Group interaction only marginally changes judges’ established voting patterns

Evidence

An appellate court is in reality a small group working together over a prolonged period of time: for the judges, it is “a little like being married in a system of arranged marriage with no divorce.”*? Thus, it is not surprising that personal relations with fellow judges also play a role in judicial decision making; agreeable and considerate judges are apt to gain a better reception for their arguments than their more contentious colleagues. Ultimately, though, judges typically come to the bench with firmly established views, and their fellow judges have few weapons beyond legal argument to induce them to change their minds. Group interaction therefore has only a limited effect on how judges vote. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2623

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to chapter 28’s finding that selection method and partisanship shape judicial voting, and to prior chapters’ claims that judges arrive with established values. — connects to: Demographics weakly predict how individual jurors actually vote on the same evidence — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 843; Collegiality only marginally shifts judges’ settled votes — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1338; Selection method produces few but patterned differences in judicial voting. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 633 (+4 more)
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source