THE U.S. SUPREME COURT’S SELECTION OF PETITIONS IN FORMA PAUPERIS DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Wendy L. Watson, M.P.P., J.D. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2004 Dissertation Committee: Approved By Professor Lawrence Baum, Adviser Professor Elliot Slotnick ____________________________________ Professor Dean Lacy Adviser Political Science Graduate Program Copyright by Wendy Lyn Watson 2004 ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the question of whether, how, and how much the U.S. Supreme Court’s selection of paid petitions differs from its selection of petitions in forma pauperis, or IFP petitions -- those petitions filed by individuals who are financially unable to pay the Court’s filing fee. In addition to expanding upon existing scholarship on the U.S. Supreme Court’s agenda-setting function, the study also examines the accessibility of the Court to the poor and the Court’s attention to issues affecting low- income people. In examining the Court’s agenda-setting function, existing studies have identified certain case characteristics, called “cue characteristics,” that increase the likelihood that the Supreme Court will select a petition for review: reference to a conflict between circuits or state courts of last resort; an allegation of a novel or important legal issue; a dissent on the court below; a reversal in the case’s procedural history; filing of a sua sponte responsive brief, as opposed to the absence of a responsive brief or a responsive brief filed only at the request of the Court; and cert-stage participation by amici curiae. Those studies, however, have generally limited their analysis to paid petitions to the exclusion of those petitions filed by indigent litigants, the IFP petitions; even those studies that have included IFP cases in their analysis have failed to compare the Court’s agenda-setting process across the two dockets. ii Analyzing an original dataset based on a sample of paid and unpaid petitions disposed of during the 1976 through 1985 Terms of the Court, I find that IFP petitions are disproportionately criminal and prisoner civil rights cases, as opposed to civil cases, and they are less likely to present most indicia of certworthiness that have been identified in past studies. Moreover, I find that IFP petitions are more likely to be filed by pro se litigants (litigants representing themselves) rather than by attorneys. Finally, I find that certain issues--specifically minority rights issues, family law issues, and issues involving access to welfare benefits--are disproportionately represented on the IFP docket. These findings suggest that the cases on the IFP docket are at a disadvantage during the Court’s agenda-setting process and that this disadvantage may have implications for the Court’s attention to certain classes of legal issues. Dynamic analysis of the Court’s attention to IFP petitions over time indicates that the proportion of the Court’s plenary docket that is devoted to IFP petitions varies based on the Court’s ideological composition and the attention devoted to IFP petitions in the term immediately preceding. These findings suggest that the Court’s IFP docket is distinct from its paid docket, making comparison between the two dockets meaningful. Case-level multivariate analysis of the Court’s selection of paid and unpaid petitions indicates that IFP cases are less likely to be accepted for review even when analysis controls for the presence or absence of cue characteristics identified in prior studies. iii Moreover, the effects of such case characteristics vary between the paid and unpaid dockets, with the case characteristics having stronger effects in the context of the docket on which they are less prevalent. This finding indicates that the case characteristics identified as correlates of plenary review in past studies do, in fact, provide information to the Court during the agenda-setting process and are not merely correlates of some underlying quality of certworthiness. Ultimately, the analysis indicates that IFP petitions are at a disadvantage relative to the paid petitions during the agenda-setting process. That disadvantage takes two forms. First, the cue characteristics are more important to the selection of the IFP petitions and yet they are also less common; this interaction effect between the cue characteristics and IFP status is quite significant. Second, IFP status has an independent negative effect on the probability of the Court granting review; although controlling for the interaction effects causes that independent effect to lose statistical significance, the effect is nevertheless impressive when compared with the effect of other known cue characteristics. iv Dedicated to Judge Donovan W. Frank, for his tireless