Scaling Supreme Court Opinions

这个项目将开发一个原始的潜在变量估计，以衡量最高法院的意见，在“案件空间”。“由于缺乏对法律的学说的系统的、定量的衡量，对司法制定的政策的决定因素和后果的系统研究受到阻碍。 该项目将建立一个理论模型，根据对过去案件的引用，确定案件和意见在潜在“案件空间”中的位置。 借鉴美国判例法的方法，对案件的事实成分和案件处理过程中各种意见书的法律的成分进行系统的估计。 原始数据将收集的事实和法律的联系-引文-案件之间的估计将适用。 这些方法和数据将使学者们能够更好地解决主导文献的理论问题。 例如，该方法将允许对合议庭的谈判理论、司法外行为者对法律的政策制定的影响理论以及最高法院任命的影响理论进行新的检验，该项目将对民主政治制度的研究产生广泛的影响。 首先，也是最直接的，通过提供司法政策的定量测量，研究将揭示司法政策制定的系统模式。 第二，该项目将使未来的研究人员能够回答许多悬而未决的问题，即法院裁决案件的限制以及法律发展的沿着。 例如，政治学中的一个重要问题涉及司法判决在多大程度上有效保护少数群体的权利，以及法院在多大程度上受到多数政治的制约。 通过系统地衡量司法意见制定的政策，可以更好地评估法官如何塑造法律以及下级法院和司法外官员遵守法院裁决的程度。 它也将有可能更好地了解推动司法政策的力量。

This project will develop an original latent variable estimator to scale Supreme Court opinions in a "case space." Systematic study of the determinants and consequences of judicially-created policy have been hampered by the lack of systematic, quantitative measures of legal doctrine. The project will develop a theoretical model of the location of cases and opinions in an underlying "case space" as a function of citations to past cases. Taking advantage of the common law method used in American jurisprudence, the factual components of cases and the legal components of the various opinions written in the course of disposing of the cases will be systematically estimated. Original data will be collected on factual and legal links - citations - among cases to which the estimator will be applied. The method and data will allow scholars to better address the theoretical questions that dominate the literature. For example, the method will allow for new tests of theories of bargaining on collegial courts, theories of the influence of extra-judicial actors on the creation of legal policy, and theories of the effects of Supreme Court appointments.The project will have broad implications for the study of democratic political institutions. First and most directly, the research will shed light onto the systematic patterns in judicial policy making by providing a quantitative measure of judicial policy. Second, the project will allow future researchers to answer many of the outstanding questions about the constraints under which courts decide cases and the path along which the law develops. For example, a significant question in political science concerns the extent to which judicial decisions are effective protections for minority rights and the extent to which the courts are constrained by majoritarian politics. With a systematic measure of the policies created by judicial opinions, better assessments can be made of how judges shape the law and the extent to which lower courts and extra-judicial officials comply with the courts' decisions. It also will be possible to gain better insight into the forces that drive judicial policy.