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The Attitudinal Model And Judicial Activism

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The attitudinal model and judicial activism are two common ways judges and justices shape the way they rule on cases. The attitudinal model and judicial activism both present opinion and belief-shaped ideologies that are freely expressed in cases. In the course of this paper, multiple Supreme Court cases are discussed where justices have made several groundbreaking decisions that have led to major policy decisions which firmly established the judicial branch as a dangerously powerful branch. This paper explores decisions such as Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education which are prime examples of judicial policymaking, and the potential threat it holds for civil rights and civil liberties. Finally, the paper concludes by discussing the danger …show more content…

Judges make decisions based solely on their own beliefs, as opposed to other theories of judicial decision-making that consider the law and legal precedent to be more important. Moreover, judges believe that they are justified in making rulings based solely on their ideological views since there are multiple interpretations of the law, hence lending credibility to its ambiguity (Miller, 2014). This decision-making process frequently plays out in the real world, most notably when the Supreme Court has a split vote on a case where the justices have made their decision in line with their conservative or liberal ideology. Civil rights and liberties tend to be a large area of ideological controversy, and in many cases, judicial decision-making is based solely on the individual justice's belief. In the highly controversial Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, the majority of the justices had liberal ideologies regarding civil rights, which played a significant role in how the justices decided regarding Roe v. Wade (McBride, n.d.). Nearly fifty years later, with a noticeably more conservative Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade was struck down in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The political landscape regarding abortion had not changed significantly in those fifty years, the determining factor for why Roe v. Wade was overturned was simply because of the attitudinal model of judicial decision-making held by the justices that swung conservative. Beyond the why behind judicial decision-making, judicial philosophy plays a significant role in determining how a judge rules on a

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