What does it mean for a supreme court to ‘make law?' When is it possible to say that its decisions are ‘precedents?' To what extent should a supreme court's pronouncements be taken into account by others – lower courts and political branches? And how should these other actors reason with...

I examine all cases decided by the New York State Ethics Commission between 1980-2005 to determine the rates at which judges are cited for ethical violations and the types of violations they receive. I find, using data from over 650 ethics citations, that judges cited often 1) exhibit a pattern...

Electoral incentives dictate that “the people's” representatives are primarily concerned with securing reelection. Can this expectation be applied to non-representative offices such as State Supreme Court justices? A majority of states use elections to choose non-policymakers such as State...

How does a U.S. court of appeals deal with a Supreme Court intervention into its ongoing work? A law-changing ruling affects not only the immediate parties but also many factually similar or related cases, and the affected court must cope with the situation. Mandates in recently-decided cases...

The Supreme Court held that a taxpayer who initially files a fraudulent income tax return cannot invoke a period of limitations by filing an honest amended return correcting the fraudulent aspects of the original return. The Supreme Court held in Badaracco v. Commissioner that once a fraudulent...

In this special report, Knoll and Mason discuss how the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court should apply Wynne when it hears on remand First Marblehead v. Commissioner of Revenue. The authors conclude that when it originally heard the case, the Massachusetts court mistakenly considered, as part...