[EL] Ideological bias on the Court?

[Smith, Brad]

Sometimes it is argued (by partisans of both sides) that Supreme Court justices (across the ideological spectrum) cast their votes in First Amendment cases based on the identity and ideological leanings of the speaker. A study first presented late last year, and published this spring, by Professors  Lee Epstein, Jeffrey Segal, and Christopher Parker, argued this to be the case. (A New York Times article by Adam Liptak highlighting the study - In Justices Votes Free Speech Often Mean Speech I Agree With," NY Times, May 6, 2014 - was appropriately noted in Rick's daily update).

Todd Pettys of Iowa Law has put up a pretty devastating critique of the Epstein et al. study (at least I think it is pretty devastating), here http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2499274.http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2499274. I hope anyone tempted to make the Epstein/Segal argument, especially professors attempting to explain Supreme Court reasoning to their students, will read Pettys' paper.

I think the Justices (even those whose thinking on First Amendment issues I consider wholly warped) have much more intellectual integrity than some wish to credit.



Bradley A. Smith

Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault

   Professor of Law

Capital University Law School

303 E. Broad St.

Columbus, OH 43215

614.236.6317

http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx
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