Decision Making in the U.S. Courts of Appeals

265 Pages·2007·1.19 MB·English

by  Frank Cross

Decision Making in the
U.S. Courts of Appeals
Frank B. Cross
Stanford University Press
decision making in the u.s. courts of appeals
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frank b. cross
Decision Making in the U.S.
Courts of Appeals
stanford university press
stanford, california 2007
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Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 2007 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland
Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No
part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechan-
ical, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system without
the prior written permission of Stanford University
Press.
Printed in the United States of America on
acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Data
Cross, Frank B.
Decision making in the U.S. Courts of Appeals /
Frank B. Cross.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8047-5366-1 (cloth : alk. paper) —
isbn 978-0-8047-5713-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Judicial process—United States. 2. Appellate
courts—United States. 3. United States. Supreme
Court. I. Title.
kf8990.c76 2007
347.73(cid:2)24—dc22 200610258
Typeset by Newgen in 10/14 Janson
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Contents
Prologue 1
1. Political Ideology and Circuit Court
Decision Making 11
2. The Law and Circuit Court Decision Making 39
3. Judicial Background and Circuit Court
Decision Making 69
4. Other Institutions and Circuit Court
Decision Making 94
5. Litigants and Circuit Court Decision Making 123
6. Panel Effects and Circuit Court Decision Making 148
7. Procedural Threshold Effects and Circuit Court
Decision Making 178
8. Circuit Court Decision Making and Precedential
Impact 201
Epilogue 228
Notes 233
Index 245
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decision making in the u.s. courts of appeals
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Prologue
This book deals with the decisions rendered by the United States circuit
courts of appeals and with the opinions from those decisions. These courts
are intermediate, between the trial courts and the Supreme Court, and
they resolve appeals from the legal rulings of the trial courts as well as from
some administrative agencies. The United States has twelve basic circuits
of broad appellate jurisdiction, divided geographically (e.g., the fi rst circuit
governs Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico, and Rhode
Island), plus the relatively new federal circuit, which has limited subject
matter jurisdiction. When a party appeals a lower court decision, that deci-
sion is typically assigned to a panel of three circuit court judges, who will
affi rm or reverse it. Although cases are sometimes heard en banc, before all
the judges of the circuit, this is rare. The overwhelming majority of deci-
sions are rendered by three-judge panels.
While most public reportage and even scholarly research deals with
the U.S. Supreme Court, the circuit courts are much more important in
1
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