Social Backgrounds and Judicial Decisions: Notes for a Theory

Abstract

C URRENT INTERPRETATIONS of the judicial process, particularly that part of the process which involves the Supreme Court of the United States, have consistently assigned an important role to the social and political backgrounds of the judges in explaining decision-making behavior. Differing background characteristics and experiences have been hypothesized as being perhaps the major factors in understanding and predicting variant voting patterns of judges on appellate courts.' Such interpretations derive from so-called dynamic theories of the judicial process which picture the judge as a policy-oriented decision-maker who derives his premises both from within and without the courtroom, and whose functions far exceed the mechanical task of applying settled rules of law to clear fact situations. These theories have not usually specified the precise nature of the relationship between a judge's background experiences and his judicial work. They have eschewed the untenable hypothesis that judicial decisions can be explained solely in terms of social backgrounds. And they have accepted the notion that the judge operates in an institutional framework which places certain restraints on the pure