“A groundbreaking book traversing political science and legal scholarship. Anyone interested in how Supreme Court opinions operate on the ground will find the study provocative and illuminating.”
Georgia State University’s Michael P. Fix and Benjamin J. Kassow, University of North Dakota, published their new book entitled US Supreme Court Doctrine in the State High Courts. The book challenges theoretical and empirical accounts about how state high courts use US Supreme Court doctrine and precedent. The authors find that state high courts commonly ignore Supreme Court precedent for reasons of political ideology, path dependence, and fact patterns in cases that may be of varying similarity to those found in relevant US Supreme Court doctrine.
Michael P. Fix is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Georgia State University. His research focuses on the evolution of law and policy over time. His work has appeared in numerous political science journals and law reviews, including Political Research Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, Vanderbilt Law Review, and Justice System Journal.
The new book is published by Cambridge University Press and is available on Amazon.