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Panel Effects and Opinion Crafting in the US Courts of Appeals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Rachael K. Hinkle
Rachael K. Hinkle*
Affiliation:
University at Buffalo
*
Contact the author at rkhinkle@buffalo.edu.
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Abstract

Scholars have observed that federal circuit judges’ voting behavior can be influenced by even a single colleague on a three-judge panel. I explore whether such forces extend beyond voting to affect how circuit judges use binding precedent to develop circuit law, by examining whether the role of ideology is dampened when a judge writes for a panel that includes one or two colleagues from a different party. Using an original data set of published search-and-seizure opinions from 1953 to 2010, I uncover evidence that panel effects do extend beyond voting to influence opinion drafting as well.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , Fall 2017 , pp. 313 - 336
Copyright
© 2017 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

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Footnotes

This article is funded by the National Science Foundation (Law and Social Science, SES-1155066). I would like to thank Wendy Martinek for her helpful comments on an early version of this article. Replication data and code are available from the author.

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