Adherence to the doctrine of ___ adds valuable predictability and continuity to the judicial system, and reduces the possibility that judges will decide cases on a whim or in reliance on their own sense of right or wrong.
Factors supporting a view that public ___ does influence judges’ decision making include: 1) judges are human beings and are thus part of public ___; 2) public ___ is supposed to be part of the decision making process in many cases; 3) court decisions cannot be carried out without a reasonable degree of public support.
Supreme Court Justices' votes are always ___ (subject to change) until the moment that the Court hands down its decision in a case. (Discussing the impact that this fact has on the process of assigning decisions to justices to write, and how it affects the decision-writing process itself, and what happens when a decision-writing changes his/her vote, with examples, would be a good essay question.)
According to judiciary scholars Richard Richardson and Kenneth Vines, all jurists are subject to two major kinds of influence, the legal ___ and democratic ___.
Chief Justice Earl Warren used a strategy of delaying the conference ___ in order to get to a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
A ___ is a case in which there are two (or more) opinions announcing different parts of the Court's ruling for two (or more) different majorities on different portions of a single case.
Sometimes an appellate judge (including Supreme Court Justices) may sign on to a decision with which the judge does not actually ___. (Discussion of some of the circumstances under which this might occur would be a good essay question.)
Political party identification, localism, public opinion, and the influence of executive/legislative branches government are all factors that influence the “democratic (behavioralist/realist) subculture” of judicial ___.
The traditional 3-step process of ___ inherent to the traditional “legal subculture” framework for trial judge’s decision-making includes: 1) A similarity is identified between two cases. 2) The rule of law in the first case is announced.
3. The rule of law used in the first case is applied to the second case.
A judge is ___ likely to issue a decision in accordance with his or her personal beliefs or attitudes rather than strictly “in accordance with the law” when the evidence or the law are equally compelling on both sides, when the case involves new questions for which there is a dearth of legal precedent, or when the judge is one who takes a broad view of the judicial role.
___ is apparent between the courts in the various Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal in terms of a statistically significant difference in the number of "liberal" and "conservative" decisions by district court judges within those circuits.
Legal reasoning, precedent/stare decisis, and judicial restraint are the three abstract principles that make up the ___ subculture of trial judges decision making under the Richardson and Vines analytical framework. (Describing these three principles and their impact on Judge Mize’s decision making in the Evers v. Jackson case would be a good essay question.)
The term for the theory that judiciary researchers developed in the 1960s-1970s that held that there are key characteristics common of cases granted Supreme Court review that indicate that Supreme Court justices look for these characteristics in determining which cases to hear. (Describing this predictive model and the key characteristics, with examples, would be a good essay question.)
There is ___ evidence of partisan voting patterns among state court judges than among federal court judges.
Justices Kennedy and Sotomayer have both framed the questions and answers of oral argument as being not so much between the attorneys and the justices, but rather between the ____ themselves, with the attorneys serving as intermediaries in that discussion.
Justices write ___ opinions to explain their reasoning in a case when they disagree with the majority (or plurality) of the Court's reasoning, but agree with the outcome in the case. (Discussion of the Supreme Court's justices' trend toward writing more concurring and dissenting opinions, and why, would be a good essay question.)
Chief Justice Marshall crafted the Court in a model that emphasized institutional decisions and unanimity in opinions, and consensus was a norm for much of the 1800’s. Beginning in the late 1930’s into the 1940’s and continues on to today, the trend/change in opinion-writing has been toward placing more value on ___ opinions. (Discussing the rising legal "intellectual movements" and other changes in the Supreme Court's operations that contributed to the rise of ___ opinions would be a good essay question.)