Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T02:11:25.931Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Diversity, Deliberation, and Judicial Opinion Writing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Susan B. Haire ,
Laura P. Moyer  and
Shawn Treier
Susan B. Haire*
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
Laura P. Moyer
Affiliation:
University of Louisville
Shawn Treier
Affiliation:
Australian National University
*
Contact the corresponding author, Susan B. Haire, at cmshaire@uga.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Underlying scholarly interest in diversity is the premise that a representative body contributes to robust decision-making processes. Using an innovative measure of opinion content, we examine this premise by analyzing deliberative outputs in the US courts of appeals (1997–2002). While the presence of a single female or minority did not affect the attention to issues in the majority opinion, panels composed of a majority of women or minorities produced opinions with significantly more points of law compared to panels with three Caucasian males.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , Fall 2013 , pp. 303 - 330
Copyright
© 2013 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

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.)

Footnotes

The authors would like to thank Donald Songer, Stefanie Lindquist, Robert Christensen, and John Szmer as well as the editor and anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of the article. Shawn Treier would also like to acknowledge the support of the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. Laura Moyer would like to acknowledge the support of Louisiana State University.

References

Antonio, Anthony Lising, Chang, Mitchell J. Kenji Hakuta, Kenny, David A. Shana Levin, and Milem, Jeffrey F. 2004. “Effects of Racial Diversity on Complex Thinking in College Students.” Psychological Science 15 (8): 507–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baum, Lawrence. 1997. The Puzzle of Judicial Behavior. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baum, Lawrence. 2006. Judges and Their Audiences: A Perspective on Judicial Behavior. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Christina L., Lee Epstein, and Martin, Andrew D. 2010. “Untangling the Causal Effects of Sex on Judging.” American Journal of Political Science 54 (2): 389–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, John M., Niemi, Richard G. and Powell, Lynda W. 1998. “Are Women State Legislators Different?” In Women and Elective Office: Past, Present, and Future, ed. Sue Thomas and Clyde Wilcox. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Carter, Lief. 1979. Reason in Law. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Christensen, Robert K., and John Szmer. 2012. “Examining the Efficiency of the U.S. Courts of Appeals: Pathologies and Prescriptions.” International Review of Law and Economics 32 (1): 30–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Jonathan M. 2002. Inside Appellate Courts: The Impact of Court Organization on Judicial Decision Making in the United States Courts of Appeals. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, Paul M., and Martinek, Wendy L. 2011. “The Small Group Context: Designated District Court Judges in the US Courts of Appeals.” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 8:177–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, Todd, and Moyer, Laura P. 2008. “Gender, Race, and Intersectionality on the Federal Appellate Bench.” Political Research Quarterly 61 (2): 219–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Correll, Shelley J., and Ridgeway, Cecilia L. 2003. “Expectation States Theory.” In Handbook of Social Psychology, ed. John Delamater, 29–51. New York: Plenum.Google Scholar
Cross, Frank B., and Tiller, Emerson H. 1998. “Judicial Partisanship and Obedience to Legal Doctrine: Whistleblowing on the Federal Courts of Appeals.” Yale Law Journal 107:2155–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eagly, Alice, and Johnson, Blair T. 1990. “Gender and Leadership Style: A Meta-analysis.” CHIP Documents, Paper 11. http://digitalcommons.uconn.edu/chip_docs/11.Google Scholar
Edwards, Harry T. 2003. “The Effects of Collegiality on Judicial Decision Making.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 151:1639–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farhang, Sean, and Gregory Wawro. 2004. “Institutional Dynamics on the U.S. Court of Appeals: Minority Representation under Panel Decision Making.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 20:299–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gruenfeld, Deborah. 1995. “Status, Ideology and Integrative Complexity on the U.S. Supreme Court: Rethinking the Politics of Political Decision-Making.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68 (1): 5–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gruenfeld, Deborah, and Hollingshead, Andrea B. 1993. “Sociocognition in Work Groups: The Evolution of Group Integrative Complexity and Its Relation to Task Performance.” Small Group Research 24:383–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gruenfeld, Deborah, and Jared Preston. 2000. “Upending the Status Quo: Cognitive Complexity in U.S. Supreme Court Justices Who Overturn Legal Precedent.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 26 (8): 1013–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hancock, Ange-Marie. 2007. “When Multiplication Doesn’t Equal Quick Addition: Examining Intersectionality as a Research Paradigm.” Perspectives on Politics 5 (1): 63–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hettinger, Virginia, Lindquist, Stefanie A. and Wendy Martinek. 2004. “Comparing Attitudinal and Strategic Accounts of Dissenting Behavior.” American Journal of Political Science 48:123–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hettinger, Virginia. 2006. Judging on a Collegial Court: Influences on Federal Appellate Decision Making. Charlottesville: University 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 University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janis, Irving L. 1972. Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. 2nd ed. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Jehn, Karen A., Northcraft, Gregory B. and Neale, Margaret A. 1999. “Why Differences Make a Difference: A Field Study of Diversity, Conflict, and Performance in Workgroups.” Administrative Science Quarterly 44 (4): 741–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jilani, Nadia A., Songer, Donald R. and Johnson, Susan W. 2010. “Gender, Consciousness Raising, and Decision Making on the Supreme Court of Canada.” Judicature 94 (2): 1–17.Google Scholar
