New Perspectives for the Comparative Study of the Judiciary: The State Supreme Court Project

Abstract

In this essay, we report on the promise and possibilities offered by careful study ofAmerican state supreme courts. We detail the measures taken in the Brace-Hall StateSupreme Court Project to produce reliable data from the fifty state courts for the scholarlycommunity. In addition, we illustrate some prominent features of these courts andthe tremendous variety that exists among them. With the release of these data to thescholarly community, many exciting opportunities exist for empirically evaluating comprehensivetheories of judicial behavior and politics that integrate case, judge, institution,and context.