Damon M. Cann

In These Estimable Courts Damon Cann and Jeff Yates explore how citizens feel about the government institutions at the front lines of jurisprudential policy-making in America -- our nation's state and local courts. The book's central focus concerns a primary question of governance - why do people support and find legitimate the institutions that govern their lives? Cann and Yates evaluate the factors that drive citizens' support for their state and local courts and that influence peoples' perceptions of the proper role of these courts in our society, as well as how judicial policy-making should be made. A viable democracy depends upon citizen belief in the legitimacy of government institutions. Nowhere is this more evident than in judicial institutions. Courts depend heavily on a reservoir of public good will and institutional legitimacy to get their decrees obeyed by the public and implemented by other policy actors. It enables courts to weather the storm of counter-majoritarian decisions and remain effective governing bodies whose edicts are respected and followed. These Estimable Courts takes advantage of new original survey data to evaluate citizens' beliefs about the legitimacy of state courts as well as a number of important related concerns. These include peoples' views concerning how judges decide cases, the role of judges and courts in policy-making, the manner in which we select judges, and finally, the dynamics of citizens' views regarding compliance with the law and legal institutions.

In Voters’ Verdicts, Chris Bonneau and Damon Cann address contemporary concerns with judicial elections by investigating factors that influence voters’ decisions in the election of state supreme court judges. Bonneau and Cann demonstrate that the move to nonpartisan elections, while it depresses political participation, does little to mute the effects of partisanship and ideology. The authors note the irony that judicial elections, often faulted for politicizing the legal process, historically represented an attempt to correct the lack of accountability in the selection of judges by appointment, since unlike appointive systems, the judicial elections are at least transparent. This comprehensive study rests on a broad evidentiary base that spans numerous states and a variety of electoral systems. Bonneau and Cann use the first national survey of voters in state supreme court elections paired with novel laboratory experiments to evaluate the influence of incumbency and other ballot cues on voters’ decisions. Data-rich and analytically tight, this provocative volume shows why voters decide to participate in elections and who they choose to vote for.