Johnson, R. A., and G. I. Schulman. 1989. “Gender Role Composition and Role Entrapment in Decision Making Groups.” Gender and Society 3 (3): 355–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. 1977. Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Karpowitz, Christopher F., T. Mendelberg, and L. Shaker. 2012. “Gender Inequality in Deliberative Participation.” American Political Science Review 106 (3): 533–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kastellec, Jonathan P. 2007. “Panel Composition and Judicial Compliance on the US Courts of Appeals.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 23 (2): 421–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kastellec, Jonathan P. 2012. “Racial Diversity and Judicial Influence on Appellate Courts.” American Journal of Political Science 57:167–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kathlene, Lyn. 1994. “Power and Influence in State Legislative Policy-Making: The Interaction of Gender and Position in Committee Hearing Debates.” American Political Science Review 88:560–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Pauline T. 2009. “Deliberation and Strategy on the United States Courts of Appeals: An Empirical Exploration of Panel Effects.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 157:1319–81.Google Scholar
Lindquist, Stefanie A. 2007. “Bureaucratization and Balkanization: The Origins and the Effects of Decision-Making Norms in the Federal Appellate Courts.” University of Richmond Law Review 41:659–706.Google Scholar
Lindquist, Stefanie A., Martinek, Wendy L. and Hettinger, Virginia A. 2007. “Splitting the Difference: Modeling Appellate Court Decisions with Mixed Outcomes.” Law and Society Review 41 (2): 429–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Long, J. S., and J. Freese. 2003. Regression Models for Categorical Dependent Variables: Using Stata. Rev. ed. College Station, TX: Stata.Google Scholar
Martinek, Wendy. 2010. “Judges as Members of Small Groups.” In The Psychology of Judicial Decision Making, ed. D. Klein and G. Mitchell. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McLeod, Poppy Lauretta, S. A. Lobel, and T. H. Cox. 1996. “Ethnic Diversity and Creativity in Small Groups.” Small Group Research 27 (2): 248–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moyer, Laura P. 2008. “Organizations, Complexity, and Decision Making in the US Courts of Appeals.” PhD diss., University of Georgia.Google Scholar
Nemeth, Charlan J. 1986. “Differential Contributions of Majority and Minority Influence.” Psychological Review 93 (1): 23–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostberg, C. L., and Wetstein, Matthew E. 2007. Attitudinal Decision Making in the Supreme Court of Canada. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
Owens, Ryan J., and Black, Ryan C. 2010. “Strategic Bargaining on the United States Courts of Appeals.” Social Science Research Network. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1568355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, Scott E. 2007. “Making the Difference: Applying a Logic of Diversity.” Journal of Management Perspectives 21 (4): 6–20.Google Scholar
Peresie, Jennifer L. 2005. “Female Judges Matter: Gender and Collegial Decisionmaking in the Federal Appellate Courts.” Yale Law Journal 114:1759–90.Google Scholar
Reingold, Beth. 1996. “Conflict and Cooperation: Legislative Strategies and Concepts of Power among Female and Male State Legislators.” Journal of Politics 58:464–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ridgeway, Cecilia, and L. Smith-Lovin. 1999. “The Gender System and Interaction.” Annual Review of Sociology 25:191–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenthal, Cindy Simon. 1998. When Women Lead: Integrative Leadership in State Legislatures. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ruhe, John, and John Eatman. 1977. “Effects of Racial Composition on Small Work Groups.” Small Group Behavior 8 (4): 479–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schweiger, David M., Sandberg, William R. and Rechner, Paula L. 1989. “Experiential Effects of Dialectical Inquiry, Devil’s Advocacy, and Consensus Approaches to Strategic Decision Making.” Academy of Management Journal 32:745–72.Google Scholar
Sommers, Samuel R. 2006. “On Racial Diversity and Group Decision Making: Identifying Multiple Effects of Racial Composition on Jury Deliberations.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90:597–612.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sommers, Samuel R., L. S. Warp, and C. C. Mahoney. 2008. “Cognitive Effects of Racial Diversity: White Individuals’ Information Processing in Heterogeneous Groups.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44:1129–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stasser, Garold, and Z. Birchmeier. 2003. “Group Creativity and Collective Choice.” In Group Creativity: Innovation through Collaboration, ed. P. B. Paulus and B. A. Nijstad. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Suedfeld, Peter, and Phillip Tetlock. 1977. “Integrative Complexity of Communications in International Crises.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 21 (1): 169–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, Cass. 2003. Why Societies Need Dissent. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass D. Schkade, L. Ellman, and A. Sawicki. 2006. Are Judges Political? An Empirical Analysis of the Federal Judiciary. Washington, DC: Brookings.Google Scholar
Wasby, Stephen. 1977. “Communication within the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: The View from the Bench.” Golden Gate University Law Review 8 (1).Google Scholar
Wasby, Stephen. 2012. “Why Sit en Banc.” Hastings Law Journal 63:747–802.Google Scholar
Whicker, Marcia, and Jewell, Malcolm E. 1998. “The Feminization of Leadership in State Legislatures.” In Women and Elective Office: Past, Present, and Future, ed. Sue Thomas and Clyde Wilcox. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wold, J. T. 1978. “Going through the Motions: The Monotony of Appellate Court DecisionMaking.” Judicature 62:58–65.Google Scholar