Scholarship on judicial politics is rich, varied, and constantly improving. New research on organized interests, increasing attention to courts at the state level, evaluation of new appointment processes for judges, and a close look at the civil liberties and rights challenges in the wake of 9/11 all find their way onto the pages of this new edition. The authors attempt to present not only a comprehensive survey of the American judicial system, but an assessment of the interrelation between the courts and public policy. The sixth edition also features the authors' analysis of the ideological direction of judicial opinions during the current Bush administration.

Judges play a central role in the American legal system, but their behavior as decision-makers is not well understood, even among themselves. The system permits judges to be quite secretive (and most of them are), so indirect methods are required to make sense of their behavior. Here, a political scientist, an economist, and a judge work together to construct a unified theory of judicial decision-making. Using statistical methods to test hypotheses, they dispel the mystery of how judicial decisions in district courts, circuit courts, and the Supreme Court are made. The authors derive their hypotheses from a labor-market model, which allows them to consider judges as they would any other economic actors: as self-interested individuals motivated by both the pecuniary and non-pecuniary aspects of their work. In the authors' view, this model describes judicial behavior better than either the traditional “legalist” theory, which sees judges as automatons who mechanically apply the law to the facts, or the current dominant theory in political science, which exaggerates the ideological component in judicial behavior. Ideology does figure into decision-making at all levels of the federal judiciary, the authors find, but its influence is not uniform. It diminishes as one moves down the judicial hierarchy from the Supreme Court to the courts of appeals to the district courts. As The Behavior of Federal Judges demonstrates, the good news is that ideology does not extinguish the influence of other components in judicial decision-making. Federal judges are not just robots or politicians in robes.

The Constitution allows the president to "fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session." In Justice Takes a Recess, Scott E. Graves and Robert M. Howard address how presidents have used recess appointments over time and whether the independence of judicial recess appointees is compromised. They argue that these appointments can upset the separation of powers envisioned by the Framers, shifting power away from one branch of government and toward another. Examining every judicial recess appointment from 1789 to 2005, the authors discover that presidents are conditionally strategic when they unilaterally appoint federal judges during Senate recesses. Such appointments were made cautiously for most of the twentieth century, leading to a virtual moratorium for several decades, until three recent recess appointments to the courts in the face of Senate obstruction revived the controversy. These appointments suggest the beginning of a more assertive use of recess appointments in the increasingly politicized activity of staffing the federal courts. The authors argue that the recess appointment clause, as it pertains to the judiciary, is no longer necessary or desirable. The strategic use of such appointments by strong presidents to shift judicial ideology, combined with the lack of independence exhibited by judicial recess appointments, results in recess power that threatens constitutional features of the judicial branch.

Of findings and overview of the report -- Use and nonuse of court-appointed experts -- Identification and appointment of experts -- Communication with the appointed expert -- Compensation of court-appointed experts -- Alternatives to appointment of experts -- Improving the use of count-appointed experts.

From Louis Brandeis to Robert Bork to Clarence Thomas, the nomination of federal judges has generated intense political conflict. With the coming retirement of one or more Supreme Court Justices--and threats to filibuster lower court judges--the selection process is likely to be, once again, the center of red-hot partisan debate. In Advice and Consent, two leading legal scholars, Lee Epstein and Jeffrey A. Segal, offer a brief, illuminating Baedeker to this highly important procedure, discussing everything from constitutional background, to crucial differences in the nomination of judges and justices, to the role of the Judiciary Committee in vetting nominees. Epstein and Segal shed light on the role played by the media, by the American Bar Association, and by special interest groups (whose efforts helped defeat Judge Bork). Though it is often assumed that political clashes over nominees are a new phenomenon, the authors argue that the appointment of justices and judges has always been a highly contentious process--one largely driven by ideological and partisan concerns. The reader discovers how presidents and the senate have tried to remake the bench, ranging from FDR's controversial "court packing" scheme to the Senate's creation in 1978 of 35 new appellate and 117 district court judgeships, allowing the Democrats to shape the judiciary for years. The authors conclude with possible "reforms," from the so-called nuclear option, whereby a majority of the Senate could vote to prohibit filibusters, to the even more dramatic suggestion that Congress eliminate a judge's life tenure either by term limits or compulsory retirement. With key appointments looming on the horizon, Advice and Consent provides everything concerned citizens need to know to understand the partisan rows that surround the judicial nominating process.