The newest edition of The Supreme Court Compendium: Data, Decisions & Developments, by Lee Epstein, Jeffrey A. Segal, Harold J. Spaeth, and Thomas G. Walker, has just been released, and there’s a wealth of interesting historical information to be found in its pages. With the Court in between argument sessions and the opening of the baseball season (and its attendant statistical obsession) upon us, we thought we’d play a little Supreme Court baseball and use the Compendium’s data and other sources to put a few of our recent StatPack figures into historical perspective. This post will examine historical trends in the number of signed opinions, while later in this series, we’ll examine 5-4 votes, total numbers of concurrences and dissents, and then put a few Supreme Court “records” into perspective.

As we note in the latest StatPack, the Court is on track to hear 70 arguments this Term, and from those - because of various dismissals and equally divided affirmances with no signed opinion - the Court will release a maximum of 67 signed opinions before the Court adjourns for its Summer Recess. Thus, if there are no additional dismissals or per curiam opinions after argument, that number would match last year’s low number of signed opinions; the new edition of the Compendium allows us to more precisely put this output in historical context.

As can be seen from this graph (compiled using data culled from the Compendium’s Table 2-8 and our own data), if the Court ends the Term with 67 signed opinions, it will tie OT06 for the second-lowest output of signed opinions since the Court took meaningful control of its own docket following the enactment of the Judicial Act of 1925. With this Term in the number two spot, the historical low of the certiorari era occurred in the 1953 Term, which saw 65 signed opinions.

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With four decisions outstanding from the October to December sittings, we can begin our annual, oft-misguided attempt to divine which Justices are writing which opinions. You can see the outstanding decisions and distribution of authorship in our opinion authors chart here or the SCOTUSwiki case index here.

October: The only outstanding decision is Santos, which involves money laundering. Neither Breyer nor Alito have written for that sitting. One of them did not receive an opinion assignment because, while there originally were nine argued cases, Tom F. (an IDEA case) was decided by an equally divided Court and never assigned to be authored. According to a loose tradition, Alito would have been left without an opinion as the most junior Justice. So, Breyer would have Santos.

November: The outstanding decisions are Williams, involving child pornography, and Davis, involving bonds and the Commerce Clause. Alito and Scalia have not written from that sitting. But the two cases are not necessarily divided between the two of them: yet another case, Klein & Co., was argued but dismissed over a month later. So either Alito or Scalia could have had Klein & Co., meaning that another Justice could have either Williams or Davis.

Scalia is an unlikely author of Williams. His views on child pornography are less protective of the First Amendment than a majority of the Court would likely be willing to endorse.

Neither Scalia nor Alito is a particularly likely author of Davis. Scalia has unique views of the dormant Commerce Clause that make him unlikely as an author of a majority opinion. Alito seemed to favor the individual taxpayers/respondents in the case, who I assume are going to lose.

A process of elimination leaves the Williams case to Alito (meaning that the federal law would be upheld) and the scuttled opinion in Klein & Co. to Scalia. To divine the likely author of the third case, Davis, you have to turn to December.

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A new edition of this Term’s StatPack is here.  Note that we have not included a case list in this download, but the SCOTUSwiki case indices have been updated to reflect the latest opinions and grants; OT07 is here, and OT08 is here.

One additional item of curiosity this week: on Monday, the Court granted cert. in Pearson v. Callahan, which included the following directive: “In addition to the questions presented by the petition, the parties are directed to brief and argue the following question: ‘Whether the Court’s decision in Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S. 194 (2001) should be overruled?’”  One reader emailed us to ask an interesting question: when was the last time the Court sua sponte (i.e. on its own) ordered the parties to address specifically whether it should overrule one of its precedents?

Based on our searches of various databases, the last time this happened (and the only time in recent history) was 1991 in a case called Payne v. Tennessee.  In an order reported at 498 U.S. 1080, the Court amended its grant of a few days earlier to add a question about overruling two of its then-recent capital case precedents, Booth v. Maryland and South Carolina v. Gathers.  In its ultimate opinion, the Court did indeed overrule those two 5-4 decisions by a vote of 6-3, leading Justice Marshall to write a dissent noting that “Neither the law nor the facts supporting Booth and Gathers underwent any change in the last four years. Only the personnel of this Court did.”

