Behavior of Women State Supreme Court Justices: Are They Tokens or Outsiders?

• NCJ Number: 109411
• Journal: Justice System Journal Volume: 12 Issue: 2 Dated: (Fall 1987) Pages: 232-245
• Author(s): D W Allen; D E Wall
• Date Published: 1987
• Length: 14 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The voting behavior of 14 women State supreme court justices in 3 issue areas -- women's issues, criminal rights, and economic liberties -- is used to determine if women justices behave as 'tokens' or 'outsiders' as compared to their male counterparts.

Abstract

Applying Kanter's (1977a, 1977b) analysis of tokenism to appellate courts, we define token behavior as voting in conformity with the male majority. Outsider behavior is defined in terms of extreme voting patterns in accordance with work done by Ducat and Flango (1985). We find that women justices tend to be outsiders and hold the extreme position on all three issues examined, that is: on women's issues they tend to be the most prowoman member of a court; and, on both criminal rights and economic liberties they tend to be either the extreme liberal or the extreme conservative member of the court. Tabular data and 29 references.