IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/empleg/v16y2019i3p448-478.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Legal Uniformity in American Courts

Author

Listed:
  • Deborah Beim
  • Kelly Rader

Abstract

Intercircuit splits occur when two or more circuits on the U.S. Courts of Appeals issue different legal rules about the same legal question. When this happens, federal law is applied differently in different parts of the country. Intercircuit splits cause legal nonuniformity, are an impediment to lawyering and judging, and have practical consequences for U.S. law. Despite intercircuit splits’ importance, there is almost no quantitative research about them. We created a unique original dataset that includes intercircuit splits that arose between 2005 and 2013. For each intercircuit split, we identified every circuit and every case involved. These data reveal that one‐third of intercircuit splits are resolved by the Supreme Court. Two‐thirds are not. We show that those that will be resolved are resolved within three years after they arise and that splits are more likely to be resolved when they exhibit contemporaneous and growing disagreement. However, many such splits are never resolved by the Supreme Court. Those that are not resolved by the Supreme Court continue to yield litigation and do not dissipate on their own. The likelihood of resolution does not rise as time passes.

Suggested Citation

  • Deborah Beim & Kelly Rader, 2019. "Legal Uniformity in American Courts," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(3), pages 448-478, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:empleg:v:16:y:2019:i:3:p:448-478
    DOI: 10.1111/jels.12224
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12224
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jels.12224?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ulmer, S. Sidney, 1984. "The Supreme Court's Certiorari Decisions: Conflict as a Predictive Variable," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 78(4), pages 901-911, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joshua A Strayhorn, 2019. "Competing signals in the judicial hierarchy," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 31(3), pages 308-329, July.
    2. Joshua A. Strayhorn, 2020. "Ideological Competition and Conflict in the Judicial Hierarchy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(2), pages 371-384, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:empleg:v:16:y:2019:i:3:p:448-478. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1740-1461 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.