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"Judicial Impact" published on by Oxford University Press.

THAT JUDICIAL IMPACT STATEMENTS DO NOT PROTECT FEDERAL AND STATE JUDICIARIES NOR ASSIST LEGISLATURES IS DOCUMENTED IN RESPECT TO FEDERAL EXECUTIVE EXPERIENCE, THE CALIFORNIA EXPERIENCE, AS WELL AS INDEPENDENT INTERVIEW DATA WHICH IS SUMMARIZED IN THIS ARTICLE. THE BROADER ISSUE OF THE REASON AND POSSIBLE MEANING OF THE CURRENCY OF SUCH A STRATEGY EMERGES. THE BEHAVIORAL ASSUMPTIONS AND POWER RELATIONS THAT UNDERLIE JUDICIAL REFORM ARE ADDRESSED. THE CONCLUSION DOES NOT DENY THE PRACTICAL USE OF IMPACT STATEMENTS BUT STATES A NEED FOR MORE MODEST CLAIMS AND COUNTERCLAIMS.

ABSTRACTJudicial impact statements, if used indiscriminately, can do little either to protect federal and state judiciaries or assist legislatures. This conclusion emerges clearly from well documented case material available with respect to federal executive experience, the California experience with impact statements, as well as independent interview data which is summarized here. As a result, the broader issue of the reasons and the possible meaning of the currency of such a strategy emerges. Two such issues are addressed here: the behavioral assumptions and power relations that underlie judicial reform.

In Serrano v. Priest the California Supreme Court held the state's method of financing public schools unconstitutional because educational expenditures were dependent on district wealth. This article traces the court's ability to structure the implementation of this policy. Although the court succeeded in placing the issue on the agenda, the events since the decision illustrate the difficulties courts encounter when they require action from a legislature. In Serrano, the "polycentric" nature of the problem, the difficulties of obtaining legislative action on a redistribute policy, and the effect of intervening economic forces have served to keep the Serrano principle from being realized fully.

AbstractThe extent to which courts meaningfully affect policy change has been the subject of heated debate among socio‐legal and other public law scholars. I argue here that one key source of tension in the literature has been the lack of any clear theory of judicial power, especially in compliance and other impact studies. Indeed, many studies have conflated "impact" and power—a move that serves to confuse rather than clarify the topic. In this paper, I outline a theory of judicial power for the study of judicial impact. I then demonstrate the utility of this theory using two historical case studies. Ultimately, I argue that this theory allows for clearer and better‐grounded inferences about the roles played by courts in policy and politics.

For over three decades, numerous studies on the impact of the United States Supreme Court have made it obvious that the legal rules and policy preferences of the Court do not automatically determine the decisions of the lower courts. An extensive literature now exists to detail the nature and extent of the impact of the Supreme Court on the courts below. The picture of judicial impact that emerges from this literature is characterized by numerous differences in the way the "impact" of the Supreme Court is conceptualized. The present study explores the differences in interpretation that might result from the application of four separate approaches to the study of judicial impact. Each of these four methods is applied in turn to evaluate the impact of the Supreme Court's decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), on the highest state appellate courts in California, New York, North Carolina, Illinois, and Oklahoma.1