The public's view of the judiciary is a key factor in the legitimacy of any legal system. Ideally, popular judgments of the adjudicative branch would be independent of the outcomes of the decisions it furnishes. In a previous study (Simon & Scurich 2011), we found that lay people's evaluations of the judicial decision-making process were highly contingent on the decision outcomes. Participants gave favorable evaluations of the judges and their decisions when they agreed with the judges' outcomes,...