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A new StatPack is available for download here. It has three new inclusions from the last edition: Justice Agreement, Decisions by Final Vote, and a new chart we’re calling “Frequency in the Majority” (thanks go to Ben for this chart).

The first two additions are charts we’ve offered before (see here for last year’s End-of-Term stats) but were hesitant to include in previous StatPacks this Term because it’s so early. With the Term roughly 25% complete in terms of the issuing of decisions (there have been 17 substantive opinions so far out of an estimate of 70), we figured it’s worth releasing them, with the disclaimer that these charts ought to be taken with a large grain of salt: so much is still left outstanding this Term, and they could (and likely will) change drastically by the time the Court recesses for the summer.

The true “new” addition to the StatPack is a tally of how often each Justice votes with the majority - both overall and in divided cases only (you can download this chart individually here). While recognizing that no one method exists to measure “success” on the Court, we hope these figures will provide a general, if imperfect, measurement of how often each Justice is presumably pleased with the outcome of the Court’s decisions. With only 17 total merits opinions thus far released (eight of which were decided 9-0), the current results are, as we previously mentioned, highly preliminary.

Nonetheless, there seem to be two observations worth pointing out. First, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who dissented in Ali and Danforth, has already equaled the two dissenting votes he cast during the entirety of the previous term (see here). Kennedy’s dissent in Ali also broke the streak of 5-4 cases in which he voted with the majority — readers may recall that he was a perfect 24-for-24 last Term. Second, Justice Antonin Scalia is the only member of the Court to vote with the majority in every merits decision issued so far this Term. Chief Justice John G. Roberts had been tied with Scalia before dissenting in Danforth, but now Scalia is the only Justice who has yet to disagree with the outcome of a case.

With today’s grants from the final January Conference (see post here), the docket for the current term is now nearly set. As Lyle mentions here, it is expected that, although all six of today’s grants have been set on expedited briefing schedules, only two will actually be argued this April and decided this term. We’ll have a full StatPack and docket list when we know which ones will be argued in OT07 and we will update this post with final data, but here are some preliminary numbers. (The numbers below assume the Court keeps to its current plan of arguing 12 cases in April.)

The Court’s Workload. Though the Court added 72 cases to its OT07 docket since last February, three were dismissed before argument. Including one original case argued this term, this means Court will hear a total of 70 oral arguments. Last term, the Court heard argument in 71 cases, the lowest total in the Court’s modern history. It appears OT07 will now set a new mark.

Like last term, the Court’s caseload is more heavily weighted in the spring, though without the April overload, it is not nearly as pronounced as last term. As can be seen from our SCOTUSwiki case index page here, the three argument sessions before the Winter Recess - October, November, and December - had 27 of 34 available argument slots filled, or 79%. On the other hand, the just-completed January sitting was 100% full, with 12 arguments on six days. Only seven cases will be argued in February, but the Court then will hear a full slate of 12 arguments in March and then another full slate of 12 in April. In other words, while 57.5% of the 80 available argument slots occur from January-April, 61.5% of the Court’s cases will actually be heard then. Overall, with 70 oral arguments and 80 available slots, the Court’s docket will be 87.5% full in OT07.

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Yesterday, we launched SCOTUSwiki, a new website that includes comprehensive case pages as well as easy archival access to many of our most popular features. Today’s updates that may be of interest are:

• We’ve updated the case page for Stoneridge v. Scientific-Atlanta (link here) to include all the merits briefs, amicus briefs, and cert.-stage briefs - in all, close to forty documents to get you ready for next week’s argument. A detailed preview of that case will be posted shortly.
• Scott Street has updated the page for a case being argued tomorrow, NY Bd. of Elections v. Lopez-Torres, to include several new links to further reading on the case.
• We’ve created a new page here where all the “Petitions to Watch” will be archived, and where you can find our complete list, going back to OT06.
• UPDATE: We’ve also updated the Gall and Kimbrough wiki pages with Lyle’s analysis of today’s arguments.

