THE PUBLICS CONDITIONAL RESPONSE TO SUPREME-COURT DECISIONS

To investigate the effect of the Supreme Court on public opinion, we o ffer the conditional response hypothesis based on a theory of Supreme Court legitimacy and a microlevel social-psychological theory of attit ude formation. Together these theories predict that the Court may affe ct public opinion when it initially rules on a salient issue, but that subsequent decisions on the same issue will have little influence on opinion. To test our predictions, we analyze public opinion data befor e and after the Supreme Court ruled in a highly visible abortion case (Webster v. Reproductive Health Services [1989]) and before and after three key capital punishment rulings (Furman v. Georgia [1972], Gregg v. Georgia [1976], and McCleskey v. Kemp [1987]). The results suggest that our theory is not issue bound but is generally applicable to how the Supreme Court affects public opinion when it rules in highly salie nt cases.