Decision making in the United States Courts of Appeals: Under what conditions do United States Courts of Appeals judges behave strategically

The goal of this analysis is to determine whether it is reasonable for federal circuit courts of appeals judges to modify their behavior in an attempt to avoid Supreme Court review and reversal. This question is fundamental to theories of judicial decision making as scholarship has been divided on whether appeals court judges behave strategically to external actors. Using the strategic decision making framework I evaluate the rationality of strategic behavior in the United States Courts of Appeals. I hypothesize that the likelihood of review and reversal will systematically influence whether judges will consider Supreme Court response to their decisions. The explicit test addressed, analyzes whether it is rational for an appeals court judge to behave strategically in order to avoid Supreme Court review and reversal. My testing strategy is two pronged, and employs both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Qualitatively, I analyze interview data from forty-five judges of the United States Courts of Appeals. Quantitatively, I examine a sample of appeals court cases that possess positive and negative indicators of Supreme Court review. The results suggest that the perceived costs of Supreme Court reversal are too small to motivate courts of appeals judges to modify their behavior in an attempt to avoid Supreme Court review and reversal.