To accomplish this goal I first conduct a content analysis of all televised judicial advertisements aired from 2005-2016. While other scholars have examined the use of attack advertisements in judicial elections (Hall 2014), my study is the first to consider ads airing before and after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling that removed spending limits for political groups. I find that neither the use of attack nor contrast advertisements appears to be increasing, though the sponsors of such ads have changed such that candidates and political parties air far fewer negative advertisements, but political groups air more negative ads than they did before Citizens United.
I then conduct a unique experiment to examine the effects of negativity on perceptions of specific and diffuse legitimacy. Unlike previous studies, I include a treatment group for contrast advertisements, which are advertisements containing elements of negativity about a target, as well as positive information about the target’s opponent. I find that, perceptions of the court’s diffuse legitimacy are only moderately influenced by exposure to negative ads. I do however find that contrast advertisements appear to depress perceptions of the court’s diffuse legitimacy by a significant amount for individuals with high knowledge of the courts.
Prior research finds that political interests turn to the state courts for two reasons: The structure of law creates a legal incentive and the political interests have access to state level resources, e.g. attorneys skilled in the laws of a state. Yet, there appear to be important gaps in existing theory. A distinction between state and national political interests is seemingly important. State political interests are embedded within their state political communities; consequently these interests should have strong attachments with their respective state courts. Also, state political interests can be expected to select courts on the basis of political ideology and state judicial selection methods. Prior research has shown the connection between these factors and judicial decision-making, but not interest group participation.
To examine these areas of uncertainty, this research collected more than 3500 observations of the participation of political interests in the American courts. Two legal areas were selected: eminent domain and marriage equality. Ultimately, this study finds that state political interests develop strong attachments to their respective state courts and are more likely to enter into the state courts than their nationally-oriented counterparts. This research also finds that judicial ideology and state judicial selection both influence the decision to enter into the state courts. This shows a relationship between these factors and the decision to enter into the state courts. It also suggests that these factors not only affect the choices that judges make, but other actors as well, including political interests.
The era of mass data collection is upon us and only recently have people begun to consider the value of their data. All of our clicks and likes have helped big tech companies build predictive models to tailor their product to the buying patterns of the consumer. Big data collection has its advantages in increasing profitability and efficiency, but many are concerned about the lack of transparency in these technologies (Dwyer). The dependency on algorithms to make and influence decisions has become a growing concern in law enforcement. The use of this technology is commonly referred to as data-driven decision making, which is also known as predictive policing. These technologies are thought to reduce the biases held in traditional policing by creating statistically sound evidence-based models. Although, many lawsuits have highlighted the fact that predictive technologies do more to reflect historical bias rather than to eradicate it. The clandestine measures behind the algorithms may be in conflict with the due process clause and the penumbra of privacy rights enumerated in the First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments. <br/> Predictive policing technology has come under fire for over policing historically black and latinx neighborhoods. GIS (Geographical Information Systems) is supposed to help officers identify where crime will likely happen over the next twelve hours. However, the LAPD’s own internal audit of their program concluded that the technology did not help officers solve crimes or reduce crime rate any better than traditional patrol methods (Puente). Similarly, other types of tools used to calculate recidivism risk for bond sentencing are disproportionately biased to calculate black people as having a higher risk to reoffend (Angwin). Lawsuits from civil liberties groups have been filed against the police departments that utilized these technologies. This paper will examine the constitutional pitfalls of predictive technology and propose ways that the system could work to ameliorate its practices.
The United States Supreme Court decided Ramos v. Louisiana in 2020, requiring all states to convict criminal defendants by a unanimous jury. However, this case only applied to petitioners on direct, and not collateral, appeal. In this thesis, I argue that the Ramos precedent should apply to people on collateral appeal as well, exploring the implications of such a decision and the criteria that should be used to make the decision in the case before the court, Edwards v. Vannoy (2021). Ultimately, I find that because the criteria currently used to determine retroactivity of new criminal precedents does not provide a clear answer to the question posed in Edwards, the Court should give more weight to the defendant's freedoms pursuant to the presumption of innocence while considering the potential for any disastrous outcomes.