Empirical Legal Studies

The Polls - Modern Morals

Last week, the Pew Research Center released a report last week entitled, “A Barometer of Modern Morals: Sex, Drugs, and the 1040.”  Respondents were asked to classify ten behaviors as “morally acceptable, morally wrong, or not a moral issue.”  The following results provide the percentages of people classifying each behavior as morally wrong:

Married people having an affair	88%
Not reporting all income on taxes	79%
Drinking alcohol excessively	61%
Having an abortion	52%
Smoking marijuana	50%
Homosexual behavior	50%
Lying to spare someone's feelings	43%
Sex between unmarried adults	35%
Gambling	35%
Overeating	32%
N = 745
Sampling error: +/- 4%
Interview dates: February 1-5, 2006

The complete report, with breakdowns by age, gender, education, ideology, etc., is available here.  A one-page overview that includes breakdowns only by education levels is available here.  Note that this overview lists a misleading n of 1502, which is the number of respondents for a larger survey.  Just short of one-half of these 1502 respondents were asked the “modern morals” questions on which this report is based.

Abstracts - The Journal of Politics (May 2006)

The upcoming issue of The Journal of Politics (May 2006) will include several articles in the law and courts field. It will also include a new study by Simon Jackman and Paul Sniderman on the effects of deliberation, which remains a popular topic among both political scientists and law professors. (They conclude that at least in one sense, "deliberation is for naught.") Manuscripts of most of the articles are available on the JOP website. Here are the abstracts:

Eileen Braman, "Reasoning on the Threshold: Testing the Separability of Preferences in Legal Decision-Making."

One hundred fifteen law students were given a mock brief with identical legal arguments on both sides of a standing dispute in litigation involving restrictions on political expression of public employees. The content of the expression at issue (pro-choice vs. pro-life) and the jurisdiction where the case was pending (with vs. without controlling authority on the standing issue) were experimentally manipulated. Participants' policy views on (1) abortion, (2) free speech and (3) Hatch Act restrictions were measured to assess their influence on the standing decision. In line with traditional notions of legal reasoning, participants were able to separate their views on Hatch Act restrictions from the standing decision. Opinions on free speech, however, influenced judgments consistent with attitudinal hypotheses. Also, participants’ opinions on abortion interacted with speech content to influence judgments – but in a manner not wholly consistent with legal or attitudinal accounts of decision-making.

The Polls - Constitutional Awareness

Since it shows more public knowledge about The Simpsons and American Idol than the Constitution (but with no mention of the Three Stooges), a new study released yesterday by the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum is getting a fair amount of coverage. If you want to see the source material rather than newspaper summaries, go here for the press release or here for the full report. The Chicago Tribune got it right: "A survey released Wednesday showcases a bit of data that should surprise nobody[.]"

One highlight from the survey: About 21% of respondents thought the First Amendment guarantees the right to own and raise pets. I am always interested in finding examples of exotic constitutional claims—i.e., "rights talk" data points—and I have see this one in action before. Specifically, it was a constitutional right to own 400-pound Bengal-Siberian tigers (and maybe cougars as well): "I think it's my right as a U.S. citizen to have these cats.... If people say we can't have them, they're messing with my constitutional rights." Alex Tresniowski and Gabrielle Cosgriff, Cat Fanciers: With an Increasing Number of Texans Keeping Tigers as Pets, Some in the State Fear More Maulings and Deaths, People, April 16, 2001, at 111.

The Polls - Supreme Court Awareness

In January, FindLaw released the results of its most recent Supreme Court Awareness survey, a simple survey asking respondents to name the nine Supreme Court justices. At least one other blog (CrimProf) has posted the results, but it is useful to view the new results alongside past ones. I am aware of two other similar surveys, Findlaw's first Supreme Court Awareness survey in 2003 and Luntz Research's Three Stooges/Supreme Court survey in 1995.

Together, these three surveys reveal a fairly stable level of knowledge--or perhaps a stable lack of knowledge. Over half the population cannot name even a single sitting Supreme Court justice. Of those who can name one or more justices, the results are largely consistent in all three surveys. O'Connor was the most well-known in all three; Stevens and Breyer were the least well known. And although Thomas appears less well-known now than in 1995, most of the remaining variation in the surveys is likely within the range of sampling error. (Scalia may be slightly more well known now than in 1995.) One major difference in the December 2005 survey is that Chief Justice Roberts was a correct answer, not Rehnquist.  But despite Roberts' confirmation in September and all of the media coverage that went along with it, only 16% could recall his name by December.

Here are the results:

       8/1995                      6/2003                    12/2005
O'Connor    31%       O'Connor    25%        O'Connor   27%
Thomas       30%       Thomas       21%        Thomas      21%
Rehnquist    8%        Rehnquist   10%        Roberts     16%
Ginsburg      7%       Ginsburg        9%       Scalia         13%
Scalia            6%       Scalia            9%        Ginsburg    12%
Souter          4%       Souter           4%        Kennedy      7%
Kennedy       4%       Kennedy        4%        Souter         5%
Breyer          1%       Breyer           2%       Breyer         3%
Stevens        1%       Stevens         1%        Stevens       3%

zero              55%     zero             65%      zero            57%
one               16%     one+             35%      one+            43%
two               11%
three            17%

n=1200                     n=1000                      n=1000

While the specific ability to rattle off Supreme Court justices is not particularly important in and of itself, the public's poor performance in these surveys is a good indication that little is known about the Court in general. As for the Stooges, however, public knowledge appears more robust. In the 1995 survey, 67% of respondents could name three or more of the Stooges. Only 13% failed to name any. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any more recent Stooge data.

Sources:

1995 Survey: Joan Biskupic, Has the Court Lost Its Appeal?, Washington Post, Oct. 12, 1995, at A23; Richard Morin, Unconventional Wisdom, Washington Post, Oct. 8, 1995, at C5.

2003 Survey: FindLaw /PR Newswire

2005 Survey: FindLaw /Ipsos

The Stooges:
Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp, and Curly Joe. (And Joe Besser?)