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As a clarification to my previous post on Predicting Judicial Decisions, note that the idea is not to have judges participate in surveys, but rather to create a predictive framework on the basis of existing large-scale surveys, such as the world value survey or Kahan’s and Braman’s survey of 1,800 Americans. My point was that judges reveal their value preferences through opinions, speeches, and law review articles. Those revealed judicial values would then be plugged into the explanatory framework to predict future decisions. For example, Scalia’s vitriolic dissent in Lawrence v. Texas warrants the inference that he would agree with the world value survey’s proposition “homosexuality is never justifiable,” which is a highly predictive value on the survival/self-expression scale.

Another application of the predictive framework could be jury selection. For example, a defendant charged with assaulting a police officer would probably prefer jurors that, as part of their value systems disfavor “more respect for authority.” (A traditional value.) One of the world value survey’s findings is that (1) “more respect for authority” is strongly correlated with (2) “religion is very important in my life,” a (3) “strong sense of national pride,” and (4) “abortion is never justifiable.” A defense lawyer in voir dire would probably get a better sense of a prospective juror’s unmasked views regarding respect for authority by asking questions (2), (3), and (4), rather than by asking (1) directly.

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