Professor Cordray Publishes Fifth in Series of Articles on the U.S. Supreme Court  

February 16, 2009

Professor Peggy Cordray’s article, “Setting the Social Agenda: Deciding to Review High-Profile Cases at the Supreme Court,” has been published by The University of Kansas Law Review (Vol. 57, January 2009). The article, co-authored with her husband Richard Cordray, is the fifth in a series of articles that the Cordrays have written on the important issue of how the Supreme Court exercises its virtually unfettered control over case selection. With its certiorari power, the Court sets its own direction and influences the country’s political agenda, yet little is known about how the Justices choose cases because of the intense secrecy that envelops this aspect of their work.

In this article, the Cordrays take a closer look at how the Justices approach hot button cases. Each term, the Court hears a handful of high-profile cases involving socially divisive issues such as free speech, religious freedom, abortion, the distribution of political power, and civil rights. These cases not only shape the public’s view of the Court, but also influence the broader cultural debate by placing these issues at the center of public consciousness. The Court’s decisions on whether to review these cases thus have significant ramifications for the Court and for the country’s social agenda.

The Cordrays use data that they gathered about the Justices’ voting behavior on certiorari to consider whether the Justices act differently in deciding whether to review high-profile cases than they do in more ordinary cases. Although they find strong evidence that the Justices vote even more strategically on certiorari in high-profile cases, their data also suggests that institutional concerns about the Court’s responsibility to hear such cases motivate the Justices’ case selection decisions as well. The article also includes an appendix setting out each of the Justices’ votes on whether to grant review in the high-profile cases granted during the eleven terms that they studied.