The Supreme Court has heard somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-70 oral arguments per term since Justice Kavanaugh joined the Court in the 2018 term. This is well more than 100 fewer arguments than the Court heard at the highest point of arguments per term around the first few decades of the 1900’s.  That time period overlapped with the Court moving from predominately unanimously decided cases to higher levels of dissent. Justices like Holmes and Brandeis in the first part of the 20th century dissented more frequently than justices did that preceded them which created a culture where an i ..read more

All Article III federal judgeships start at the same place — with a presidential nomination. This procedure played a large role in the first several decades of statistical studies of judicial behavior, where researchers found that the party of appointing president was a strong predictor of judicial votes.  While not looked at as frequently anymore, the party of appointing president still yields interesting questions. For instance, are the Supreme Court Justices votes predictable, at least to some extent, because there are clear and correct solutions to cases? Are differences in the justic ..read more

Introduction While few people would argue against the proposition that the Supreme Court Justices are some of the most intelligent legal luminaries in the United States, these luminaries often rule in opposing directions. The number of the Court’s split decisions often outnumber the number of unanimous decisions. During the 2021 Term, the number of 6-3 splits alone outnumbered the number of unanimous decisions.  It should also be noted at the outset that the justices’ decisions in all cases before them are foremost decisions on whether to affirm, reverse, or vacate lower court decisions ..read more

Some things from this year’s oral arguments are clear. We know for instance, who is talking more and less. These intricacies follow from what we saw last term. Justice Jackson is the most active justice in arguments. Thomas is the least. There are several aspects of oral argument that are below this playing field surface. When are the justices engaged? Which justices interact with one another during arguments? How will all of this play out when opinions are finally released? These are some of the aspects of oral arguments covered below. Specific Argument Engagement The justices do not engage e ..read more

Last term was supposed to be different. The Court faced the leak of the Dobbs draft opinion in May of 2022 and all signs pointed at that point to the Court’s officers expending effort to attempt to prevent such an instance from recurring. This effort in deterrence potentially slowed the decision release process for the 2022 Supreme Court term which started in October of the same year.  The Court released its first opinion of the 2022 Term in January of 2023. This was the longest the Court had ever taken to release its first opinion of the Term.  Some speculated that the leak and the ..read more

By Adam Feldman and Jake Truscott The Supreme Court stood as a monolithic institution for almost its first two centuries with it’s all male (predominately white male) composition.  Confirmed in 1981 as the nation’s 104th Supreme Court justice and its first female, Sandra Day O’Connor truly broke through the glass ceiling. From her many years at the helm as the Court’s swing justice to her votes and opinions in major cases, O’Connor was notable for much more than her sex — she was quite unique in nuanced ways, some of which went well under the radar. A Trailblazer Justice O’Connor cut a ne ..read more

If you feel like the 2022 Supreme Court Term just ended you are not alone. The justices began this term much like where they left off in June 2023 —  with the October argument session of the 2023 Term now complete and six oral arguments already under the justices’ belts we are seeing similar variation in their oral argument engagement to we had last year.  Once again, Justice Jackson is far ahead of the rest of the justices in terms of word counts from the arguments. Jackson is still anomalous not only in terms of the quantity of oral argument speech bit also in terms of confide ..read more

One of if not the most well-known sentences from a Supreme Court opinion comes in the form of John Marshall’s line in Marbury v. Madison, “It is emphatically the duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.”  This short sentence signified a power grab whereby the Supreme Court took on judicial review and consequently the ability to declare statutes unconstitutional.  An extended understanding though of “say what the law is” speaks to the larger sphere of the Court’s influence. The Supreme Court is quite a unique institution even within the federal judiciary.  The just ..read more

[completed with the help of Jake Truscott who gathered data for this post] The 2022 Supreme Court term concluded this past June. Since then, the Justices have been on break. In the past several justices go on vacation (some of the downsides to such travel have been documented as well) while others teach in exciting locations in and outside of the U.S.  This summer it appears that the justices have spent some time considering establishing ethical guidelines for the Court established by the justices themselves.  While some of the justices are off galivanting around the globe, the justi ..read more

What ingredients come to mind when you think of cases before the Supreme Court? One might opine controversial issues or high stakes litigation. At a case level one might say circuit splits or elite attorneys. Still, there are more elementary components of litigation mentioned in Article III and they start with a case or controversy.  Central to this concept is standing – that a plaintiff suffered an injury caused by the defendant that courts can redress.  The Supreme Court examined and clarified the standing doctrine more this past term than in other recent terms. This article looks ..read more