In addition to those pages, we’ve created an About ScotusWiki page with more details about the project here.

The latest edition of “Petitions to Watch,” featuring highlighted petitions on the Court’s ‘paid’ docket up for consideration at Friday’s conference, is now available here. In addition to all certiorari-stage filings, the supplement now also includes downloadable PDFs of the opinions below.

To read the “Conference Call” feature in Legal Times, focusing on the petition in No. 06-1613, El-Masri v. United States, click here (subscription required) or continue reading below.

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The first edition of the StatPack for OT07 is now available here, and it is updated with information about all the cases set for argument so far this Term, including today’s 17 grants that emerged from the Long Conference. With no cases yet decided, the download includes the case list, including summaries of each case granted; the grant chart by Conference; and the Circuit Scorecard.

Turning to the docket: with none of today’s granted cases sufficiently expedited to be argued during the December sitting, the Court has only seven cases with which to fill out the fall’s argument calendar. This means that the Court will hear nine cases in the October sitting (including one day with only one argument; see here), ten cases in the November sitting (including two days with only one argument; see here), and seven in the December sitting. Since there are six days scheduled for argument during that sitting, either several days of argument will be canceled or all but one day will have only one argument. The amount of open space on the December calendar also raises the possibility that the now-consolidated cases dealing with Guantanamo detainees, Boumediene and Al-Odah, could be afforded two hours of oral argument. Additionally, Dan Schweitzer of NAAG points out that an original case (New Jersey v. Delaware) will be sufficiently briefed by the end of September so that it, too, may come for oral argument during the December sitting.

Still, with today’s deluge of grants, the 43 cases the Court now has agreed to hear put it five grants ahead of last Term’s pace, so a return to a more traditional two-argument-per-day schedule may be in the offing for the remainder of the Term. However, careful readers of today’s Order List will note that all 17 granted cases have been expedited, with briefing to conclude by December 28. That would make all 17 cases briefed and ready to be argued in January, if the Court so desired. The last time the Court’s docket overflowed in a similar manner – with 16 cases granted in January of 2007 – the Court did indeed schedule afternoon arguments for four days during the April sitting, rather than letting the extra cases roll over to the next Term.

It’s not known yet whether the Court will set all 17 of today’s granted cases for argument in January, and hence will continue to have some sittings featuring more than the traditional two-arguments-per-day and some sittings with fewer, or whether the Court will use today’s overflow to help re-establish the previous norm by holding several off until February. When additional argument calendars are released, we will post them as soon as possible.

We thought it would be useful to look back at the blog’s Petitions to Watch feature and corresponding “Conference Call” column for Legal Times. All of the petitions we featured – along with the several hundred cert. documents filed in many of the cases – can be found at this webpage.

It was obviously a slow term. The Court granted only 56 cases in the 12 months between July of 2006 and June of 2007; according to statistics from the Harvard Law Review, that’s the lowest number of paid grants over any year in the Court’s modern history. For more on OT06’s record-low docket, see this post.

While we don’t yet have an exact count of how many paid cases were considered over the past 12 months, it looks to be roughly 1600-1700 cases; that means that somewhere in the neighborhood of 3% of the paid cases the Court considered were granted. Tom flagged 47 of those, or about 84%, as potential grants. (Two didn’t make it onto the published lists as a result of logistical snafus.) Nineteen paid cases were CVSG’d in the same time span; we had 15 on the list, for 79%.

An additional 14 pauper cases were granted this Term. While we don’t track those cases as part of our regular coverage – it’s logistically next-to-impossible given the volume – we did try to spotlight a number that looked like they were going to be seriously considered.

Ultimately, we featured 223 petitions – about 13% of the paid cases. As noted, 47 were granted, for a grant rate of 21%, while another 15 (7%) were sent to the SG. 16 additional cases were held, GVR’d, settled, withdrawn, or not denied for any reason – another 7%. Finally, 143 of our 223 cases were eventually denied (64%).

