Some Conflicting Decisions of the United States Supreme Court

Revealed Public Opinion on Twitter: The Supreme Court of the United States Same-Sex Marriage Decisions

The Median Justice on the United States Supreme Court

Extreme Dissensus: Explaining Plurality Decisions on the United States Supreme Court

Plurality decisions on the Supreme Court represent extreme dissensus where no clear majority is formed for any one controlling rationale for the final disposition. Studying these decisions is important because they erode the Court’s credibility and authority as a source of legal leadership, and because they provide broader lessons about judicial decision making. This article presents the first ...

Peer Effects on the United States Supreme Court

Using data on essentially every US Supreme Court decision since 1946, we estimate a model of peer effects on the Court. We consider both the impact of justice ideology and justice votes on the votes of their peers. To identify these peer effects we use two instruments. The first is based on the composition of the Court, determined by which justices sit on which cases due to recusals or health r...

Confirmation Bias in the United States Supreme Court Judicial Database

We ask whether the widely used direction of decision and direction of vote variables in the United States Supreme Court Judicial Database (USSCJD) are contaminated by confirmation bias, or have been affected by expectations about the likely effects of judicial preferences on case outcomes. Using a sample of generally comparable cases, we find evidence that the assignment of issue codes to these...