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Owens & Black on Policy Preferences of Circuit Judges

By Lawrence Solum

Ryan J Owens (Harvard University) & Ryan C. Black (Washington University, St. Louis - Department of Political Science; Washington University, St. Louis - Center for Empirical Research in the Law) have posted Estimating the Policy Preferences of United States Courts of Appeals Judges on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Despite recent advances in public law scholarship and political methodology, scholars still lack sophisticated data on the United States Courts of Appeals and the policy preferences of the judges who serve on them. To remedy this deficiency, we employ item response theory models to estimate circuit court judges' ideal points. In this paper, we present some initial results from our project. Specifically, we gathered data to estimate ideal points for judges serving on the First Circuit Court (1925-2008) and the D.C. Circuit Court (1977-1985). Our data provide more accurate results than current estimation techniques and, at the same time, highlight critical limitations with those methods currently used. Additionally, our approach allows scholars to compare circuit judges' ideal points with those from other circuits, the Supreme Court, Congress, and the president.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on July 20, 2009 (boomark / email).