by Shawn Patterson Jr., Matthew Levendusky, Ken Winneg and Kathleen Hall Jamieson
Vol. 108 No. 1 (2024) | Harnessing AI for Justice | Download PDF Version of ArticleThe judiciary is unique among the federal branches. Whereas our political branches derive authority from constitutionally enumerated powers â further legitimized through an electoral connection to the people â the judiciary must compel the president and Congress to enforce its decisions without a public mandate. The judiciary must then rely on the peopleâs âreservoir of favorable attitudes or good willâ to protect its authority and independence.1
The federal judiciary has long held a deep public trust far exceeding that of the legislature or executive.2Â Americans have historically believed that judges rule based on legal reasoning in the context of the Constitution, free from the bargaining and political compromise of the other branches.3 In turn, citizens have resisted attempts by their elected representatives to undermine judicial independence, whether those attempts were efforts to undermine the validity of court decisions or to advocate for more fundamental changes to the structure of the judicial branch.4
With few exceptions, Congress and the executive branch have enforced the rulings of the judiciary, even when doing so conflicted with their political preferences. Despite private correspondence suggesting President Dwight Eisenhowerâs resistance to racial integration, he noted: âThe Supreme Court has spoken, and I am sworn to uphold the constitutional processes in this country; and I will obey [the Brown v. Board decision].â5 Similarly, despite claiming that â[t]he Citizens United decision was wrong, and it has caused real harm to our democracy,â President Barack Obama and his administration accepted the Supreme Courtâs ruling as law while calling on Congress to enact new campaign finance regulations.6
Attempts to reform the Supreme Court have likewise met public resistance. Most notably, President Franklin Rooseveltâs âcourt packingâ proposal failed in part because he âhad little success in persuading the public of his programâs urgency.â7 Even in the aftermath of Justice Amy Coney Barrettâs controversial nomination following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, poll after poll showed that the public opposed increasing the number of justices on the Court.8
But what happens if this reservoir of goodwill runs dry? When perceptions of the courts as trustworthy, impartial, and apolitical erode, politicians and the public may become more willing to endorse constraints on the courtsâ independence and authority.9 Following the controversial decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womenâs Health Organization,10 public confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court reached its lowest point of the past half century.11 And by summer 2023, majorities of the public reported support for imposing term limits, mandatory retirement ages, and formal ethics policies.12
In this report, the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) summarizes nearly 20 years of survey data to shine light on public perceptions of the courts, including some new data not published before.13Â The Annenberg Civics Knowledge surveys provide a nationally representative snapshot of the American public and allow us to investigate the interaction between public trust in the judiciary and the publicâs knowledge of civics.
We begin by summarizing what we know about the publicâs trust in the judicial branch, highlighting four key findings. First, we show how this trust has waned in recent years. Second, we demonstrate key distinctions between the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal judiciary as a whole, with public trust in the Supreme Court more clearly declining. Third, though we find that the judicial branch still maintains greater support from the public than the other political branches, we show this advantage has also declined in recent years. And finally, we examine perceptions about the courtsâ impartiality, finding that a majority of Americans believe the courts favor the wealthy and that judges fail to set aside their personal political beliefs when making their rulings.
Next, we describe the role of factual knowledge about the nature and function of the judiciary in public perceptions of the courts. We briefly summarize an extensive literature in both legal studies and political science that argues that âto know courts is to love themâ â that is, understanding the workings of the judiciary and the unique role courts play in American government may help foster greater trust in and support for the institution of the courts, especially compared to the political branches.14
However, cracks have emerged here, too. Using four surveys conducted over the past 20 years, we show that the relationship between civics knowledge and trust in the U.S. Supreme Court and federal judiciary has changed. In 2022, those most knowledgeable of the U.S. Supreme Court were least trusting in that Courtâs ability to operate in the best interests of the American people. Those who knew more about the federal courts in general were more trusting of the federal judiciary as a whole, but they also were more likely to endorse major reforms to the judiciary, such as term limits, mandatory retirement ages, and public referenda to overturn judicial decisions.
