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ABSTRACT
Existing judicial research has firmly established the role of the law and the courts within
a variety of political systems (see Haynie and Tate 2000). Yet very little systematic empirical
research has been conducted to fully explore the extent to which theories of judicial behavior
based upon the American judicial system are applicable to other legal systems. As a result, these
theories lack generalizability and, moreover, have failed to determine if the U.S. judiciary is
comparable to other court systems or simply an anomaly within a broader comparative
framework. Thus, using the South African legal context we test several theories of judicial
behavior derived from research on the American courts. We specifically focus on the South
African Appellate Division, the highest court of appeal throughout the time period 1950-1990—
roughly the rise and fall of apartheid. Utilizing an integrated approach derived from both the
legal and extralegal approaches to understanding judicial decision making, we analyze a
particularly salient issue area, the death penalty. The results suggest that ideology and race—
constrained by legal factors— are the strongest predictors of death penalty decisions. The
implications of these findings parallel those for the United States courts; judicial decision making
is much more complex than what the legal model suggests and, concomitantly, theories of judicial
behavior extrapolated from the American context can increase our understanding of the role of
law and courts within the legal system of South Africa.
Convention