A Political Effect on Judicial Decision Making: Does Ideology or Election Effect the Way Judges Decide?

Author

KayLynne Lyons

Date of Award

4-2020

Document Type

Thesis

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Patrick Donnay

Abstract

Politics have shown to have a strong effect on most things in our country. There has been lots of research on our state judicial systems and their effects on judicial decisions. Judges have been accused of having underlying reasons to their decisions even though they are not supposed to. Past research has suggested that how the judge is retained has a small but relevant effect on judicial decision making. The literature review discusses effects of the state's system of judicial selection. That leads us to question more about political effects on decision making. I analyze how the ideology of a state and all that entails may affect the decisions made by judges on joining a majority overturning precedent. My data comes from the Pollock States Dataset which is made up of political variables on states, the Judge File Data that is variables on cases separated by state such as the salience and retention systems, as well as some variables I added. The States Dataset focuses on different state statistic and the Judge File data is on variables that effected judicial decisions. All the data I used was based around the 2016 election year including all cases in the Jude File Data. The judicial decisions are focused on a judge choosing to join the majority in overturning precedent rulings. I analyze factors associated with politics to judicial decisions. When cross examining these factors, I expect to see a correlation between how a judge decides and the ideology of that state. I think there will be a connection to other factors such as competitiveness and major social issues. There was not a significant connection between the decision to overturn precedent and a state’s partisan characteristics. Competitiveness of the 2016 election and overturning precedent did show a correlation. The Democratic party was affected more by competitiveness. A states ideology influenced the judge's decision to overturn precedent.

Recommended Citation

Lyons, KayLynne, "A Political Effect on Judicial Decision Making: Does Ideology or Election Effect the Way Judges Decide?" (2020). Political Science Theses and Capstones. 38.
https://pines.bemidjistate.edu/capstone-polisci/38