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Private Actions--Public Responsibilities: Reflections on West v. Atkins (1988)Shane, Ruth Hardie 02 December 2003 (has links)
This dissertation explores the pragmatic implications of judicial rhetoric found in a 1988 Supreme Court decision, i.e., this is a dissertation about public administration using constitutional law to illuminate an administrative question. My viewpoint is a legal/constitutional one which uses the law as pedagogue to inform public administration and to offer a useful message for the public administration practitioner. That message deals with a legal/constitutional distinction between publicness and privateness and the implications of that distinction.
Quincy West was sentenced to prison in 1973 for armed robbery. While in prison he suffered a torn Achilles tendon for which he received inadequate medical care. After numerous attempts to obtain medical care, West filed suit against the prison physician contractor in federal courts for cruel and unusual punishment. This dissertation uses the story of West's legal efforts and the Supreme Court's decision in his case to discuss the broad implications of that decision for the public administration practitioner and government contractors. The lens is a constitutional one. The framework is John Rohr's schema for understanding a Supreme Court case: viewing that case from the institutional, concrete, dialectical, and pertinent perspectives.
The specifics of West's allegations against his physician invite discussions of bioethical topics such as informed consent and medical legal topics such as malpractice and patient abandonment. The Court's determination of state action in West v. Atkins (1988) requires discussion of the administrative areas of contracts and grants administration as well as risk management. The complex responsibilities of the public administration practitioner are examined, as is his or her need to follow and independently learn from the messages included in the courts' interpretation of the law.
This historic story illustrates that there is no bright line between law and policy. The Court's dialogue with itself is not merely interpretation and development of the law - it is policy reformulation. For this reason, among others, the conscientious administrator must monitor the Court's ongoing dialogue and listen attentively to its messages of import for our field and our practice. / Ph. D.
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The Influence of Interest Groups as Amicus Curiae on Justice Votes in the U.S. Supreme CourtCarisetti, Maria Katharine 16 June 2016 (has links)
Amicus curiae participation by interest groups has greatly increased over the past few decades in the Supreme Court despite a limited understanding of their influence. Previous literature has suggested that at the U.S. Supreme Court level, interest groups as amici are no more likely to get justices votes in a liberal or conservative direction than when no amicus brief is provided. Some literature, however, suggests that there are certain types of cases in which amicus briefs may be influential, such as in constitutional, statutory, and civil rights cases. By conducting several comparisons of means tests for the number of justice votes in a certain ideological direction with and without an amicus brief, this study investigates the influence of briefs on justice votes in civil rights and economic cases. The findings support the previous literature that suggests briefs are no more likely to be related to an increased number of votes in the direction of the brief, but finds that civil rights cases may be positively affected by amicus briefs while economic cases are negatively affected. This thesis concludes by explaining that the content of the briefs submitted should change in order to be more effective in influencing justices or that interest groups should use their efforts in other avenues to impact policy. / Master of Arts
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A Compliant Court: The Political Effects of the Addition of Judgeships to the United States Supreme Court Following Electoral RealignmentsJudson, Lauren Joyce 19 September 2014 (has links)
During periods of turmoil when ideological preferences between the federal branches of government fail to align, the relationship between the three quickly turns tumultuous. Electoral realignments especially have the potential to increase tension between the branches. When a new party replaces the 'old order' in both the legislature and the executive branches, the possibility for conflict emerges with the Court. Justices who make decisions based on old regime preferences of the party that had appointed them to the bench will likely clash with the new ideological preferences of the incoming party. In these circumstances, the president or Congress may seek to weaken the influence of the Court through court-curbing methods. One example Congress may utilize is changing the actual size of the Supreme
The size of the Supreme Court has increased four times in United States history, and three out of the four alterations happened after an electoral realignment. Through analysis of Supreme Court cases, this thesis seeks to determine if, after an electoral realignment, holdings of the Court on issues of policy were more congruent with the new party in power after the change in composition as well to examine any change in individual vote tallies of the justices driven by the voting behavior of the newly appointed justice(s). / Master of Arts
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Sex, Gender, Women and the Supreme Court: How the Supreme Court has Impacted Sexual Harassment Standards in Employment Practices.Sullivan, Maggie 01 January 2006 (has links)
In 1964 the Civil Rights Act was passed into law. Title VII of this act provided a means for equal opportunities and treatment in employment practices for all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. However, the inclusion of sex into the provision was not meant to deliver rights to women and did not afford women an effective means to seek protection from sexual harassment in employment. Sexual harassment limits women in their economic position and subjects women to unjust treatment in the workplace. National standards for sexual harassment originated with the Supreme Court's decision in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson which provided that sexual harassment was a form of sex discrimination protected by Title VII. Researching if the Court develops sexual harassment case law in a manner that accounts for feminist principles in regard to women, sex, and gender, it is determined whether the Supreme Court contributes positively to women's progress in employment and in tum advances feminist goals.