The culprit behind these trends is a familiar one. We show that, as with much of contemporary American politics, perceptions of the U.S. Supreme Court are splitting along partisan lines: Where Republicans are as trusting and confident in the Court as ever before, Democratic voters (and to a lesser extent voters unaffiliated with either major party) now hold considerably less favorable views of the Court and are more willing to endorse major reforms to the Courtâs independence and authority.
What can be done to âpromote public confidence in the judiciary,â as Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr., urged his colleagues in 2019?15Â We conclude by discussing the role of robust civics education in rebuilding public confidence in the judiciary.
The Annenberg Civics Knowledge Survey, conducted since 2006, focuses on the publicâs understanding of the Constitution of the United States. Since 2013, the survey has been released annually for Constitution Day (Sept. 17) as the âAnnenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey.â In this section, we supplement these surveys with other research to try to understand public perceptions of the judiciary over the past two decades.
Figure 1 shows responses to the question âHow much do you trust the Supreme Court to operate in the best interests of the American people?â and gauges how views have changed over time.16Â The overall trends are also disaggregated by self-identified party identification.
Three patterns are worth highlighting: First, from 2005 to 2019, large majorities of Americans across the political spectrum had either âa fair amountâ or âa great dealâ of trust in the U.S. Supreme Court to operate in the best interests of the American people.17 In 2005, roughly three-quarters of Americans felt similar levels of trust in the Court.18
Second, between 2019 and 2022, there was a considerable drop in trust, with only 46 percent of U.S. adults having a âfair amountâ or âgreat dealâ of trust in the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 compared to 68 percent in 2019.19 This drop in trust occurred primarily among Democrats and those who do not identify with the two major parties.20 Meanwhile Republican trust in the Court only fell from 76 percent in 2019 to 70 percent in 2022.21
This decline in trust mirrors findings from other survey research institutions. Between July 2020 and September 2021, Gallup observed an 18 percent drop in approval of the way the Supreme Court is handling its job,22 and, in nearly the same time period (between September 2020 and September 2021), the Marquette Law School Poll found a 17 percent drop in approval of the way the Supreme Court is handling its job.23 Similarly, PEW found a 26 percent drop in individuals with favorable views of the Supreme Court between 2021 and 2023 â a decline most pronounced among voters who identify as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents.24 All three studies found fewer than half of respondents overall approving of or favoring the U.S. Supreme Court.25
The Annenberg Public Policy Center conducted a separate study in Spring 2022,26 before and after the leak of the draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Womenâs Health Organization and after the subsequent decision.27 The study suggested that both the leak and the decision,28 which overturned Roe v. Wade,29 may have further eroded the publicâs trust and confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court.30
Third, in the year following the Dobbs decision, trust in the Court improved but remained below historic norms. As Figure 1 demonstrates, a bare majority (53 percent) expressed âa great dealâ or âa fair amountâ of trust in the Court in 2023, compared to nearly two-thirds of respondents expressing the same levels of trust over the preceding 15 years.31 Whether the decline in trust observed in 2022 marked a more lasting drop in confidence remains to be seen.
Generally, the public has held the judicial branch as a whole in higher esteem than the Supreme Court.32 Have the publicâs feelings toward the U.S. Supreme Court bled into their perceptions of other courts and the judiciary more generally? To answer this question, we looked at two sets of survey findings. First, we surveyed the same group of respondents twice, first asking them (in August 2022) about the Supreme Court,33 and later asking them (in February 2023) about the âjudicial branch as a whole.â34 In these two surveys (both conducted after Dobbs issued in June 2022), we found that 47 percent of adults expressed a âfair amountâ or âgreat dealâ of trust in the U.S. Supreme Court compared to 65 percent who felt similarly about the entire judicial branch.35
Second, in a different survey, we asked respondents to evaluate both the U.S. Supreme Court and âfederal and state courtsâ separately. Here we found that significantly more adults expressed no trust (ânot at allâ) in the U.S. Supreme Court (24 percent) than in the federal and state courts (18 percent).36
Figure 2, however, shows that public âtrust and confidenceâ in the judicial branch overall has also declined.37 While the public continues to place more trust and confidence in the judicial branch than the other branches, that advantage has dwindled and, as of 2022, was not much higher than the political branches.38 2022 was the first time Annenberg data saw trust in the judicial branch drop below 50 percent.39
Figure 3 breaks down respondents by age, education, gender, party identification, race and ethnicity, and whether or not they reported taking a course in high school focusing on civics and government.41Â These groups are then ordered such that those with greater confidence in the judicial branch are near the top, where those with lower overall trust are toward the bottom.
