"The Evolution of Conflict in the Lower Courts"; Deborah Beim, Yale University

Beim studies American politics in general and judicial politics in particular, with a focus on interactions between the U.S. Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals.

April 23, 2015
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Location
Silsby 215
Sponsored by
Program in Quantitative Social Science
Audience
Public
More information
Mathematics and Social Sciences Program

Conflicts between the Courts of Appeals are of central importance to the American judiciary. When circuits split, federal law is applied differently in different parts of the country. It has long been known that the existence of a circuit split is the best predictor of Supreme Court review, but data availability has constrained understanding of circuit splits to this fact. In this paper, we explore the ``lifecycle'' of an intercircuit split. We analyze an original dataset that comprises the universe of conflicts between Courts of Appeals that existed between 2005 and 2013, which includes both conflicts the Supreme Court resolved and conflicts it has not yet resolved. We show how long a conflict exists before it is resolved and how many go unresolved altogether, which conflicts are resolved soonest, and how a conflict grows across circuits.

Location
Silsby 215
Sponsored by
Program in Quantitative Social Science
Audience
Public
More information
Mathematics and Social Sciences Program