Doctoral Dissertation Research on the U.S. Supreme Court's Selection of Petitions In Forma Pauperis

该项目涉及对美国最高法院选择有偿和未付请愿书进行审查的统计分析。这项研究的目的是确定法院对未付案件的选择是否以何种方式以及在多大程度上不同于其对有偿案件的选择。许多实证研究认为，哪些案件特征增加了最高法院选择复审申诉的可能性，学者们利用这些研究的结果得出了关于法院决策过程的结论和选择全面复审案件的决定依据。然而，这些研究将其分析局限于有偿请愿书，排除了贫困诉讼当事人提出的请愿书，即以贫困形式或IFP请愿书形式的请愿书。审查相同的案件特点是否对受理未付请愿书的可能性具有同样的影响，有助于阐明法院的决策过程和遴选标准，从而大大增加最高法院议程设置职能方面的学术财富。该研究还探讨了法院对穷人的可及性以及法院对影响低收入者的问题的关注，这些问题具有重要的规范意义。除了扩大关于政治决策的学术研究、法院的议程设置职能和平等进入法院的机会外，这项研究还涉及从主要来源创建一个数据集，其中载有关于国际刑事法院议程的信息。

This project involves statistical analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court's selection of both paid and unpaid petitions for review. The goal of the study is to determine whether, in what ways, and to what extent the Court's selection of unpaid cases differs from its selection of paid cases. Numerous empirical studies have considered which case characteristics increase the likelihood that the Supreme Court will select a petition for review, and scholars have used the results of those studies to reach conclusions about the Court's decision making process and bases for decision in selecting cases for full review. Those studies, however, have limited their analysis to paid petitions, to the exclusion of those petitions filed by indigent litigants, the petitions in forma pauperis or IFP petitions. Examining whether the same case characteristics have the same influence on the probability of accepting unpaid petitions illuminates the Court's decision making process and criteria for selection, and thus adds significantly to the wealth of scholarship on the Supreme Court's agenda-setting function. The study also explores the accessibility of the Court to the poor and the Court's attention to issues affecting low- income people, issues with important normative implications. In addition to expanding upon the scholarship on political decision making, the Court's agenda-setting function, and equal access to the Court, this study involves the creation of a dataset from primary sources, containing information on the IFP docket.