State Public Opinion, the Death Penalty, and the Practice of Electing Judges
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6231950 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paul Brace (Rice University), Brent D Boyea (0000-0003-4904-4795, The University of Texas at Arlington) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 360-372 |
| Publication date | 2008-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0092-5853 • E-ISSN: 1540-5907 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00317.x |
| OpenAlex | W2153655895 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 111 |
| References cited | 39 |
Do state supreme courts act impartially or are they swayed by public opinion? Do judicial elections influence judge behavior? To date these questions have received little direct attention due to the absence of comparable public opinion data in states and obstacles to collecting data necessary for comprehensive analysis of state supreme court outcomes. Advances in measurement, data archiving, and methodology now allow for consideration of the link between public opinion and judicial outcomes in the American states. The analysis presented considers public opinion's influence on the composition of courts (indirect effects) and its influence on judge votes in capital punishment cases (direct effects). In elective state supreme courts, public support for capital punishment influences the ideological composition of those courts and judge willingness to uphold death sentences. Notably, public support for capital punishment has no measurable effect on nonelective state supreme courts. On the highly salient issue of the death penalty, mass opinion and the institution of electing judges systematically influence court composition and judge behavior
Capital punishment · Certiorari · Concurring opinion · Ideology · Judicial opinion · Majority opinion · Original jurisdiction · Political science · Politics · Public opinion · Punishment (psychology · State (computer science · State supreme court · Supreme court · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems · Legal and Constitutional Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology
Judicial Independence
On the Social Foundations for Crimmigration
The Punitiveness of the Mass Public
Between law and conscience
Exploring Causality between Public Opinion and the Death Penalty Using Granger Testing
The Evolution of State Courts Research in the Twenty-First Century
Chinese criminal justice practitioners’ death penalty opinion and justifications
Post-Conviction Review on Trial
Justice in America
Who Lives and Dies on Death Row? Race, Ethnicity, and Post-Sentence Outcomes in Texas
Immigration and Preferences for Greater Law Enforcement Spending in Rich Democracies
Racial Resentment and the Death Penalty
The globalization of childhood
On the Politics of Imprisonments
Judicial Review as a Limit on Government Domination
Public Opinion and Criminal Justice Policy
Does Judicial Selection Affect Judicial Performance? Evidence from a Natural Experiment
Does Local Journalism Stimulate Voter Participation in State Supreme Court Elections
Judicial Selection and Criminal Punishment
Responsive Justice
The Electoral Connection in Court
Contextualizing the “Black Box”
On Courts and Pocketbooks
Strategic Retirement in Comparative Perspective
Explaining Indigenous Peoples’ Success in State Supreme Courts
Does Merit Selection Work
Facing the Public
We are a part of the problem they protest”
How Does Race Moderate the Effect of Religion Dimensions on Attitudes toward the Death Penalty
Counterbalancing the disadvantages of the “Have Nots”
The use of surveys in interest group research
May it please the twitterverse
The association of gender role attitudes and offense type with public punitiveness toward male and female offenders
An interreality study of race and homicide news coverage in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Impact of Judicial Elections on Judicial Decisions
Does the death penalty save lives
The Punitive Public? Exploring the Opinion-Election Connection in Criminal Justice Policy
The Role of Constitutional Features in Judicial Review
Public Opinion in the U.S. States
Judging Judicial Review in the American States
Hell to pay
Decision Making in the Hidden Judiciary
Gendered Policy Leadership in the Judicial Branch
Among the Bodies of Our Children
Jobs and Punishment
Judicial Institutions, Independence, and the Separation of Powers
Appointed or Elected
An Experimental Investigation of How Judicial Elections Affect Public Faith in the Judicial System
