Multi-User Data Base for the U.S. Courts of Appeals

上诉法院仍然是最不被理解的法院之一。 主要的联邦机构。 尽管这些重要性 法院在制定国家政策方面的作用， 一些特殊的研究，缺乏分析数据， 在联邦管辖范围内， 限制了我们对司法决策和 案件，争议，以及这些问题的结果 法院。 Songer寻求推进法院的科学工作， 通过建立多用户数据库提出上诉。 的 资源将集中在1925年至1989年，包括 既有未公布的，也有已公布的。 采样 设计要求在所有12个案例中使用约40，000个案例 辖区 为了确保科学的实用性， 这些数据为许多潜在的用户，数据的范围广泛， 具有理论意义的变量（例如，关于选票， （一）当事人、争议当事人、争议的实质内容; 密码 编码的可靠性将受到极大的关注。 此外，变量和编码约定将与 现有的大规模数据集最高法院和 联邦地区法院。 监督委员会由以下人员组成： 积极的研究人员将提供指导博士. 进行这项工作。 数据集将被存档， 通过大学间政治联盟提供 和密歇根大学的社会研究。 该数据集的创建是对 领域 有了这套数据，新的研究将 否则可能会太昂贵而无法承担 个人的基础上，他们可以做得更严格， 注意对立的假设。 此外，与现存的 关于其他各级法院的数据，这一资源将包括 有史以来最全面的数据库， 司法决策和行为的比较， 联邦司法系统的三个层次。

The Courts of Appeals remain among the least comprehended of major federal institutions. Despite the importance of these courts in setting national policy and attention to their role in a number of particularistic studies, the absence of analytic data across federal jurisdictions and over large spans of time has limited our understanding of judicial decisionmaking and of the cases, controversies, and outcomes of issues heard by these courts. Dr. Songer seeks to advance scientific work on the Courts of Appeals through the development of a multi-user data base. The resource will focus on the years 1925 through 1989 and include both unpublished as well as published decisions. The sampling design calls for approximately 40,000 cases across all twelve jurisdictions. In order to insure the scientific utility of these data for many potential users, data on a broad range of variables of theoretical significance (e.g., relating to votes, decisions, issues, parties, and substance of the dispute) will be coded. Substantial attention will be paid to coding reliability. Also, variables and coding conventions will be compatible with existing large-scale data sets on the Supreme Court and the federal district courts. A Board of Overseers comprised of active researchers will provide guidance to Dr. Songer in the conduct of this work. The data set will be archived and made available through the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan. The creation of this data set is a major contribution to the field. With the availability of this data set, new studies will be possible that might otherwise be too expensive to undertake on an individual basis, and they can be done with greater rigor and attention to rival hypotheses. Also, in conjunction with extant data on other tiers of courts, this resource will comprise the most comprehensive data base ever assembled and permit direct comparisons of judicial decisionmaking and behavior across all three levels of the federal judicial system.