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The final edition of “Conference Call” this Term ran in Legal Times on Monday (column archive here; subscription req’d) featured petitions to watch for Thursday’s Conference; the SCOTUSblog supplement, containing downloadable versions of the highlighted petitions (and, thanks to the continuing assistance of those involved in the cases, a great many other cert. stage filings), can now be found here. Sometime next week, we’ll have an end-of-Term update regarding the ultimate disposition of all the cases we selected.

Previous editions of “Petitions to Watch” can be accessed via the “Term Tracker” link.

The latest edition of StatPack, featuring updates reflecting today’s opinions and a few additional minor tweaks, can be found here. The next update will occur on Monday to reflect the Court’s release of orders and opinions.

Monday’s edition of “Conference Call” column in Legal Times (column archive here; subscription req’d) featured petitions to watch for tomorrow’s Conference; the SCOTUSblog supplement, containing downloadable versions of the highlighted petitions (and, thanks to the continuing assistance of those involved in the cases, a great many other cert. stage filings), can now be found here.

Previous editions of “Petitions to Watch” can be accessed via the “Term Tracker” link.

Edition 5 of SCOTUSblog’s “Stat Pack,” including updates through yesterday’s action from the Court, can now be downloaded here. Other than updating the data to reflect yesterday’s five unanimous decisions, the only thing we’ve added is the voting data from last Term for the sake of comparison.

Note that we’re now only including the four statistical sections in the Pack, and not the case lists. The list of remaining cases for OT06 can be downloaded here. The OT07 list, which now features 20 cases, can be found here.

In our continuing quest to provide you with as much information about the Court as possible, we’ve added two new sections to our “StatPack” this week. In fact, as we keep adding features, the download is getting more difficult to navigate. Thus, you can download the full pack by clicking here, or you can download each section separately at the end of this post.

The first new feature comes by reader suggestion: you’ll now find decisions this Term broken down by vote, so that you can see the number of 5-4 or unanimous cases at a glance (you can download just this section here). For next week’s StatPack, we’ll be making this feature even more comprehensive by adding this data from previous Terms for comparison’s sake.

Second, we now have a new page featuring the tally for the Court’s workload this Term. As noted here, things may change subtly between now and the Summer Recess, but it’s expected that the Court will issue 66 merits decisions after argument this Term. The Court is also on pace for 70 total merits decisions when summary reversals are included (note that argued cases that were dismissed are not included in these totals).

Both of those numbers are new modern lows for the Court, as 66 decisions after argument would be some 7% lower than last Term’s modern low of 71 cases. Such a drop has not been unexpected at all for Court-watchers, as the Court’s expanded workload in April did not entirely make up for its previously noted shortfall in cases argued during the December, February, and March sittings. Moreover, the slight dip continues the overall trend in the Court’s workload, as the Court has not decided more than 80 cases after argument since OT97, and has not decided more than 100 cases after argument since OT92 (for data going back to OT90, see this memo). Unless something remarkable happens in the next few weeks, however, the Court’s number of merits decisions after argument will dip below 70 for the first time in its modern history.

The individual section downloads can be found after the jump.

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The “Conference Call” column in Legal Times is on a one-week hiatus (column archive here; subscription req’d), but the SCOTUSblog supplement for this Thursday’s Conference, containing downloadable versions of the highlighted petitions (and, thanks to the continuing assistance of those involved in the cases, a great many other cert. stage filings), can nonetheless be found here.

Previous editions of “Petitions to Watch” can be accessed via the “Term Tracker” link.

The latest edition of “Conference Call” in Legal Times (column archive here; subscription req’d) featured petitions to watch for the Justices’ Conference of 5/31. The SCOTUSblog supplement, containing downloadable versions of the highlighted petitions (and, thanks to the continuing assistance of those involved in the cases, a great many other cert. stage filings), can now be found here.

Previous editions of “Petitions to Watch” can be accessed via the “Term Tracker” link.

You can now download an updated edition of the “Stat Pack” here.

If you have any suggestions for what other information should be included each week, email me here.

The latest edition of “Conference Call” in Legal Times (column archive here; subscription req’d) features petitions to watch for the Justices’ Conference of 5/24. The SCOTUSblog supplement, containing downloadable versions of the highlighted petitions (and, thanks to the continuing assistance of those involved in the cases, a great many other cert. stage filings), can now be found here.

