Facing the Public: Voter Assessments of Judicial Misconduct

• In Event: Studying Judicial Legitimacy: Scandals, Communication, and Personal Impact

Abstract

A decades long scholarly debate has sought to determine whether judicial elections are detrimental to the impartiality of judges and public support for state court systems. We contribute to this discussion by assessing whether judicial elections work to hold errant judges accountable. Specifically, we use a novel dataset of judicial misconduct allegations against elected state supreme court justices. Our data examines the effect of misconduct allegations throughout the first decades of the twenty-first century (2000-2023) to determine whether charges of misconduct affect voter participation (ballot roll off) and vote choice (support for the incumbent candidate). We consider whether the effect of misconduct allegations differently affects electoral performance across the three elective systems including partisan, non-partisan, and retention elections. We expect to find that voters are attentive to misconduct allegations and the detrimental effects they have on their state judiciaries and that this shapes participation in judicial elections. We further expect voters will be capable of punishing judges for their misdeeds by removing errant judges from office. We conclude that attitudes surrounding judicial misconduct translate into political action.

Authors

• Brent Boyea, University of Texas, Arlington

• Kayla S. Canelo, University of Texas at Arlington