4: How Judges Decide II: Juries, Panels and Hierarchy

Most consequential decisions are not made by a single judge acting alone. This week we look at how juries and panels of judges decide together and how higher courts oversee lower ones. We discuss the differences between higher and lower courts and the impact of judicial organization on decision-making. ## Mandatory readings

Anwar, Shamena, Patrick Bayer, and Randi Hjalmarsson. “Politics in the Courtroom: Political Ideology and Jury Decision Making.” Journal of the European Economic Association 17, no. 3 (2019): 834-875. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvy013

Kastellec, Jonathan P. “Racial Diversity and Judicial Influence on Appellate Courts.” American Journal of Political Science 57, no. 1 (2013): 167-183. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2012.00618.x

Masood, Ali S., and Jennifer Bowie. “Hierarchical interactions and compliance in comparative courts.” Political Research Quarterly 76, no. 4 (2023): 1906-1919. https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231183915

Optional readings

Bindler, Anna, and Randi Hjalmarsson. “The Persistence of the Criminal Justice Gender Gap: Evidence from 200 Years of Judicial Decisions.” The Journal of Law and Economics 63, no. 2 (2020): 297-339. https://doi.org/10.1086/707482

Bindler, Anna, and Randi Hjalmarsson. “Path Dependency in Jury Decision Making.” Journal of the European Economic Association 17, no. 6 (2019): 1971-2017. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvy046

Hangartner, Dominik, Benjamin E. Lauderdale, and Judith Spirig. “Inferring Individual Preferences from Group Decisions: Judicial Preference Variation and Aggregation on Collegial Courts.” British Journal of Political Science 55 (2025): e163. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123425100574

Beim, Deborah. “Learning in the judicial hierarchy.” The Journal of Politics 79, no. 2 (2017): 591-604. https://doi.org/10.1086/688442

Carrubba, Clifford J., and Tom S. Clark. “Rule Creation in a Political Hierarchy.” American Political Science Review 106, no. 3 (2012): 622-643. https://doi.org/10.1017/S000305541200024X

Bhuller, Manudeep, and Henrik Sigstad. “Feedback and Learning: The Causal Effects of Reversals on Judicial Decision-Making.” The Review of Economic Studies 92, no. 4 (2025): 2359-2397. https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdae073

Songer, Donald R., Jeffrey A. Segal, and Charles M. Cameron. “The hierarchy of justice: Testing a principal-agent model of Supreme Court-circuit court interactions.” American Journal of Political Science 38, no. 3 (1994): 673-696. https://doi.org/10.2307/2111602

Fjelstul, Joshua C. “How the Chamber System at the CJEU Undermines the Consistency of the Court’s Application of EU Law.” Journal of Law and Courts 11, no. 1 (2023): 141-162. https://doi.org/10.1086/717422