The Nixon appointments to the United States Courts of Appeals

163 Pages·2017·7.71 MB·English

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Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014
1-1-1975
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Jon Spencer Gottschall
University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Gottschall, Jon Spencer, "The Nixon appointments to the United States Courts of Appeals : the impact of
the law and order issue on the rights of the accused." (1975). Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February
2014. 1852.
https://doi.org/10.7275/b9gw-pz42 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1/1852
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THE NIXON APPOINTMENTS TO THE
UNITED STATES COURTS OF APPEALS:
THE IMPACT OF THE LAW AND ORDER ISSUE
ON THE RIGHTS OF THE ACCUSED
A Dissertation Presented
By
Jon Spencer Gottschall
Submitted to the Graduate School of the
University of Massachusetts in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
August, 1975
Political Science
(c) Jon Spencer Gottschall, 1976
All Rights Reserved
THE NIXON APPOINTMENTS TO THE
UNITED STATES COURTS OF APPEALS:
THE IMP:.CT OF THE LAVJ AND ORDER ISSUE
ON THr; RIGHTS OF THE iiCCUSED
A Dissertation
By
Jon Spencer Gottschall
Approved as to style and content by:
Uarvey Kline, Chairman
7-iugust, 1975
The Nixon Appointees to the United States
Courts of Appeals: The Impact of the
Law and Order Issue on the Rights
of the Accused (August 1975)
Jon S. Gottschall, B.A., Texas Technological University
M.S., Texas Technological University
Directed by: Dr. Sheldon Goldman
The major findings of this study include the following:
(1) When appeals judges were aggregated in terms of their scores
on criminal procedures cases, differences were observed in the voting
behavior of Nixon appointees as compared to non-Nixon Democrats and non-
Nixon Republicans during fiscal 1970 to 1973.
(2) Nixon appointees voted more "conservatively" than these other
two judge groups. Non-Nixon Democrats were the most "liberal" group,
and non-Nixon Republicans fell in between the other two groups.
(3) However, when the circuit was introduced as a control, it was
found that (a) the relationship between the three judge groups varied
from circuit to circuit with only six circuits conforming to the hypo-
thesis; (b) the composite and median scores of Nixon appointees and non-
Nixon Republicans outside the South were virtually identical when only
the cases of fiscal 1973 were considered; and (c) bloc analysis of individ-
ual circuits revealed that Nixon appointees do not constitute monolithic
and sharply "conservative" blocs in any but the District of Columbia
circuit, where voting patterns of Nixon appointees were similar to voting
patterns of Nixon appointees to the Supreme Court.
(4) Moreover, when other background characteristics were entered
as controls on the appointing administration variable, the latter was
found to account for only a small proportion of the observed variances
,in voting behavior among the judges of the Courts of Appeals.
(5) There also appeared to be a relationship between the scores
of Nixon appointees and their sponsoring Republican Senator, where one
existed. The most "conservative" Nixon appointees were recommended,
for the most part, by the most conservative Republican Senator, or were
the choices of the Administration in the absence of eligible Republican
sponsors. This suggests that Senatorial courtesy was an obstacle to
the attainment of preferred administration nominees.
(6) Finally, doctrinal analysis of confession cases also indicated
that Nixon appointees did not always agree on confession issues, varying
in their legal positions not only from circuit to circuit but within
some circuits.
(7) The tentative conclusion, then, of this study is that,
although the Nixon appointees did appear more "conservative" when their
voting behavior was aggregated, they constituted, with the exception of
the District of Columbia circuit, nothing like the cohesive "conservative"
bloc of Nixon appointees which dominated criminal justice issues on the
Supreme Court over roughly the same period.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is impossible to adequately thank the many people who
supported me in this project. However, my greatest debt is to my
•wife, Marcia, who was instrumental in the selection of the topic and
in some of the revisions, and who also made many sacrifices in her
own life and studies so that I could finish.
I also have a great debt to the chairman of my dissertation
committee, Sheldon Goldman, who guided me through many of the most
difficult aspects of this study and who was always generous with his
time; his encouragement and good advice sustained me not only in this
project but throughout my graduate studies at the University of
Massachusetts.
I am also grateful Lo Lhe uLher meinbers of my committee,
Jon Simpson and Loren Beth, who carefully read and criticized the
manuscript. Their comments led to revisions which I believe strengthened
the final draft.
I would also like to thank my wife's parents. Rex and Marge Petty,
my mother, Dorothy Gottschall, and my grandfather, Robert E. Dawson,
who contributed moral and financial support during this period.
Finally, I would like to thank my children, Deidre, Richard, and
Jonathan, who endured this period.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
INTRODUCTION
Chapter
I. THE NIXON CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE COURT: AN HISTORICAL
PERSPECTIVE
Earlier Campaigns Against the Court
The Nixon Campaign
II. THE SELECTION AND SOCIO-POLITICAL BACKGROUND
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JUDGES OF THE UNITED STATES COURTS
OF APPEALS: EISENHOWER TO NIXON
Recent Literature on the Appointment Process
The Role of the American Bar Association
Factors Influencing Administration Choices
Background Characteristics of Appeals Court
Judges: Eisenhower to Nixon
III. THE IMPACT OF THE NIXON APPOINTEES TO THE UNITED STATES
COURTS OF APPEALS: A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE
DISPOSITION OF CRIMINAL APPEALS DURING FISCAL 1973
Analysis of Individual Circuits
Aggregate Analysis
Summary
IV. CONFLICT ON THE COURTS OF APPEALS: ATTITUDES, BACKGROUNDS
AND THE DISPOSITION OF CRIMINAL APPEALS IN NON-UNANIMOUS
CRIMINAL CASES, FISCAL 1970-73
Aggregate Analysis
Circuit by Circuit Analysis
Senate A.D.A. Scores and Judicial Voting
Bloc Analysis
Socio-Pol tical Background Characteristics
i
and Judicial Voting Behavior
92
Background
Statements Taken After Assertion of Rights to Silence
or Attorney
Interrogation Without the Knowledge of Retained
Attorney
Failure of Police to Honor Requests tor Counsel
Ambiguous or Contradictory Statements of Defendant
Rights
Proof of Waiver
Rights of Juveniles
Harris v. New York The Impeachment Issue
.
Circuit by Circuit Analysis
Conclusions
VI. CONCLUSIONS
Major Findings
Explanation of Findings
Future Research
BIBLIOGRAPHY
144