Appellate Courts

Many appellate courts, unlike trial courts, have the capacity to pick and choose which cases they will hear and decide. The presence or lack of discretionary jurisdiction has been shown to greatly affect the institutional norms and decision making of these courts as well as the actors who appear before these benches. Here we offer two sides of this coin. First, Professors Elizabeth Lane, Jessica Schoenherr, Rachel Schutte, and Ryan Black use archival data to reveal how interest groups influence the agenda of the US Supreme Court—a court with nearly limitless discretion over its docket. Supporting earlier work, these scholars show that interest group efforts at the docketing stage remain extremely effective signals and significantly increase the likelihood of a case obtaining scarce space on the Court’s docket. On the other side of the coin, we have a state supreme court that has no discretion over its docket and therefore hears and decides every qualifying case. This leads to a very different mix of cases and concerns. Professor William McLauchlan provides us with a case study of the Montana Supreme Court’s workload and its high level of mundane cases in direct contrast to the picture painted of the US Supreme Court docket by Pacelle and Pyle (see “Policy Making” chapter) or Lane and colleagues. If there were a third to the coin, it might be the analysis of the degree to which high courts can maintain independence in the face of a potentially hostile governing coalition (for a case study that touches on this topic, see Sommer and Braverman in the “Policy Making” chapter). Depending on the makeup of the winning coalition, Professors Saenz and Reid find greater or lesser support for judicial independence. The bottom line is fairly clear: elections have significant consequences for the Court beyond composition or cases.

“Judicial Discretion and U.S. Supreme Court Agenda Setting” by Elizabeth A. Lane; Jessica A. Schoenherr; Rachel A. Schutte; and Ryan C. Black

“An Empirical Examination of the Business of the Montana Supreme Court” by William P. McLauchlan

“Evaluating Regime Support Groups and Judicial Independence” by Denise Saenz and Rebecca A. Reid