Previous editions of “Petitions to Watch” can be accessed via the “Term Tracker” link.

Edition 2 of SCOTUSblog’s “Stat Pack,” including updates through today’s action from the Court, can now be downloaded here. In addition to updates to last week’s stats regarding opinion authorship, number of cases on the OT07 docket, and details about pending cases, we’ve added a new section: the pack now includes data and questions presented for granted cases that will be argued in OT07.

For more on the “Stat Pack” feature, see this post from last week.

In a new feature, each week from now until the end of the Term, we are going to make available a comprehensive “Stat Pack” with information about cases yet to be decided this Term along with the Court’s docket for OT07.

In a PDF file that you can download here, we’ve included a list of the dates of upcoming Conferences and possible opinion days; a table featuring the authors of majority opinions that is organized by sitting; a graph comparing the state of the docket heading into the summer recess versus how it stood in the two previous terms, as well as details and the Questions Presented for all of the Court’s cases that have been argued but not yet decided.

We’ll make available a new edition of the “Stat Pack” each time orders and opinions are released; we hope it helps in keeping track of all of the goings-on at the Court from now until the end of the Term.

Again, the “Stat Pack” can be accessed here.

The latest edition of “Conference Call” in Legal Times (column archive here; subscription req’d) features petitions to watch for the Justices’ Conference of 5/17. The SCOTUSblog supplement, containing downloadable versions of the highlighted petitions (and, thanks to the continuing assistance of those involved in the cases, a great many other cert. stage filings), can now be found here.

Previous editions of “Petitions to Watch” can be accessed via the “Term Tracker” link.

It’s that time of year again . . . when the Solicitor General’s office files amicus briefs in response to the invitations issued by the Court to aid its determination whether to grant certiorari in a handful of cases. As a general rule, May is when the SG generally files briefs responding to invitations that were issued in the fall, winter, and early spring, so that the Court can consider the cases before its summer recess (although the SG was asked to weigh in on one of the cases below nearly a year ago). As Tom has explained in his earlier post on the state of the Court’s cert. docket, it’s possible that we could see grants in as many as three to six of these cases (particularly given the current shortfall in the docket). To help you keep track of the cases for which we expect SG amicus briefs, we’ve provided a brief summary below, along with the links to the cert. papers when available. So far (at least as reflected in the Supreme Court’s online docket system) the SG has filed just one of the briefs – recommending a denial in No. 05-10787, Murphy v. Oklahoma (the SG brief is here).

One final note: there tends to be a gap of several days between when the SG amicus briefs are filed at the Court and when they show up on the SG’s website. We’ll try to bring the briefs to you as soon as they become available; if, however, you happen to be the recipient of an electronic version of an SG brief and were able to send it along to us, we would greatly appreciate it.

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The latest edition of “Conference Call” in Legal Times (column archive here; subscription req’d) features petitions to watch for the Justices’ Conference of 5/10. The SCOTUSblog supplement, containing downloadable versions of the highlighted petitions (and, thanks to the continuing assistance of those involved in the cases, a great many other cert. stage filings), can now be found here.

Previous editions of “Petitions to Watch” can be accessed via the “Term Tracker” link.

The latest edition of “Conference Call” in Legal Times (column archive here; subscription req’d) features petitions to watch for the Justices’ Conference of 4/20. The SCOTUSblog supplement, containing downloadable versions of the highlighted petitions (and, thanks to the continuing assistance of those involved in the cases, a great many other cert. stage filings), can now be found here.

Previous editions of “Petitions to Watch” can be accessed via the “Term Tracker” link.

The latest edition of “Conference Call” in Legal Times (column archive here; subscription req’d) features petitions to watch for the Justices’ Conference of 4/13. The SCOTUSblog supplement, containing downloadable versions of the highlighted petitions (and, thanks to the continuing assistance of those involved in the cases, a great many other cert. stage filings), can now be found here.

Previous editions of “Petitions to Watch” can be accessed via the “Term Tracker” link.