En Bancs in the U.S. Courts of Appeals

该项目构建并分析了一个数据集，其中包括美国上诉法院在1937至2008年间做出的约3600项全盘裁决的选定案例特征和结果。作为联邦系统中大多数诉讼当事人的最后诉诸法院，美国上诉法院通常通过轮流参加由三名法官组成的陪审团来开展工作。对于一小部分但重要的案件，法官将决定重新审理此案，并可能全盘审理。对于大多数巡回法院来说，EN BANC的考虑涉及到上诉法院被任命的全部法官。在一个法院(第九巡回法院)，EN BANC案件由14名随机挑选的法官和巡回法院首席法官审理。EN BANC程序涉及上诉法院投入大量时间和资源，但人们对采用该程序的目的或这一体制设计对上诉法院法官决策的影响知之甚少。对这些数据的分析将系统和全面地说明EN BANC程序的使用情况。虽然联邦规则表明，该程序将用于审议涉及重大问题的案件和解决巡回法庭内部冲突，但尚不清楚该程序用于这些目的的频率有多高，而不是简单地审计三名法官组成的小组的政策结果。通过将EN BANC数据与由三名法官组成的小组中相同法官所作裁决的现有数据集相结合，该项目还提供了一个难得的机会来审查体制背景对决策的影响。

This project constructs and analyzes a data set consisting of selected case characteristics and outcomes for approximately 3600 en banc decisions by the U.S. Courts of Appeals between 1937 and 2008. As the courts of last resort for most litigants in the federal system, the U.S. Courts of Appeals generally conduct their work by sitting in rotating three-judge panels. For a small, but important, set of cases, judges will decide to re-hear the case and potentially sit en banc. For most circuits, en banc consideration involves the full complement of judges appointed to the appeals court. In one court (the Ninth Circuit), en banc cases are heard before fourteen randomly selected judges and the Chief Judge of the circuit. The en banc procedure involves the commitment of considerable time and resources on the part of the Courts of Appeals but little is known about the purposes for which the procedure is employed or the effects of this institutional design on the decision making of the judges of the Courts of Appeals. The analysis of these data will provide a systematic and comprehensive description of the uses of the en banc procedure. While federal rules indicate that the procedure is to be employed for consideration of cases involving significant questions and to resolve intra-circuit conflicts, it is unknown how frequently it has been used for these purposes as opposed to simply auditing the policy outcomes of three-judge panels. By combining the en banc data with extant data sets of decisions by the same judges in three-judge panels, the project also presents a rare opportunity to examine the effect of institutional context on decision making.