JUDICIAL BEHAVIOR, IDEOLOGY, AND STATUTORY INTERPRETATION

Abstract

In modern America, the judicial system is commonly considered the most “unbiased” or nonpartisan branch of government. However, there has been a great deal of research and academic literature concerning the influence of personal ideology and internal biases on judicial behavior. Additionally, many leading legal scholars have researched different methods of statutory interpretation, or ways that judges interpret and apply laws, in order to determine the part that statutory interpretation plays in judicial decision making. Novel works about this topic attempt to determine whether particular methods of interpretation have inherent ideological leanings, judges manipulate methods of statutory interpretation in order to impart their ideology on case outcomes, or methods of interpretation constrain ideological judicial decision making. This paper conducts a thorough examination of the pertinent literature regarding judicial behavior modeling and some of the various methods of statutory interpretation in an attempt to study how the interaction of these two facets of the judiciary ultimately influence judicial decision making.