NCJ Number
96163
Date Published
1976
Length
45 pages
Annotation
Analyses of the relationship of judges' background and attitudinal characteristics to judicial decisions demonstrated that political party and religious orientation were important predictors of judicial propensities in criminal cases and that prejudicial association with business was an important predictor in economic cases.
Abstract
The study used 1955 data on 313 State supreme court judges. The judge characteristics examined included background variables such as political party, pressure group affiliations, prejudicial occupation, education, age, geography, and ethnic affiliation as well as two attitudinal variables -- economic and criminal liberalism. Political party was a relatively good predictor of decisions in both criminal and economic cases. Being Catholic rather than Protestant was also a good indicator of favorable defense decisions in criminal cases. There were two substantial negative correlations with the criminal case decisions: tuition cost of law school and economic liberalism attitude. Unexpectedly, judges who came from low-tuition law schools did not tend to decide for the defense, nor did those with a liberal economic attitude. The total variance accounted for among the judges in the criminal cases was 43 percent. The total variance accounted for in the economic cases was 90 percent, probably because such cases are more one-dimensional than criminal cases. In focusing on research methodology, the paper discusses how multiple correlation techniques can be used to supplement nonmultiple correlation methods and implications of these results for future research. A codebook, tables, and footnotes are included.