THE CONSISTENCY OF JUDICIAL CHOICE

Despite the fact that judicial scholars have developed reasonably well-specified models of the voting behavior of U.S. Supreme Court justices, little attention has been paid to influences on the consistency of the choices justices make. Aside from the methodological problems associated with failure to account for heteroskedasticity with regard to the justices ’ voting behavior, I argue that variance in judicial choice is also of theoretical import. Simply put, by uncovering influences on the stability of judicial choice, a more complete understanding of judicial decision making is provided. I explore this possibility by developing a theoretical framework that uncovers influences on the consistency of judicial choice which are then subjected to empirical validation. I show that the stability of judicial decision making is affected by attitudinal and strategic factors, as well as the Court’s informational environment