Judges and Friends

• Author: Paul M. Collins,Wendy L. Martinek
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X14547630
• Published date: 01 March 2015
• Date: 01 March 2015
• Subject Matter: Articles

American Politics Research

2015, Vol. 43(2) 255 –282

© The Author(s) 2014

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X14547630

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Article

Judges and Friends: The

Influence of Amici Curiae

on U.S. Court of Appeals

Judges

Paul M. Collins, Jr.1 and Wendy L. Martinek2

Abstract

We contribute to the literature on political psychology, interest groups, and

judicial decision making by examining whether ideology mediates the effect

of amicus curiae briefs on decision making in the U.S. courts of appeals.

Using an original data set, we find evidence that moderate and conservative

judges are influenced by amicus briefs, but that liberal judges do not respond

to these persuasion attempts. We conclude that this form of interest group

lobbying influences judicial decision making by at least some judges and

that understanding the efficacy of this interest group strategy requires an

appreciation of how political actors process persuasive information.

Keywords

interest groups, judicial decision making, political psychology

“Part of politics is convincing people of what they want” (Brysk, 1995, p.

564). The persuasive power of an argument, however, is contingent on much

more than the mere provision of information and evidence. Rhetorical skill

matters, too, of course. However, regardless of the substance or the style of a

1University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA

2State University of New York, Binghamton, USA

Corresponding Author:

Paul M. Collins, Jr., University of Massachusetts Amherst, Thompson Hall, 200 Hicks Way,

Amherst, MA 01003, USA.

Email: pmcollins@legal.umass.edu

547630APRXXX10.1177/1532673X14547630American Politics ResearchCollins and Martinek

research-article2014

256 American Politics Research 43(2)

political argument, its persuasive value is structured by the cognitive pro-

cesses of the individual or individuals who are the targets of persuasion

(Lodge & Taber, 2005). In other words, human beings have well-established

cognitive biases that condition their receptiveness to (and processing of)

information and arguments, including those of a political nature (e.g., Koch,

2008; Nelson & Garst, 2005; Taber, Cann, & Kucsova, 2009). It is not merely

ordinary citizens who are subject to these cognitive biases. Political elites

(Anderson & Harbridge, 2014), including judges (Guthrie, Rachlinski, &

Wistrich, 2007), are subject to them as well. With regard to appellate court

judges, the most obvious source of (potential or actual) persuasive arguments

consists of the briefs filed by the direct litigants in a case. The amicus curiae

(“friend of the court”) brief, however, is another important source of persua-

sive argumentation. Ostensibly filed to provide neutral expertise and infor-

mation to the courts by third parties, amicus curiae briefs are now without

question instruments of advocacy (Krislov, 1963). Although the extant schol-

arship devoted to amici in the courts is capacious, with rare exceptions (e.g.,

Box-Steffensmeier, Christenson, & Hitt, 2013; Collins, 2008a), it neglects to

consider the cognitive processes that are at play in persuasive argumentation.

Here, our purpose is to pay explicit attention to those cognitive processes

and, especially, to the potential mediating effect of ideology on the persua-

siveness of amicus curiae briefs. We take the U.S. courts of appeals as our

substantive context.1

In particular, we consider alternative mechanisms by which amicus briefs

could persuade judges: motivated reasoning versus heuristic information pro-

cessing. In both motivated reasoning and heuristic information processing

accounts of persuasion, recipients of persuasive messages want to evaluate

the validity of those messages (Chaiken, 1980). The difference between the

two lies in the mechanism for evaluation (Chen, Duckworth, & Chaiken,

1999). In the context of persuasion by amici curiae, the motivated reasoning

framework suggests that the effect of amicus briefs should be conditional on

the ideology of the judges because amicus curiae briefs must be evaluated as

they relate to the directional goals (read: ideological goals) judges possess. In

contrast, heuristic models emphasize the reliance on decision rules (i.e., rules

of thumb) that permit individuals to make quick assessments of persuasive

argumentation rather than requiring more detailed processing of that argu-

mentation. The heuristic information processing framework, then, suggests

that the effect of amicus briefs should not be mediated by ideology but, rather,

simply reflect the number of briefs in support of each side (which serves as a

proxy for the quantity of arguments supporting each side). The analysis pre-

sented here offers new evidence as to the relative merits of these two alterna-

tive mechanisms for understanding the influence of amicus briefs and, in the