Patterico's Pontifications

6/28/2009

Supreme Court Voting Lineups

Filed under: Judiciary — DRJ @ 4:55 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

ScotusBlog has a neat visual representation of the 2008 Term Supreme Court decisions sorted by case. Among other things, it illustrates how often Justice Kennedy is the crucial 5th vote in the majority — and some might even say the heart — of the Court.

— DRJ

11 Responses to “Supreme Court Voting Lineups”

  1. Look again, DRJ. Judging by that visual representation, Justice Kennedy was in the majority in eight out of ten cases, but it was Justice Thomas who was in the majority most frequently, nine times out of ten! And Justice Scalia was in the majority as often as Justice Kennedy, eight times out of ten.

    The Dana who looked at the chart (474dfc)

  2. It’s weird how the white people didn’t all vote the same.

    happyfeet (e8d590)

  3. Heart, maybe. Surely not the brain.

    Mitch (69e416)

  4. Dana,

    Good job, Dana. I should have said look at how often Kennedy is in the majority. But at least Kennedy is in the center of ScotusBlog’s chart, so I have that going for me.

    DRJ (cdbef5)

  5. Say what you want about Justice Kennedy, but I’m glad it is Justice Souter who is quitting, not Kennedy.

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  6. Um, Dana, I think that’s wrong.

    Out of the 77 cases decided so far, the majority counts are:

    Kennedy: 72
    Scalia: 65
    Alito: 65
    Roberts: 63
    Thomas: 62
    Breyer: 58
    Ginsberg: 55
    Souter: 53
    Stevens: 49

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  7. Kevin,

    I think you are both right. Dana is correct that Kennedy wasn’t the most frequent 5th vote in cases where the decision was 5-4, and you are right that Kennedy is the Justice most often in the majority.

    DRJ (cdbef5)

  8. I just think it sad that Souter couldn’t have gone out with a goose-egg.

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  9. I must be missing something.

    Justice Kennedy voted with the prevailing side in 15 out of the 19 5-4 splits in the link (which doesn’t count Ricci and the other cases announced today). This is first on the court followed, interestingly enough, by Scalia, who voted with the prevailing side in 13 out of the 19 5-4 splits.

    Justice Kennedy also voted with the prevailing side in 9 of 10 6-3 splits (tying Justices Breyer and Thomas) and on the prevailing side in all wider splits.

    I have doubts about the arrangement of faces on ScotusBlog, since the 2008 data suggest that Justice Stevens is to the left of Justice Ginsburg.

    W Krebs (7bd5b3)

  10. The USSC reversed the Sotomayor decision in the New haven firefighter case. That should make for an interesting confirmation hearing.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  11. Aye, but it was a 5-4 split, and Judge Sotomayor will be replacing one of the 4 … it would have been a bigger deal had the split been different.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)


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