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Does Procedural Fairness Impact Public Perception of Judicial Opinions? Evidence from a Survey Experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2025

Rob Robinson Open the ORCID record for Rob Robinson [Opens in a new window]  and
Danieli Evans
Rob Robinson*
Affiliation:
Division of Politics, Administration, & Justice. California State University, Fullerton, CA, United States
Danieli Evans
Affiliation:
University of Washington School of Law, William H. Gates Hall, Seattle, WA, United States
*
Corresponding author: Rob Robinson; Email: rorobinson@fullerton.edu
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Abstract

Judicial authority relies heavily on the reader’s perception that judges make fair and legitimate decisions. Do such perceptions rest primarily on the reader’s agreement with the decision? Or does an opinion’s reasoning style, as distinct from outcome, impact a reader’s perceptions of legitimacy? In this study, we test whether incorporating elements of procedural fairness into judicial opinions impacts readers’ perceptions of fairness and legitimacy, distinct from their agreement with the decision. In doing so, we also test whether members of the public are sensitive to elements of procedural fairness in written judicial opinions — a different context from the interpersonal interactions in which procedural fairness has been most often studied. We ran two survey experiments that sort participants into four conditions, varying the outcome of the case and whether the judicial opinion employs elements of procedural fairness. After reading a procedurally fair or one-sided opinion, participants reported on their perceptions of fairness and judicial legitimacy. We found strong support for the hypothesis that agreement with the outcome impacts readers’ perceptions of fairness and legitimacy, and weak support for the hypothesis that procedural fairness impacts these perceptions.

Keywords

Procedural fairnessJudicial legitimacy

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Type
Articles
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Law & Social Inquiry , First View , pp. 1 - 28
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Bar Foundation

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