Revisiting Case Salience in State Courts of Last Resort

• In Event: Taking the Measure of Judicial Institutions

Abstract

In earlier research, we introduced a media-based measure of case salience in state courts of last resort. It identifies state high court cases that received front-page coverage in states’ most-circulated newspapers after their rulings were released. Those data included state supreme court cases from 1995 to 1998 in order to match the State Supreme Court Data Project developed by Brace and Hall (2000). In this paper we extend our measure through 2016 to match recent data on state high court rulings released by Hall and Windett (2014). We describe these updated case salience data, provide summary information, and discuss change and continuity over time as state courts have increasingly become more politicized in many states. We examine the relationship between case salience and case characteristics, opinion assignment, and judicial behavior. We encourage scholars interested in state courts of last resort, the media, public awareness of courts, or their interaction to utilize these data in conjunction with the database developed by Hall and Windett.

Authors

• Richard L. Vining, University of Georgia

• Teena Wilhelm