Court-curbing legislation seeks to constrain judicial independence and create a judicial environment that aligns with the preferences of the state legislature. Much of the existing court-curbing literature focuses on court curbing at the national level and state courts of last resort. However, most cases in the United States are decided by lower state courts. This article examines the motivations to curb lower state courts. Our results suggest that as legislative professionalization increases, the legislatures are more likely to introduce legislation that curbs state trial courts. Unlike existing literature on federal courts and state courts of last resort, the ideological distance from the bill sponsor and the state lower courts does not influence court-curbing activity. Our results hold when tested at both the bill and state levels.

This article examines how Thai courts of the first instance deal with run-of-the-mill criminal cases. How do judges deal with criminal trials of a rather routine nature, often involving defendants from ethnic minorities and reflecting the particular conditions in the provinces concerned? Drawing on participant observation and interview research conducted mainly in two provinces in different regions of the country, the article examines the challenges faced by judges and court officials in dealing with heavy caseloads in a highly bureaucratized system where acquittal rates are extremely low. How far do such cases shed light on how judging is carried out in the majority of Thai courts? What kind of challenges do Thai judges face in adjudicating minor but often messy cases in order to fulfil societal expectations in line with their own understandings of justice?