Courting Constituents: District Elections and Judicial Behavior on the Louisiana Supreme Court

Abstract

District elections are among the many methods that states may use to select supreme court justices. A state's choice of selection or retention systems reflects its political values: gubernatorial appointment stresses the importance of judicial independence, while elections indicate that judges should be accountable to the public for their decisions. We investigate whether district elections give judges incentive to act as representatives for their districts. Specifically, we hypothesize that state supreme court justices from conservative districts are more likely to vote against criminal defendants in cases from their districts than from other districts. We test this hypothesis on the votes of Louisiana Supreme Court justices in search-and-seizure cases, controlling for justice ideology and the facts of the case. The results support our hypothesis that judges may behave strategically by representing district interests through their votes.