Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


osu1306777128.pdf (5.34 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Motivations for the Use of Concurring Opinions on the U.S. Supreme Court

Winters, Kathleen H.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306777128

Abstract Details

2011, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Political Science.
While some behavior on the United States Supreme Court is formally required, other choices are wholly up to the discretion of each individual justice. One such discretional choice is the choice to author a concurring opinion, which agrees with the outcome of a case but add to, subtract from, or emphasize a point within the legal doctrine provided by the majority opinion. Thus, choices about concurring opinions provide a valuable opportunity for examining judicial motivations. This dissertation examines justices’ motives for both whether and when they circulate a concurrence to their colleagues, as well as whether they choose to publish it along with the Court’s opinion. The hypotheses are derived from two types of motivations – individual and collective. Tests of these hypotheses were conducted using data from the 1970 through 1979 Court terms, collected primarily from the personal papers of Justices Harry Blackmun and William Brennan. I use a split population event history model to test hypotheses about whether and when a justice first circulates a concurring opinion. I then use a logistic regression model to test hypotheses about whether a justice chooses to withdraw a written concurrence; this analysis is, of course, dependent upon the justice already having written a concurring opinion. In both sets of analyses I find that Supreme Court justices are motivated not only by their individual preferences about legal policy, but also by individual non-policy preferences, such as workload, and collective preferences about the institutional status of the Court, such as maintaining the Court’s legitimacy.
Lawrence Baum (Committee Chair)
Janet Box-Steffensmeier (Committee Member)
Gregory Caldeira (Committee Member)
248 p.
Political Science
US Supreme Court; judicial decision-making

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Winters, K. H. (2011). Motivations for the Use of Concurring Opinions on the U.S. Supreme Court [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306777128

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Winters, Kathleen. Motivations for the Use of Concurring Opinions on the U.S. Supreme Court. 2011. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306777128.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Winters, Kathleen. "Motivations for the Use of Concurring Opinions on the U.S. Supreme Court." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306777128

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1306777128
868
© 2011, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.