Many of these demographics are related to one another. For example, older individuals are more likely to be Republican than younger adults, all else being equal.42Â To determine which of these differences are statistically significant, we conducted a regression analysis of overall trust in the judicial branch as a function of these demographics to identify statistically significant estimates.
For example, compared to White adults, Asian, Black, and Hispanic adults are no more or less likely to have confidence in the judicial branch, all else being equal.43 Democrats and Republicans are both more likely to express confidence in comparison to adults who do not identify with one of the two major parties. Younger adults are less likely to have trust in the judicial branch than older adults.44 And compared to adults who remember taking a course in high school focused on civics or government, adults without such experience are slightly less likely to express trust in the judicial branch.45Â (A regression analysis shows that all else being equal, high school civics significantly increases support for the judiciary. Results are available in the online appendix.)
Apart from this information about specific recollections of civics education, we also draw from a wealth of surveys about general civics knowledge. As we discuss further alongside Figure 5, those with greater civics knowledge (based on responses to three civics questions) are more likely to believe that the federal judiciary works in the best interest of the American people. And, per Figure 7, general civics knowledge (based on responses to one civics question), also appears to be less correlated with trust in the Supreme Court specifically than it once was.
What about more specific aspects of trust in the judiciary? Examining perceptions of bias in the judiciary, we first note that 72 percent of respondents believe that the courts in the U.S. favor the wealthy (70 percent) or favor the poor (2 percent), compared to only 14 percent that believe the courts treat both groups equally.46 Second, only 43 percent of respondents either âsomewhatâ or âstronglyâ agree that judges in the U.S. are fair and impartial in their rulings.47 And third, nearly half (49 percent) of the public believes that judges in the U.S. âdecide cases in ways that advantage the side that agrees with their political views.â48
However, when it comes to whether respondents believe they themselves would receive a fair trial, we find much more confidence. More than half (57 percent) of respondents think it is âsomewhat likelyâ that they would receive a fair trial if they were accused of a crime they did not commit.49 A further 19 percent believe a fair trial âvery likely.â50Â (Topline summaries and charts detailing more of this data are available with the online PDF version of this article at judicature.duke.edu.)
Scholars of the judiciary have long noted that âto know courts is to love them.â51 In other words, knowledge of the role of the courts in our checks-and-balances system of government seems to increase public confidence in the institution. Early studies found that survey respondents who knew more about the Supreme Court were more likely to ascribe neutrality and objectivity to its decision-making.52
Why is knowledge about the courts associated with increased public support for these institutions? In learning about the courts, citizens come to understand that âcourts are different from other political institutions.â53 With most judicial decision-making occurring behind closed doors (in chambers or conference), the public sees only the formal proceedings. Scholars have argued that these formal proceedings may make an impression: âPeople may be impressed by such symbols as the robes of judges, the honorific forms of address, and the temple-like buildings in which courts are typically housed.â54 This âpageantry of judicial symbolsâ may suggest that the judiciary is removed from the politics of the other branches.55 Civics education also exposes individuals to the ânature of American democracy and the values that undergird itââ support for a multiparty system, the rule of law, and individual liberty â which in turn reiterate the courtsâ unique, counter-majoritarian role in our political system.56
Is civics knowledge still positively correlated with positive public perceptions of the courts?57 To test this hypothesis, APPC contracted with SSRS, an independent survey research company, to conduct a survey in October 2023 assessing the intersection between the publicâs knowledge of civics and the publicâs trust in the federal judiciary. We compared these results to findings from Annenbergâs U.S. Supreme Court surveys in 2007, 2011, 2019, and 2022 to speak more clearly to change over time. We report a troubling change: Civics knowledge is now only weakly predictive of specific confidence in the federal judiciary as a whole.58
To measure civics knowledge, particularly with respect to the federal judiciary, we typically rely on a series of items assessing how well an individual understands the structure of government: Do you happen to know any of the three branches of government, and, if so, would you mind naming any of them?59 If the president and Supreme Court disagree on whether an action by the president is constitutional, who has the final responsibility in determining whether the action is constitutional?60 Are federal judges in the U.S. appointed or elected to their position?61 We use these three items to create a single scale of court-related civics knowledge, which we in turn use to predict levels of confidence in the judiciary. The share of respondents correctly answering each question can be found in Figure 4.
