Replication Data for: The American Public’s Attitudes over How Judges Use Legal Principles to Make Decisions

Courts are particularly reliant on the goodwill of those they govern as a source of political power, yet existing scholarship provides limited insight into what the public expects of its judges while in office. We investigate the American public’s attitudes over an integral component of judicial behavior: the legal principles judges employ when making decisions. Our theoretical perspective argues that political preferences shape individuals’ attitudes over how judges apply legal principles, mirroring ideological divisions expressed by prominent political elites and judges. Using an original battery of questions, we find high support across all Americans for the use of certain, well-established legal principles, but stark differences in how liberals and conservatives evaluate the use of more controversial principles. In a survey experiment, we find that agreement [disagreement] between an individual’s attitudes over the use of legal principles and the reasoning contained in a Supreme Court opinion is associated with increased [decreased] support for the Court decision. Our findings reveal strategic incentives for judges to employ specific legal principles when making their decisions and highlight the intimate connection between law and politics in the eyes of the American public.