Court and modest for other courts. Other courts tend
to be rated lower than the police and similar to local
schools and executive bodies but higher than legisla-
tive bodies and the mass media. The public is most
critical of how courts handle juvenile and family cases
and generally of the processing of cases in high-
volume court venues such as traffic and small claims.
The jury system is the most highly rated component of
the courts. Former jurors, in turn, are the group most
likely to hold positive views about the courts.
The public, in general, knows very little about how
the courts work and is not attentive to issues regarding
the courts. Many public opinion surveys about the
courts, virtually all concerning trial courts, have been
carried out at the national and state levels over the past
30 years. What emerges from the accumulation of
confidence survey findings is a national stereotype
that does not vary greatly from state to state or from
one decade to the next. A stereotype is the shorthand
description of “courts” that comes up in people’s
head—images that are commonly held, some positive
and others negative.
On the positive side, people tend to believe that
judges are well qualified and honest, defend people’s
rights, and treat people with dignity and respect. In
recent years, it has become clear that people like alter-
native dispute-resolution methods, such as arbitration
and mediation, and are highly positive about the fea-
tures of problem-solving (drug and domestic vio-
lence) courts.
On the negative side, the list is longer. People
report that courts are slow, difficult, and costly to
access; do not allow people to participate meaning-
fully in court proceedings; and are out of touch with
community sentiment. The presumed leniency of
judges in sentencing offenders is another negative
characteristic but one that may now be declining in
significance. The majority of the public believes that
the courts produce less favorable outcomes if you are
a member of a minority group, on a low income, or a
non–English speaker. Finally, studies indicate that
African Americans have less confidence in the courts,
on average, than do other Americans. This does not
extend to all minority groups; Asian Americans gener-
ally have a positive view of the courts, while the posi-
tion of Latinos depends on the specific context and
topic under consideration.
In an important sense, the lower courts have two
publics. One consists of the slightly more than half of
all adults with one or more direct experiences of thecourts. The most common form of such experience is
serving as a member of a jury, applicable to about one
adult in four. That proportion has been rising in recent
decades in response to jury source list reform and the
reduction in occupational exemptions.
The public with direct court experience tends to
remember those encounters for decades, no matter
how trivial objectively, and draw heavily on them
when evaluating the courts. Among those with court
experience, the extent of exposure to media represen-
tations of the courts, perceptions of judicial leniency
in sentencing, and political ideology are poor predic-
tors of confidence in or support of the courts. The
opposite is true for people without direct experience,
who appear to draw on a national rather than a locally
formed image of the courts.
The evidence points to a slightly negative general
impact of court experience per se, but one that varies
according to the role a person played in a case.
Individuals serving on a jury (as opposed to the essen-
tially neutral impact of being summoned but not
seated as a juror) are the most positive, while civil lit-
igants tend to be the most negative.Explaining Opinions About the Court
Those interested in explaining the sources of support
for the U.S. Supreme Court rely primarily on legiti-
macy theory, which emphasizes institutional loyalty.
Research on the U.S. Supreme Court sought to
explain the sources of two types of support and their
interrelationship. Diffuse support is a willingness to
accept the decisions of the Court as legitimate, a belief
that the Court has the right to decide questions of con-
stitutional interpretation. Specific support, the other
aspect, refers to responses to individual decisions
issued by the Court.
Specific support rises and falls as individuals react
to well-publicized decisions. Diffuse support tends to
vary little. Even the polarizing decision in Bush v.
Gore(2000) did not diminish the reservoir of good-
will for the Court. In the immediate aftermath of the
decision, support for the Court among the Democrats
sharply declined and that of Republicans increased
just as sharply. Over time, people return to the loyalty
or diffuse support that they had for the U.S. Supreme
Court prior to a controversial decision. Research sug-
gests that the U.S. Supreme Court is more effective
than other parts of government in leveraging its per-
ceived legitimacy into compliance with unpopular662 ———Public Opinion About the CourtsP-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:43 PM Page 662