Using these three items, we create a scale, ranging from 0 to 3, where 0 is being unable to correctly answer any question and 3 is being able to answer each correctly. Overall, over two-thirds (69 percent) of respondents knew the correct answers to at least two of the three questions, and only 7 percent of our sample knew none of the answers.62 The demographic disparities in civics knowledge we observe are consistent with prior studies: Younger, less-educated respondents have less civics knowledge than older, more-educated respondents.63 We also found that men tend to be more politically informed compared to women,64 as are White and Asian respondents in comparison to Black and Hispanic respondents.65
How does civics knowledge relate to public trust in the federal judiciary? Figure 5 presents some initial evidence. Respondents who know more about the judiciary are more likely to believe that the federal judiciary works in the best interest of the American people. Among those who knew no correct answers, only 36 percent had some degree of trust in the federal judiciary, compared to 61 percent among those who could correctly answer all items. Here we see evidence supporting the conventional wisdom that âto know courts is to love them.â
But does civics knowledge predict specific instances of confidence? In other words, are those who know more about the judiciary more likely to believe they would receive a fair trial? That they favor the wealthy over the poor in their rulings? That the federal courts are too mixed up in politics? That judges are impartial in their rulings?
The results shown in Figure 6 are inconsistent. Knowledge of the courts has no relationship with respondentsâ confidence in receiving a fair trial. More knowledgeable respondents were both more and less likely than less knowledgeable respondents to believe that the courts are too mixed up in politics and that the courts are fair and impartial in their rulings. This suggests that people who know more about civics are more likely to have an opinion, rather than to âneither agree nor disagree,â on these questions â but they do not necessarily hold views more favorable toward the courts.
It is also worth asking: In the face of widespread declining trust in all public institutions, is civics knowledge still as positively correlated with support for the Supreme Court as it once was?66 To address this question further, we can turn to previous surveys focusing on the Supreme Court to compare this relationship over time.
To do so, we return to one of the questions detailed in Figure 5 about general civics knowledge. That is because, over time, respondents were consistently asked to recall the three branches of government in each survey. In this analysis, we then look at a simplified knowledge scale â how many branches were you able to recall? Figure 7 scales our trust measure to range from 0 (not at all) to 100 (a great deal).67 The x-axis is instead the number of branches the individual was able to recall, rather than the scale used above. In 2007 and 2011 (both presented in blue), the conventional wisdom holds: More knowledgeable respondents were more trusting in the Supreme Court than in current times. But civics knowledge is not correlated with trust in 2019 (in grey) and is negatively correlated in 2022 (in red).68 Why might this be the case?
Figure 8 disaggregates the trends from Figure 7 by partisan identification. The most dramatic trend can be seen in the panel from 2022. Where in previous years there were few consistent differences, the divergence by party in 2022 was stark. Democrats and Republicans unable to recall any of the three branches place comparable trust in the U.S. Supreme Court. But among respondents with high civics knowledge, Republicans are more than three times more trusting. While there is a small increase in trust among Republicans as they become more knowledgeable, there is a much larger decrease in trust among Democrats as they become more knowledgeable. This could reflect a negativity bias in perceptions of the Supreme Court, or the idea that negative reactions in response to a disliked decision are greater than positive reactions in response to a liked decision.69 Viewed this way, it is possible that increased levels of knowledge had a more negative effect on Democrats than a positive effect on Republicans.
