Dr. Adam Feldman

Was it Ever Really Roberts’ Court?

It has been a long two weeks for the Supreme Court. Since the leak of Alito’s opinion in the Dobbs abortion case, several of the Supreme Court Justices have come forward offering their thoughts on the leak. According to the Washington Post, “Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. called the leak ‘absolutely appalling.’ The Supreme…

The Justice Behind the Dobbs Draft Opinion

Justice Alito, one of two Supreme Court nominees by President George W. Bush, has turned out to be one of the most certain conservative votes on the Court. Alito’s draft majority opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson was released by Politico last week shining a spotlight on the very real possibility that the Court will overturn…

Week of 4/25/2022 In Review

(1) The week began with a few statistical takeaways from the Bremerton oral arguments: Justice Kavanaugh spoke the most followed by Justices Breyer and Sotomayor. CJ Roberts spoke least overall. Justice Alito only spoke during Respondent’s turn and Justices Kagan and Sotomayor only spoke during Petitioner’s turn. If we focus on the polarity or positive/negative…

Trump’s Youngest Judicial Nominee and the Mask Mandate

U.S. District Court Judge Kathryn Mizelle struck down the mask mandate this week for domestic travel, bringing polarized reactions from the right and left sides of the political spectrum. Since two of the main talking points surrounding Judge Mizelle seem to be her age (35) and her ABA qualification rating (Not Qualified) it seemed apropos…

Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson Text Stats

The first abortion-related decision of the 2021 Supreme Court term, Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, examined the following issue: The State of Texas adopted a law banning abortions at approximately six weeks of pregnancy, in clear violation of this Court’s precedents holding that a State cannot prohibit abortion at a point before viability. To try…

Arguments in U.S. v. Washington

Here’s your daily dose of SCOTUS Analytics. Today the justices heard arguments in US v. Washington about Whether a state workers’ compensation law that applies exclusively to federal contract workers who perform services at a specified federal facility is barred by principles of intergovernmental immunity. Malcolm Stewart argued for the US and Tera Heintz, from…

April 8 Week in Review

This week started out with a new post on the schools and lower court clerkships that will most likely land a former law student a Supreme Court clerkship. The post can be found here. Next up was a look at the cases decided so far this term and the justices who authored each opinion. Justices…

The New Clerks in Town

When confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1962, Justice Byron White became the first justice ever to have clerked for a previous justice as White clerked for Chief Justice Vinson in 1946. This was more than 60 years after the first Supreme Court clerk was hired by Justice Gray in 1882 and more than 150…

April Week 1 in Review

Here are the mini-analyses I ran this week: Text Analysis of Thompson v. Clark (20-659) Below is an analysis from Thompson v. Clark (20-659) which was released this week. It was a 6-3 decision. First, here is a wordcloud (a visualization of the most dominant words used) of the majority opinion authored by Justice Kavanaugh…

What to Expect from Justice Breyer’s Retirement and Judge Jackson’s (Presumptive) Confirmation to the Court

Now that Senator Manchin declared he will vote to confirm Judge Jackson to the Supreme Court, Jackson’s confirmation in a week or so is all but a foregone conclusion. Will Jackson usher in a new era of judging on the Court? This outcome is very unlikely. The Court now has six conservative, republican nominated justices…

Just the Stats: Ketanji Brown Jackson as a District Court Judge

This post has a bevy of statistics related to Judge Jackson’s decisions as a judge on the District Court for the District of Columbia, which helps paint a picture of the cases Judge Jackson decided, the people involved, and how her decisions fared on appeal. Some aggregate statistics and other information on Judge Jackson’s background…

Ketanji Brown Jackson Decision Dataset

President Biden has a major decision to make with who to nominate to fill Justice Breyer’s seat on the Supreme Court. One of the top contenders for the nomination is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson from the D.C. Circuit. Judge Jackson worked as an attorney in private practice, an assistant special counsel to the United States…