Judicial Decision Making Case Study

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1) In your Engager, you learned about three different models of judicial decision making. First, explain the three models. Tell their strengths and weaknesses. Then, explain which you think best describes the behavior of Supreme Court Justices, and why. In the video engager, Dr. Kristina Mitchell explains the three different models of judicial decision making; these models include the legal model, the attitudinal model, and the strategic model. The legal model is when the Supreme Court Justices make their decisions based off of fact of case, laws, and precedents. A precedent is a previous case that deals with the an issue that had been discussed before by the Supreme Court. Essentially, the justices would use the information from previous cases to help them to decide on the case at hand. The weakness of the legal model is that basing the decisions off of previous cases would mean even though the world is moving forward, and times and opinions are changing, we are using things from the past to aid in decision making. However, a strength of using this model is using the past to help see how people will react to the decision made and determining if the precedent’s ruling was positive or negative. The Attitudinal model is based off of the fact that the Justices serve for life, unless they are impeached or convicted so the justices have no constraint on their decision making. This model explains that Justices make decisions …show more content…

Web. 18 Apr. 2016. . Geer, John G., Wendy J. Schiller, Richard Herrera, and Jeffery A. Segal. Gateways to Democracy: An Introduction to American Government. 3rd ed. Boston: Cengage Learning, 2015. Print. 3) Your textbook discusses several of the most influential Supreme Court decisions. Provide a detailed explanation of one of these decisions. Describe the
participants and facts of the case. Tell the outcome and how the Supreme Court decided the case. Then, explain why the case was so influential in the
United

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