Important Models of Justices' Behaviour at the Supreme Court - Research Paper Example

There are three models that are mostly displayed by the justices and the judges of the Supreme Court when deciding cases in the supreme courts. These are strategic, attitudinal and the legal orientations. Strategic behaviour refers to the justices’ actions to maximize their overall benefits in light of their expectations concerning their choices of other actors involved in the decision making process. Others are legal and the attitudinal models that aid explain the legal verdict arrived by the justices at the supreme courts Though the attitudinal models of justice behaviour was initially establish in the US, students and other legal practitioner have found the strategic models of behaviour alluring.

This dissent of behaviour focuses on the interpedently nature of judges and justices’ behaviour in their decision making, which does not shun the policy preferences of the justices’ .This a strategic begins with assumption that justices are motivated by their policy preferences, but further acknowledges that realization of those preferences is a function of other relevant actors. As notes by (Epstein and Knight) Justices may be primarily seekers of legal policy, but they are not unconstrained actors who make decisions based only on their own ideological attitudes.

Rather, justices are strategic actors who realize their ability to achieve their goals depends on a consideration of the preferences of other actors, the choices they expect others to make, and the institutional context in which they act. (10). This implies that whole a justice acting on the basis of his attitudes, another justices acting on the same preferences may be expected to behave differently based on strategic considerations. For instance, for justice behaviour‘s preferences mat depend on the other justice and judges reactions and opinions (08-956 wood v. Allen. (01/20/10) Recent literature provides that strategic concerns of behaviour go beyond attitudinal as they tend to explain further other reasons that attitudinal approach may not offer.(Wood v. Allen, Wood v, state and Alabama, US, 1998) In recent findings, attitudinal concerns have challenged by judges who tend to adopt strategic orientation towards and it was evidenced in a variety of contexts.

First, when setting their agendas (Rice v. Collins, 546 US 333,339), second, when writing majority opinions (Wood v. State, 715 819 (1998)) and lastly issuing separate opinions, even on the same case(s) (Williams v. Taylor, 529 US 362,462). Several studies undertaken by Brace and Hall at the aggregate (Brace and Hall; Hall and Brace, 147-162) and individuals (Brace and Hall; Hall and Brace) provides explanations on the dissenting behaviour. They note that when making judicial decisions, justices and judges decide not to follow their ideological differences in certain circumstances in anticipation of decisions by exogenous factors such as electoral constituency, in order to keep job .

Other evidence that pursue a strategic line of inquiry as is vital in the decision making process. This is because the strategic models of supreme court justices takes into account other factors more