At the end of each term scotusblog.com publishes an extraordinary amount of information on the just ended term of the Supreme Court. This diary is to introduce people to scotusblog,com, the best source of information on every case at the Supreme Court, including non-partisan overviews of each case, written for the lay reader, and “In plain English” reporting on the Court’s decisions.
I always find browsing through the end of year statistics interesting, and they are a good source of factual data when people ask questions about any particular member of the Court. scotusblog.com refers to the statistical summary as the Stat-Pack.
Adam Feldman, the new editor, is the current primary writer on Statistics at scotusblog.com, and here is a link to his overview introducing this term’s analysis and data.
www.scotusblog.com/...
And this is a link to the entire Stat-Pack for the just ended Oct 2019 term, it’s a 44 page PDF.
www.scotusblog.com/...
One of my favorite statistics to look at are how many opinions each Justice writes each term. As has been the case since joining the Court, and every year since, Clarence Thomas wrote the most opinions, 31, Samuel Alito wrote 24, and Sonya Sotomayor wrote_21. No other Justice wrote 20 or more.
Justice Thomas always writes the most opinions because he frequently has his own take on cases, regardless of whether he is in the majority or dissenting, unless he is writing for the Court, which he does as frequently as any of the other Justices. The Chief Justice, John Roberts, allocates the writing of the opinions in such a manner that all the Justices are assigned approximately the same number of cases when writing for the Court. That chart is here:
www.scotusblog.com/...
Another favorite of mine is how often a Justice is in the majority. This year the Chief was in the majority in every case except two, 97% of the time. That is a unusually high percentage, one that has only been eclipsed a few times in the Court’s history. Since the retirement of Anthony Kennedy this has clearly become the Robert’s Court, where he is now the clear swing vote. Interestingly, even Thomas, who was in the majority the least, voted with the majority 72% of the time. That chart is here:
www.scotusblog.com/...
The last favorite I will share is the analysis of what Justices vote together the most, and what Justices vote together the least. In prior years this chart was useful in demonstrating the Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia were not the most popular duet each year, as many seemed to think they were. This year the most popular pairings were Roberts and Kavanaugh 93%, RBG and Breyer 93%, and Alito and Thomas 92%. The least common pairing was Sotomayor and Thomas, 45%. That chart is here:
www.scotusblog.com/...
scotusblog.com is the only other website that I read nearly every day, in addition to the Daily Kos, and it is where many of my ideas for diaries originate. Whenever you have a question on any case at the Supreme Court it is a great research tool that you should utilize.