Clayton, Sue Davis, Charles Epp, Lee Epstein, Howard Gillman, Melinda Gann Hall, Ronald Kahn, Jack Knight, Forrest Maltzman, David O'Brien, Jeffrey Segal, Charles Sheldon, James Spriggs II, and Paul Wahlbeck.

Model Rules of Professional Conduct

Author: American Bar Association. House of Delegates

Publisher: American Bar Association

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 9781590318737

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The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.