Supreme Court Justices voting practices are fairly predictable. For instance, most decisions are unanimous. Since the longest serving justice on the Court, Justice Thomas joined the Court in 1991 42.65% of argued cases have returned unanimous votes. The Court also tends to reverse lower court decisions. The justices voted to reverse the lower court decision…
Tag: Apple v. Pepper
Locating Weak Causal Strands in the Justices’ Opinions
In the introduction to the eye opening work on the Supreme Court certiorari process Deciding to Decide, author H.W. Perry summarizes the Court’s lack of institutional transparency. Perry wrote, “Although some rules are published, most of the internal procedures are by consensus, are unpublished, and are frequently unknown” (p. 17). Perry goes on, “We on…
A Wild Ride of a Term with Twenty Decisions Still to Go
The 2018 Supreme Court Term has taken many twists and turns, and there are still 20 decisions the Court has to release in its last week and a half of work before summer recess. Much may change between now and then, but with 55 cases already decided, we have unique and surprising patterns of decision-making among the justices. This is most apparent in the Court’s 5-4 (or 5-3) decisions, where one vote could shift a decision in a different direction.
Empirical SCOTUS 