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Strategic Versus Sincere Behavior: The Impact of Issue Salience and Congress on the Supreme Court DocketWilliams, Jeffrey David 05 1900 (has links)
The theory proposed here is that the Supreme Court behaves in a strategic manner at the agenda-setting stage in order to vote sincerely on the merits. To test this, I measure the impact issue salience and ideological distance between Congress and the Supreme Court has on the agenda. The results indicate that whether the Supreme Court behaves either sincerely or strategically depends on the policy area. The strategic nature of the Supreme Court at the agenda-setting phase may be in large part why some research shows that the Court behaves sincerely when voting on the merits. By behaving strategically at the agenda-setting phase, the Court is free to vote sincerely in later parts of the judicial process.
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An Application of Small-Group Methods to Judicial Decision Making by the Nixon CourtBrownlee, Don Robert 12 1900 (has links)
This study isolates the impact of certain factors upon the decision making of the United States Supreme Court. Selected group theory methodology is applied to the Court's decisions from 1969 through 1973. The group structure of the Court, the impact of personnel change, and the effect of judicial attitudes on public policy are explored and statistically measured with a chisquare. Schubert's bloc analysis and a Guttman scale are used to order the data. Conclusions include that two stable blocs existed on the Court during these years. Personnel change is demonstrated as causative of alterations in judicial behavior. Seven of eight groups of cases are shown to stimulate values of the Justices. Suggestions are made for further research.
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The United States Supreme Court's Volitional Agendas, 1801-1993: Historical Claims versus Empirical FindingsOgundele, Ayodeji O. 05 1900 (has links)
In this study, I examined the Supreme Court's agenda from 1801 to 1993 to determine the composition and dynamics of the issues that have dominated the business of the Court. Specifically, I set out to test empirically Robert G. McCloskey's (now standard) characterization of the Supreme Court's history, which sees it as dominated by nationalism/federalism issues before the Civil War, by economic issues just after the War through the 1930s, and by civil rights and liberties since the 1930s. The question that drove my investigation was "Is McCloskey's interpretation, which appears to be based on the great cases of Supreme Court history, an accurate description of the agenda represented in the Supreme Court's total body of reported decisions?"
To test McCloskey's historical theses I employed concepts adapted from Richard Pacelle's (1991) important work on the agenda of post-Roosevelt Court and used the methods of classical historical analysis and of interrupted time-series analysis. Data for my research came from existing datasets and from my own collection (I coded the manifest content of thousands of Supreme Court's decisions from 1887 back to 1801). The most important finding from my analyses is that McCloskey not withstanding, the pre-Civil War Supreme Court's agenda was clearly dominated by economic issues of various sorts, not by nationalism/federalism as previously believed. Another key finding is that partisanship had a pronounced impact on the Court's attention to this category of issueseven in the periods when the Supreme Court had very little control of its docket. These results suggest that Supreme Court scholars should reassess or rethink their previous notion of the Court's pre-Civil War agendathe now well-established view that nation-state issues dominated the business of the Court in its formative yearsand the idea (often expressed implicitly) that the Court's mandatory jurisdiction suppressed attitudinal factors on the Court in the earlier eras.
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The role of the Supreme Court in the development of constitutional law in GhanaBimpong-Buta, S. Y., 1940- 01 February 2005 (has links)
The theme running through this dissertation is intended to prove that the Supreme Court has a role to play in the promotion, enforcement and sustenance of a proper democratic system of government, good governance and fundamental human rights and freedoms in Ghana.
