First Draft of End-of-Term Statistics
on Jun 26, 2005 at 5:53 pm
Each year, we produce a variety of statistics on the Court’s Term. This post includes the current version, which obviously will be updated to reflect the final six cases. In addition, we need to double check the numbers. Here are the voting relationships and the other statistics.
One set of numbers jumps out at me dramatically: the 5-4 alignments. This term will end with roughly 1/4 of the cases decided 5-4, which is about average. Almost without exception, approximately 1/2 of the 5-4 cases is decided by a majority composed of the Chief Justice and Justices O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas. This term, of the 17 cases decided so far that are 5-4 in whole or in part, only three were have been composed of that traditional conservative majority.
Although the alignments in this term’s 5-4 cases are all over the map (with no Justice so far in fewer than eight 5-4 majorities or more than ten), this will (I think) be the first term in which there are fewer cases decided by the five most conservative Justices than by majorities composed of their four more liberal colleagues plus one of the conservatives. So far, the latter scenario has occurred five times — twice with Justice O’Connor, twice with Justice Kennedy, and once with Justice Scalia.
