decisions and presumably more so than the lower
courts.
Early studies of public opinion about the lower
courts focused on the influence of socioeconomic and
demographic backgrounds on satisfaction with the
outcomes of specific cases and with the courts gener-
ally. Opinions were predicted to vary according to a
person’s educational level, gender, race and ethnicity,
political ideology, and knowledge of the courts.
Starting in the mid-1970s, social psychologists
took a different direction by focusing on perceptions
of the fairness of court procedures. A substantial body
of research applying a variety of methodologies in a
wide range of adjudicatory contexts, and in many
countries, established that the perception of proce-
dural fairness is the most important influence on a
court user’s satisfaction with the courts. People who
lose in the courtroom can nonetheless leave satisfied
with their day in court, confident in the courts, and
likely to comply with the court’s decisions.
The work of Tom Tyler and his colleagues provides
the theoretical basis for anticipating such a finding.
They argued that the public’s concerns had more to do
with “relational” issues than with “instrumental” fac-
tors such as the absolute or relative outcome. Group
value theory explains this expectation: People value
their membership in social groups and seek evidence
that they are indeed valued by those groups. The
behavior of the judge, or other decision maker, pro-
vides the confirmation.
Procedural fairness consists of various “symbolic
criteria” that people can look for as they assess how
they are being treated:- Respect:Being treated with dignity and having one’s
rights respected - Neutrality: Decision makers who are honest and
impartial and who base decisions on facts - Voice:Having the opportunity to express one’s view-
point to the decision maker - Trustworthiness: Benevolent and caring decision
makers, who are motivated to treat you fairly, are sin-
cerely concerned about your needs, and consider
your side of the story
Voice is the element of procedural fairness on
which the courts tend to score the lowest relative to
the executive and legislative branches; neutrality is
where they tend to score the highest. People with
direct experience tend to focus on what they can useto decide on the judge’s trustworthiness. In the
absence of such experience, the focus is on clues
about neutrality.
The significance of procedural fairness is that
when measured and placed in a predictive model of
satisfaction with the courts, sociodemographic char-
acteristics, including race, and political ideology tend
to be statistically insignificant. In other words, if
African Americans are less satisfied with the courts, it
is because they perceive less procedural fairness in the
courts than do other groups. Factors related to the
practical side of court performance, as in cost and case
delay, also tend to be far less consequential than per-
ceptions of fairness. This is particularly true among
people who had experience of a court case. People
with no court experience give greater attention to the
practical side of court operations, but their perception
of procedural fairness still is the primary factor influ-
encing their support for the courts. Researchers are
more successful in predicting the opinions of people
with court experience than of those without such
experience.
There is an important exception to this general pat-
tern. Judges and lawyers generally tend to attach
greater importance to the fairness of outcomes than to
procedural fairness. There may be a practical dimen-
sion to this reverse of the pattern found in the public
at large. Judges are able to evaluate the fairness of
legal decisions and are less concerned about confirm-
ing their value to the group. The public, however, is
poorly equipped to assess legal decisions and there-
fore focuses on whatever clues it can find on how it
and others are being treated by the decision maker.
Thus, perceptions of procedural fairness assume
an overwhelming importance in shaping public
responses to specific court decisions or broader opin-
ions on the courts in general. Procedural fairness can
be used to explain reactions to U.S. Supreme Court
decisions. The majesty and mystery with which the
Court surrounds its decision-making process appears
to conform to the symbols people associate with a fair
process. Consequently, some observers have ques-
tioned whether the public is being too generous in its
esteem for the Supreme Court.David B. RottmanSee alsoDrug Courts; Legal Socialization; Procedural
Justice; Public Opinion About Crime; Public Opinion
About Sentencing and Incarceration; U.S. Supreme CourtPublic Opinion About the Courts——— 663P-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:43 PM Page 663