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Rational Judicial Behavior: A Statistical Study

"Ist er erst einmal im Amt, entscheidet er unabhängig vom Parteibuch" - solche Sätze fielen gerade in letzter Zeit vor dem Hintergrund der Verfassungsrichterwahl nicht selten. Stimmen solche Sätze auch? Auf dem "Social Science Research Network" kann nun ein Papier heruntergeladen werden, das dieser Frage zumindest für die Vereinigten Staaten auf den Grund geht:

This paper analyzes the connection between ideology and voting of judges using a large sample of court of appeals cases decided since 1925 and Supreme Court cases decided since 1937.

Die zusammengefassten Ergebnisse:

We have a number of interesting results, including how a judge's voting's is affected by the voting of the other judges he serves with. We find a a political-polarization effect among Justices appointed by Democratic but not by Republican Presidents; that is, the fewer the judges appointed by Democratic Presidents, the more liberally they vote. With regard to court of appeals judges, we find a conformity effect: if the number of judges appointed by Republican Presidents increases (decreases) relative to the number appointed by Democratic Presidents, all judges in the circuit tend to vote more conservatively (more liberally).

Full post as published by jurabilis - German bLAWg from Berlin. on May 03, 2008 (boomark / email).