Crafting Law on the Supreme Court: The Collegial Game

by Forrest Maltzman , James F. Spriggs , Paul J. Wahlbeck

• ISBN13: 9780521780100
• ISBN10: 0521780101
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-07-17
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Material is gleaned from internal memos circulated among justices on the Supreme Court to systematically account for the building of majority opinions. The authors argue that at the heart of this process are policy-seeking justices who are constrained by the choices made by the other justices. By strategically using threats, signals, and persuasion, justices attempt to influence the behavior of their colleagues on the bench. Evidence derived from the recently released papers of justices Brennan, Douglas, Marshall, and Powell is used to test the authors' theory of opinion writing. The portrait of the Supreme Court that emerges stands in sharp contrast to the conventional portrait where justices act solely on the basis of the law or their personal policy preferences. This book provides a fascinating glimpse of how the Court crafts the law.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	1	(28)
Selecting an Author: Assigning the Majority Opinion	29	(28)
A Strategic Response to Draft Opinions	57	(37)
The Decision to Accommodate	94	(31)
The Politics of Coalition Formation	125	(24)
Conclusion	149	(6)
Appendix 1: Data Reliability	155	(14)
Appendix 2: Summary Statistics for Independent Variables	169	(4)
Appendix 3: Measuring Preemptive Accommodation	173	(4)
References	177	(20)
Author Index	197	(3)
Subject Index	200