Fw: Testing stare decisis empirically

[Jeffrey Segal]

Dan Pinello wrote:

"In 1980, a legal scholar announced the demise of collegial precedent
in constitutional law (Maltz 1980).  Almost twenty years later, two
eminent political scientists published a similar obituary (Spaeth and
Segal 1999)."

To which Earl Maltz replied:

"In my own defense, I should note that the cited article addressed only
horizontal stare decisis in the Supreme Court.  I would readily agree that
vertical stare decisis remains a potent force in judicial
decisionmaking.  I would also suspect (without having any systematic
empirical evidence, that horizontal stare decisis is more important at the
intermediate appellate court level than in the Supreme Court."

Professor Maltz's remarks apply equally to me.

Sincerely,

Jeff

Jeffrey Segal
Distinguished Professor and Chair
Department of Political Science
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY 11794
phone 631-632-7662
fax 631-632-4116
jeffrey.segal at stonybrook.edu
http://www.sunysb.edu/polsci/jsegal/