Over the past five Supreme Court Terms the justices have issued 157 separate opinions from Court orders. These are cases that are not orally argued and do not receive full merits consideration. We do not necessarily know all the justices votes in these cases – only the ones the justices made public through signing onto separate opinions. Of these 157 opinions, only two include at least one conservative and one liberal justice signed onto the same opinion. Both are dissents from Justices Gorsuch and Sotomayor in criminal cases. The other 155 separate opinions split the justices ideologically or are solo authored. The spotlight on the Court’s polarization could not be clearer.
Month: July 2020
SCOTUSBlog Final Stat Pack OT 2019
The Court released its final merits decisions for the 2019 term on Thursday 7/9/2020. We released the Stat Pack the following day which includes a bevy of statistical analyses tracking the decisions from this past term. The accompanying post begins: A Supreme Court term unlike any other has finally come to an end. In March,…
Precedent: Which Justices Practice What They Preach
While Supreme Court Justices are by no means bound by their past decisions, the Court often respects its past decisions for a variety of reasons. The reasons given for adhering the Court’s past precedents are often across between cases. Justice Kagan offered her interpretation for remaining faithful to precedent in dissent in last term’s Knick…
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