The Study would therefore address the role of the Supreme Court in the development of Constitutional Law in Ghana, with particular emphasis on the court's contribution to the underlying concepts of the Fourth Republican Constitution of 1992; the guiding principles of constitutional interpretation and the vexed issue of whether the court should adopt a mechanical and literal approach to the interpretation of the Constitution or adopt a liberal, beneficent and purposive approach. The Supreme Court has asserted in the locus classicus decision: Tuffuor v Attorney-General [1980] GLR 637 that the 1979 Constitution as the supreme law, must be construed as a living political document capable of growth. Is there any evidence now to support that claim?
The study shall also investigate the question of the power of the Supreme Court to review legislative and executive action. We shall also examine the role of the Supreme Court in the interpretation and enforcement of the Constitution and Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms in relation to the rights and obligations of the individual and the State with the view to achieving good governance. The 1992 Constitution itself is founded on the premise that there are limitations to the enjoyment of fundamental human rights and freedoms. What is the extent of such limitations as determined by the Supreme Court?
What has been the Supreme Court's contribution to the sustenance of political stability and democratic governance and, especially, in matters relating to coup d'etats and to enforcement of the Constitution itself as distinct from the enforcement of fundamental human rights and freedoms? Has the Supreme Court power to enforce the Constitution and the existing law where there is proven case of injustice and illegality? Has the Supreme Court power to enforce Directive Principles of State Policy as formulated in chapter 6 of the 1992 Ghana Constitution? / Jurisprudence / LL.D.
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The role of the Supreme Court in the development of constitutional law in GhanaBimpong-Buta, S. Y., 1940- 01 February 2005 (has links)
The theme running through this dissertation is intended to prove that the Supreme Court has a role to play in the promotion, enforcement and sustenance of a proper democratic system of government, good governance and fundamental human rights and freedoms in Ghana.
The Study would therefore address the role of the Supreme Court in the development of Constitutional Law in Ghana, with particular emphasis on the court's contribution to the underlying concepts of the Fourth Republican Constitution of 1992; the guiding principles of constitutional interpretation and the vexed issue of whether the court should adopt a mechanical and literal approach to the interpretation of the Constitution or adopt a liberal, beneficent and purposive approach. The Supreme Court has asserted in the locus classicus decision: Tuffuor v Attorney-General [1980] GLR 637 that the 1979 Constitution as the supreme law, must be construed as a living political document capable of growth. Is there any evidence now to support that claim?
The study shall also investigate the question of the power of the Supreme Court to review legislative and executive action. We shall also examine the role of the Supreme Court in the interpretation and enforcement of the Constitution and Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms in relation to the rights and obligations of the individual and the State with the view to achieving good governance. The 1992 Constitution itself is founded on the premise that there are limitations to the enjoyment of fundamental human rights and freedoms. What is the extent of such limitations as determined by the Supreme Court?
What has been the Supreme Court's contribution to the sustenance of political stability and democratic governance and, especially, in matters relating to coup d'etats and to enforcement of the Constitution itself as distinct from the enforcement of fundamental human rights and freedoms? Has the Supreme Court power to enforce the Constitution and the existing law where there is proven case of injustice and illegality? Has the Supreme Court power to enforce Directive Principles of State Policy as formulated in chapter 6 of the 1992 Ghana Constitution? / Jurisprudence / LL.D.
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Render Unto Caesar: How Misunderstanding a Century of Free Exercise Jurisprudence Forged and Then Fractured the RFRA CoalitionBlattner, John S 01 January 2017 (has links)
This thesis provides a comprehensive history of Supreme Court Free Exercise Clause jurisprudence from 1879 until the present day. It describes how a jurisdictional approach to free exercise dominated the Court’s rulings from its first Free Exercise Clause case in 1879 until Sherbert v. Verner in 1963, and how Sherbert introduced an accommodationist precedent which was ineffectively, incompletely, and inconsistently defined by the Court. This thesis shows how proponents of accommodationism furthered a false narrative overstating the scope and consistency of Sherbert’s precedent following the Court’s repudiation of accommodationism and return to full jurisdictionalism with Employment Division v. Smith (1990). It then shows how this narrative inspired a massive bipartisan coalition in favor of codifying accommodationism, and how this coalition succeeded in passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in 1993. The RFRA coalition eventually fractured, as RFRA’s implications began to conflict with principles and objectives of liberal interest groups and the Democratic Party. This thesis posits that the fracture of the RFRA coalition can be traced back directly to confusions over Sherbert’s precedent.
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