commitment to equality and justice v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my adviser, Lawrence Baum, for his unflagging support and patience. Mere words cannot express my indebtedness to him. I further wish to thank Elliot Slotnick for being there for me when the going got tough; the fortune cookie was right. Dean Lacy talked me down off of more than one methodological ledge, and his sense of humor was grounding during some fairly dark moments. Many people provided insight on sampling and statistical issues, including Jan Box-Steffensmeier, Herb Weisberg, Kevin Sweeney, and Brandon Bartels. The arduous task of data collection was made infinitely easier by the wonderful staff of the National Archives and Records Administration, especially archivist Robert Ellis; the reference staff at the Ohio State University Law Library; and Nancee Halling in the St. Paul branch of the Eighth Circuit Law Library. My family and my in-laws have all provided emotional support throughout this long process. My husband, Peter Hawkinson, made many sacrifices along the way and has been my inspiration. There never was a sweeter kismet. This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. I am also grateful for the financial support provided by a fellowship from the American Association of University Women. vi VITA January 19, 1970……………………Born - Zanesville, Ohio 1990…………………………………B.A. English, Psychology, University of Michigan 1994…………………………………M.P.P., J.D., College of William and Mary 1994-1996…………………………...Law Clerk, The Honorables Donovan W. Frank, Gary Pagliaccetti, and Robert Berger Sixth Judicial District, Virginia, Minnesota 1996-1999…………………………...Graduate Research and Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University 1999-2003…………………………...Law Clerk, The Honorable Donovan W. Frank U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota PUBLICATIONS 1. Neal Devins and Wendy L. Watson, eds. 1995. Federal Abortion Politics: A Documentary History. New York, N.Y.: Garland Publishing. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Political Science vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………....v Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………..………vi Vita………………………………………………………………………………...…….vii List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………..xi List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………...xiii Chapters: 1. The U.S. Supreme Court’s Unpaid Docket…………...……………………..……1 Introduction………………………………..……………………………………...1 Background on IFP Status……………………...…………………………………9 Eligibility for IFP Status…………………………...…………………………….10 Benefits of IFP Status…………………………………...……………………….15 History of the IFP Docket…………………………………...…………………...16 2. The Court’s Case Selection Process……………………………………………..23 Introduction……………………………………………..…………………….….23 Goals in Supreme Court Agenda-Setting…………………..……………….……24 Constraints in Supreme Court Agenda-Setting………………..…………….…...28 Cognitive Task……………………………………………………..……….……30 Potential Cues to Certworthiness……………………………………..…….……37 Ideology of Decision Below………………………………………..……37 Lower Court Behavior…………………………………………………...39 The Parties: Attorney Representation and Solicitor General Involvement……………………………………………………………...41 Amicus Briefs……………………………………………………………46 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….47 3. Hypotheses and Data……………………………………………………………..49 Introduction……………………………………………………………...……….49 Cues in the Context of the IFP Docket: Hypotheses………………………..…...49 Data………………………………………………………………………………55 viii Population………………………………………………………………..55 Sampling…………………………………………………………………57 Coding……………………………………………………………………60 Identifying Information…………………………………………..60 Case Disposition (Dependent Variable)…...……………………..62 Case Characteristics……………………………………………...64 Petitioner Characteristics………………………………………...65 Responding Party………………………………………………...66 Other Parties and Participants…………………………................67 Decision Below…………………………………………………..69 Rule 10 Factors…………………………………………………..71 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….72 4. A Descriptive Analysis of the Court’s IFP Docket………………………………75 Introduction…………………………...………………………………………….75 Types of Cases on the IFP Docket………...……………………………………..77 Representation………………………………...………………………………….84 Participation by Other Parties……………………...…………………………….85 Lower Court Behavior…………………………………...………………………88 Rule 10 Considerations……………………………………...…………………...89 Conclusion………………………………………………………...……………..95 5. The Supreme Court’s Selection of IFP Petitions………………………………...99 Introduction………………………………………………...…………………….99 Selection of IFP Cases in the Aggregate………………………...……………….99 Dynamic Analysis with Proportion of Cases Filed…………….....…….101 Dynamic Analysis with Proportion of Cases on Docket…………….....107 Implications…………………………………………………………….110