Plessy v. Ferguson. Buck v. Bell. Korematsu v. United States. Together, these three decisions legitimated ‘separate but equal,' sanctioned the forced sterilization of thousands, and ratified the removal of Japanese Americans from their homes during World War II. By Erwin Chemerinsky's measure...

We introduce a new data set recording the vote of every Justice in 18,812 Supreme Court cases decided between 1838 and 1949. When combined with existing data sets, our new data allow us to examine votes in all cases through 2009. We use this data to address previously unanswerable questions...

This project evaluates whether television advertising and the changing electoral climate brought about by Republican Party of Minnesota v. White (2002) have had detrimental effects on voting in state supreme court elections. Almost universally, judicial elections - particularly expensive...

This year, while accepting the "Rule of Law" award from the American Bar Association, Justice Breyer proclaimed that our constitutional system "floats on a sea of public acceptance." At that time, Breyer's statements were meant to highlight his expectation that the Court will decide its cases...

State income taxation of Indian traders is a legal issue that the United States Supreme Court is likely to address within the next five years. This article provides a theoretical framework for resolution of the issue by considering the political framework of the United States Constitution and...

We introduce a new method to measure the ideology of state supreme court justices using campaign finance records. In addition to recovering ideal point estimates for both incumbent and challenger candidates, the method's unified estimation framework recovers judicial ideal points in a common...

The 1991 Policy of liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation was a complete game changer for the Indian economy and by an extension, for the justice system in the country. The Indian legal infrastructure needed reforms even before 1991; however, the cycle of reforms that started post 1991 gave...

This paper investigates internal dynamics of decision-making process in Brazil’s Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal – STF). The interest is not in each Justice individually, but in the collegial game, focusing on how Justices group together to vote. The empirical analysis is grounded on...

Neuroscientific evidence is increasingly being offered in court cases. Consequently, the legal system needs neuroscientists to act as expert witnesses who can explain the limitations and interpretations of neuroscientific findings so that judges and jurors can make informed and appropriate...