The major difference between the judicial decision making process of trial courts, and decision making by appellate courts, is that trial courts issue a decision made by one person, while appellate courts make decisions through ___ interaction.
Judicial ___ (Carp et al.), or legal ___ (O'Brien), are two names given the intellectual school of thought that espouses that judicial decision making is the product of human, extralegal stimuli as much (or more than) the product of fixed legal formulas or legal tests.
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.
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.
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.)
Law schools, bar associations, judicial councils, and other groups are responsible for the institutionalization of the legal ___ that make up the legal subculture upon which trial judges’ decision making is based.
___ 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.
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.
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 ___.
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.)
"___ choice theory" adds to and builds on the premise of the “attitude theory” as a predictive model for multijudge decision making behavior by asserting that judges decide cases largely according to their beliefs and attitudes, but in a strategic manner that takes into account such factors as political timing, and the likely actions and reactions of other political actors. (Describing the three theoretical views of the dynamics of multijudge decision making that focus on the point of making a decision in a case (excluding the one dealing with case acceptance) and discussing the one you find most convincing in terms of providing insight into appellate court behavior, and why, would be a good essay question.)
An opinion from an appellate court panel, or the Supreme Court, that fails to command a majority of judges in agreement with the reasoning for the decision, even though a majority agree with the decision's ultimate outcome, is called a ____ opinion.
According to judiciary scholars Richard Richardson and Kenneth Vines, all jurists are subject to two major kinds of influence, the legal ___ and democratic ___.
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.
US Chief Justice, US Chief Judges (in the US Circuit Courts) and the State Supreme Court Judges play special ___ in decision making on their respective courts. (Describing these roles and their interplay in the small-group theory of influential factors in judicial decision making of multimember appellate courts would be a good essay question.)
Chief Justice Earl Warren used a conference/vote strategy of ___ the vote in order to get to a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education.