Volume 2, No. 3 (March, 1992) pp. 49-51
THE POLITICS OF STATE COURTS by Harry P. Stumpf and John H.
Culver. New York: Longman, 1992. 183 pp. Paper $22.95.
Reviewed by Mark C. Miller, Department of Government, Clark
University, Worcester, Massachusetts.
The authors rightfully begin this undergraduate text with the
observation that political scientists do not pay enough attention
to state courts. Although state courts handle the bulk of
litigation in the United States, there are few available texts
that focus exclusively on state judiciary systems. Stumpf and
Culver have attempted to fill this void. The book is a useful,
although imperfect, attempt to gather and present the sparse
literature in this area.
The book's chapter organization scheme covers most of the
expected judicial process topics. The brief introductory chapter
attempts to explain why state courts are important political
institutions in our federal system, and it offers a discussion of
the differences in legal cultures among the states. The second
chapter gives a quick overview of the organizational,
jurisdictional, and administrative differences among the state
court systems. Other chapters in the book cover the role of
lawyers in the state legal systems, an overview of civil and
criminal litigation processes, and state appellate courts. The
concluding chapter is a broad discussion of alternative dispute
resolution options and of the future roles for state courts in
our federal system. Most of these chapters are generally
standard, if somewhat simplistic, treatments of the judicial
process literature in these areas.
When writing about a topic as diverse and complex as the state
courts, there is often the danger of either over generalizing or
of losing the reader in a sea of unconnected details. Stumpf and
Culver have erred on the side of broad generalities and over
simplification. Their book is written at a very elementary level,
with many important topics receiving superficial treatments. For
example, the authors flatly state that legal cultures differ
among various regions and between urban and rural areas, but no
attempt is made to identify systematically factors that might
influence these differences. There is a very brief discussion of
the need for more minority and female lawyers and judges, but it
feels like an afterthought. Recent developments concerning the
impact of the 1965 Voting Rights Act on state judicial selection
systems are ignored. Court reform movements in the states are
discussed, but the depth of analysis is not sufficient for my
students.
The weakest chapter deals with state judicial selection systems
and the social background characteristics of state judges. The
selection system discussion is especially confusing and quite
superficial. For example, there is no discussion of the
similarities and differences between partisan and technically
nonpartisan election systems. In my opinion, several state
judicial selection systems with which I am very familiar are
wrongly classified. For example, Ohio is classified as a
nonpartisan election system. While it is
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technically true that the candidates' party affiliations do not
appear on the general election ballot in Ohio, Stumpf and Culver
fail to note that judicial candidates there are selected through
partisan primaries. During the general election campaign season
in Ohio, the two parties widely distribute party voting cards
listing the judicial candidates of their party. The media in Ohio
covers most judicial races, especially those for seats on the
Ohio Supreme Court, as extremely partisan events. None of this
nuance is present in this book.
In another classification error, the Massachusetts courts are
classified as a merit selection system. Most scholars would
classify Massachusetts as a gubernatorial appointment state.
While technically the last several Governors of Massachusetts
have employed informal merit selection committees to assist them
is selecting judicial nominees, this practice was established
only by executive order and has been easily changed by successive
Governors. In reality, Massachusetts state judges are appointed
by the Governor for life terms, with confirmation by the
popularly elected Governor's Council. Because Stumpf and Culver
use the terms "merit selection" and "Missouri
Plan" interchangeably, they imply that some form of
retention elections occur in all states classified as merit
states. This is certainly not true in Massachusetts. Another
problem is that although Connecticut is properly classified as a
merit selection state in the chapter's charts, in the text it is
treated as if it were still a legislative appointment state.
While the change to merit selection is relatively recent in
Connecticut, the textual discussion is obviously outdated. Thus
the classifications of the selection systems of the Ohio,
Massachusetts, and Connecticut courts are highly misleading.
Another problem is that throughout the book many of the charts
and figures are confusing and poorly labeled. While the
discussion of state court organizations is overly simplistic, the
charts in this chapter are overly complicated. One would have
preferred a compromise somewhere between these two extremes. Some
of the charts nicely show the differences among the states, while
others are so complicated and so poorly labeled as to be almost
unreadable.
Although this text does help fill a serious void in the
literature, it is too elementary in tone and analysis for my
taste. The writing style is quite readable, but the research
findings are presented as fact with little discussion of the
assumptions and controversies that underlie much of the current
judicial process literature. Most of the important works on state
and federal courts are listed in the reference sections at the
end of each chapter, but the discussions of these works are often
superficial. This new text might be appropriate as one of several
books used in an introductory course on state politics or
possibly in an Introduction to American Politics course. It may
also be appropriate for use at the junior college level. In my
opinion, however, it is too elementary for most advanced
undergraduate judicial process courses at major teaching and
research institutions. After reading this text, I fear that even
my first year undergraduates would come away asking, "Is
that all there is to the state courts?"
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I am very glad to see a new text in an area where there are so
few available. Although this text includes much very useful
information, it is a shame that it has so many flaws. I think
there are better judicial process texts on the market, even if
they don't deal exclusively with the state judiciaries.