To summarize, the publicâs trust in both the U.S. Supreme Court specifically and the federal judiciary as a whole more generally have declined over the past few decades. And while civics knowledge continues to be associated with trust in the federal judiciary as a whole, that relationship has not only declined, but reversed for the U.S. Supreme Court â that is, more knowledgeable respondents are now less trusting in the U.S. Supreme Court.
How worrisome are these trends? In the next section, we turn from the publicâs trust and approval of the courts â measures in which we may expect to observe short-term changes in response to individual decisions â to focus on âthe reservoir of goodwill,â or the historical institutional support for the judiciary. Has dissatisfaction with particular actions by the Supreme Court affected the reservoir of goodwill that sustains the legitimacy of the judiciary?
The Supreme Courtâs unique role and reputation for being above politics have historically sustained high levels of public approval and trust as well as a sense of legitimacy (or âa widely accepted mandate to render judgments for a political communityâ).70 However, legal scholars and political scientists have long distinguished between approval and trust on the one hand and legitimacy on the other.71 Where approval and trust are short-term measures that are grounded in satisfaction with particular decisions and actions, belief in the Courtâs legitimacy stems from public satisfaction with the Courtâs performance of its constitutional role.72 This is what leads people to respect the Courtâs rulings and its authority even when they disagree with a decision.73
For this final analysis, we summarize the publicâs support for the judiciary as an institution, or what we call âinstitutional support,â as a way to measure legitimacy.
To measure institutional support for the judiciary, we asked respondents two kinds of questions.
First, we asked respondents about the degree to which they agreed or disagreed with three statements related to judicial independence, each of which would tend to make the judiciary less independent (independence statements):
In general, agreement with the three statements about judicial independence (âindependence statementsâ), and likewise agreement with the three reform proposals (âreform proposalsâ), would tend to show less institutional support for the judiciary. The responses to these items from APPCâs October 2023 Civics Knowledge Survey can be found in Figure 9.
While none of the independence statements received majority support, this is only because of considerable indifference among respondents (roughly a quarter to a third of them âneither agreed nor disagreedâ with the statements). However, the majority of respondents who actually had an opinion would reduce the independence of the courts; that is, for each statement, more respondents âstronglyâ or âsomewhatâ agreed than âstronglyâ or âsomewhatâ disagreed. With respect to the reform proposals, we see that large majorities â nearly 80 percent â support term limits and mandatory retirement ages for judges.
In discussing what can be done to foster confidence in the federal judiciary, it is important to consider the different factors that legal scholars have historically connected to trust in the judiciary:
These three pillars (commitment to democratic norms, exposure to legitimizing symbols, and confidence in the judicial process) have long provided a guide to fostering greater confidence in the judiciary through robust civics education. We believe that civics education can nurture understanding of and support for the democratic norms that serve as guardrails for our government, while further exposing the public to the legitimizing symbols and procedures of the judiciary that reaffirm the courtsâ unique role in our checks and balances system.
However, trust in all public institutions â be they government, universities, or the media â is in decline.80 Political discourse challenging an institutionâs legitimacy can undermine confidence in the processes and procedures of democracy.81 And the same polarization that has eroded support for the judiciary82 has also reduced belief in democratic norms.83Â Civics education alone may not be enough to stem these anti-democratic tides.
Recent controversies concerning the politics of Supreme Court nominations, the Dobbs leak and subsequent decision, and ethics standards for Supreme Court justices may also have detracted from the stream of legitimizing symbols and processes to which the public is exposed. Chief Justice Roberts argues that â[w]e do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,â but âan extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.â84 Unfortunately, much of the public seems to feel differently.
Shawn Patterson Jr. is a research analyst at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania.
Matthew Levendusky is the Stephen and Mary Baran Chair in the Institutions of Democracy at the APPC, director of APPCâs Institutions of Democracy division, and a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Ken Winneg is the managing director of survey research at the APPC.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Director of the APPC, and program director of the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands.