The United States Supreme Court: A Case Study on the Relation of Prior Public Opinion to Compliance

Abstract

The study of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has been both varied as well as extensive, specifically in the areas of public opinion of the Courtand compliance to the Court’s decisions. The link between judicial decision-making and public opinion is a crucial assumption that will be made in this study. This line of thinking was first advanced by Dahl’s 1957 report, in which he states$\colon$ “To consider the Supreme Court of the United States strictly as a legal institution is to underestimate its significance in the American political system.” In this research, I attempt to contribute to the theory that there is a level of public opinion that must be obtained in order for the Court’s decision to be complied with by examining one of the Court’s most recent, most activist, and most salient cases, Obergefell v Hodges (2015), through a mixed method content analysis of media coverage and comparing these results to the case’s high level of compliance.

2016 AP Research Sample Paper C

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