Supreme Court Elections
Explaining High-Profile Coverage of State Supreme Court Decisions
Policy Venues and Policy Change
Does Seniority Matter? The Conditional Influence of State Methods of Judicial Retention
Evaluating diffuse support for state high courts among individuals with varying levels of policy agreement
Rigid rules and slippery standards
Effects of selection regimes on state supreme court opinion writing
Unmasking the American death penalty debate
Turning to the Courts
The Pragmatic American
Vulnerable Victims, Monstrous Offenders, and Unmanageable Risk
Holding Justice Accountable
The Incumbency Advantage in Judicial Elections
Elections Improve Support for State Trial Court Judges in the United States
So Many Open Doors
Gender Diversity, Women’s Leadership, and Consensus in State Supreme Courts
Strategic Retirements of Elected and Appointed Justices
Incentive Effects of Recall Elections
Stare Decisisand the Electoral Connection
How Courts Structure State-Level Representation
Judicial Reform in the American States
Consensus and Cooperation on State Supreme Courts
New Data on State Supreme Court Cases
New Data on Court Curbing by State Legislatures
The Influence of Legislative Reappointment on State Supreme Court Decision-Making
Classifying Judicial Selection Institutions
Individual Contributions to State Supreme Court Campaigns
A Market-Based Model of State Supreme Court News
Judicial Independence and Opinion Clarity on State Supreme Courts
Judicial Deference and Executive Control Over Administrative Agencies
Public Opinion and Judicial Behavior in Direct Democracy Systems
Democratic Backsliding in the American States
Public Opinion and American Democracy
Measuring Case Salience in State Courts of Last Resort
Assessing the Impact of State Judicial Structures on Citizen Litigiousness
Conditions for Competition in Low-Information Judicial Elections
Informational Need, Institutional Capacity, and Court Receptivity
Representation in State Supreme Courts
Executive Power and Judicial Deference
Judicial Merit Selection
Out‐party, out of luck
Judicial Institutions and the Political Economy of Retirements
Theorizing the Submerged State
Lingering Debates and Innovative Advances
Two Sides of the Same Coin? Congruence and Responsiveness as Representative Democracy's Currencies
Why do lawmakers seek to sanction state courts
And Justice for Some
The Public's Increasing Punitiveness and Its Influence on Mass Incarceration in the United States
Selection Method, Partisanship, and the Administration of Elections
How Supreme Court Justices Supervise Ideologically Distant States
Discouraging Dissent
Case Visibility and the Electoral Connection in State Supreme Courts
Democracy in America
The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion
The Population Ecology of Interest Representation
The Puzzle of Judicial Behavior
The Impact of Public Opinion on Public Policy
Hardening of the Attitudes
Explaining Spatial Variation in Support for Capital Punishment
The Influence of Values on Consensus and Contentious Morality Policy
Professionalization as a Policy Choice
The Least Dangerous Branch Revisited
Why Do White Americans Support the Death Penalty
Recruitment of Chief Justices on State Supreme Courts
Beyond the Demand-Input Model
Expanding the Integrated Model of Judicial Decision Making
Measuring the Preferences of State Supreme Court Judges
The Interplay of Preferences, Case Facts, Context, and Rules in the Politics of Judicial Choice
Constituent Influence in State Supreme Courts
The Multi-Layered Impact of Public Opinion on Capital Punishment Implementation in the American States
Does State Political Ideology Change over Time
Comparing GEE and Robust Standard Errors for Conditionally Dependent Data
Understanding Interaction Models
Measuring Citizen and Government Ideology in the American States, 1960-93
The Hierarchy of Justice
Public Opinion in the American States
Accountability and Coercion
Does Quality Matter? Challengers in State Supreme Court Elections
Legislative Agendas and Interest Advocacy
Constituency Influence in Congress
Challenges to the Impartiality of State Supreme Courts
Pluralism, Federalism and the Protection of Civil Liberties
The Supreme Court as a Countermajoritarian Institution? The Impact of Public Opinion on Supreme Court Decisions
Popular Influence on Supreme Court Decisions
State Supreme Courts in American Democracy
| Unique citing works | 111 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 6,17 |
| Citation span | 2008 - 2026 (19) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 111 |