Letter from the Editor - Volume 42, Issue 2

Abstract

Welcome to the second issue of Volume 42 for the Justice System Journal. JSJ is published under an arrangement between the National Center for State Courts and Routledge (Taylor & Francis). The Journal’s commitment is to providing an outlet for innovative, social scientific research on the myriad of issues that pertain to the third branch of government. Information about JSJ, including the Journal’s Aims & Scopes as well as instructions for manuscript submissions, can be found at our website: http://www.tandfonline.com/ujsj. Manuscript submissions are processed solely online through the ScholarOne system, and the direct link to submit a manuscript is http:// mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ujsj. This second issue of Volume 42 once again highlights the incredible breadth of our field, as well as the various fields, subfields and discipline that all equally contribute to this breadth. We begin with three articles that examine national high courts, both in the US and abroad. Leading off this issue is “Learning to Speak Up: Acclimation Effects and Supreme Court Oral Arguments,” by Rachael Houston, Siyu Li, and Timothy R. Johnson. While many scholars have explored so-called “freshmen” effects on the courts, the Houston, Li and Johnson examine this possibility in a novel arena: oral arguments. Do those justices who are new to the Court participate in ways distinct from their more senior colleagues. Importantly, they find the answer is “yes”: newer justices speak less and interrupt their colleagues less frequently than those who have been on the bench longer. Their more nuanced findings, particularly about gender differences in interruption levels by new justices, also provide a host of areas for future scholars to explore. We continue the exploration of oral arguments with “A High Court Plays the Accordion: Validating Ex Ante Case Complexity on Oral Arguments,” by Henrik L. Bentsen, Gunner Grendstad, William R. Shaffer, and Eric N. Waltenburg. The Norwegian Supreme Court can set the time allocated to parties for oral arguments. This piece finds there are clear links between external measures of case complexity and which cases the Norwegian Supreme Court blocks out more time to address. The implications of this piece are two-fold: first, it offers validation for a novel measure of case complexity that can be used for national high courts that have variable oral arguments times; and second, it offers support for the continued use of certain measures to account for case complexity by those studying national high courts where the time for oral arguments is fixed. Our final piece examining national high courts returns our attention to the US Supreme Court and the potentially unique role played by the Chief Justice. In “The Chief Justice and Judicial Legitimacy: Evidence from the Influence of Public Opinion,” Alex Badas argues and finds that those holding the position of Chief Justice consistently pay more attention to concerns about the Court’s legitimacy by being more responsive to public opinion when deciding cases before the Court. This piece offers important insights about the Court’s counter-majoritarian role and the Chief Justices’ response to potential backlash, as well as, similar to the Houston, Li and Johnson piece in this issue, evidence that different justices occupy differing roles on the Court and may be influenced by similar forces in divergent ways depending on their role and tenure. The other three articles that make up this issue take us around the globe, offering distinctive insights on courts in the Netherlands, Bangladesh, and China. Martjin van Gils, Franka Baardman, and Philip Langbroek evaluate “Feedback for Professionals: Co-Production of Court