Opinion Assignments On the United States Courts of Appeals: the Question of Issue Specialization

Abstract

W X HILE the United States Supreme Court has traditionally been viewed as the focal point for judicial behavior research, the fact nevertheless remains that an ever-increasing number of studies has been published during the last decade that examine decision making within the context of the lower federal and state judicial systems. Many of these studies have directed their attention to the United States courts of appeals and view, for several reasons, these intermediate appellate courts as important and fertile areas for research.' First, courts of appeals are collegial courts, thus making them adaptable to the kinds of research orientations that have proven valuable in studying the Supreme Court. Second, and of equal importance, courts of appeals are the terminating point for virtually all the litigation that enters the federal judiciary. Thus, while the Supreme Court may capture the limelight with major policy pronouncements affecting the distribution of social and political values in America, the fact remains that the predominant proportion of appellate decision making occurs in the next lower rung of the federal judiciary hierarchy. The substantive importance of courts of appeals need not overshadow their methodological importance to political scientists in testing hypotheses which have proven useful in studies of the Supreme Court. One area of judicial behavior research that has not been systematically examined on the courts of appeals concerns the opinion assignment process. The research reported below analyzes opinion assignments occurring within the intermediate federal appellate courts. Our data will show that these assignments are not random, that judges tend to specialize in certain substantive areas, and that this opinion specialization can be partially