Supreme Court Statistics

Since 1949, the Harvard Law Review has published statistical tables tracking the business of the Supreme Court. Today, we also translate these Supreme Court Statistics into interactive online visualizations, which follow on this page. The tables from the print edition of the November issue (PDFs for which are linked below) include the detailed underlying data. The Review published an  explanation of the methodology used to tabulate this information alongside the 2004 statistics. 

Supreme Court Statistics — Print (PDF) Copies:

Figure I: Voting Alignments

In what percentage of cases does Justice Thomas agree with Justice Sotomayor? Select a Term via the dropdown menu below, and hover over a Justice’s name to see the percentage of that Term’s cases in which they agreed with each of their colleagues. You can also toggle between viewing alignments within all written opinions or only in cases that were not unanimous.

Figure I(A): Voting Alignments in Full Opinions / Merits Cases

This data is sourced from Table I(B1) of the print version of The Statistics.

Figure I(B): Voting Alignments in Orders Resolving Applications for Emergency Relief

This data is sourced from Table I(B2) of the print version of The Statistics.

Figure II: 5-4 Majorities

This visualization allows you to experiment with the Court’s various five-four majorities in full opinions / merits cases in a given Term.

Detail: Choose a Term from the dropdown menu. Then select a Justice’s initials. Build out your 5-4 majority by selecting a second Justice, and then a third, as each additional row appears. Justices whom you select appear in tan. If your choices force a majority, initials of the Justices that round out that 5-4 bloc will appear in tan and white stripes. If a Justice’s initials appear in gray, it means they did not form a 5-4 majority with your chosen Justices in your chosen Term. Clicking a different Justice’s initials in the first row resets the visual.

For example: In the 2021 Term, Chief Justice Roberts found himself in a 5-4 majority with each of his colleagues, except Justice Gorsuch. If you select Chief Justice Roberts, and then select Justice Breyer, you’ll find that Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Breyer aligned in four 5-4 majorities — a bloc also comprised of Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Kavanaugh.

This data is sourced from Table I(E) of the print version of The Statistics. Also, there were no 5-4 decisions in the 2015 Term.

Figure III: Subject Matter

This visualization maps the areas of law the Court considered. While categories are not always mutually exclusive or clear-cut, we do our best to classify what areas of law each case reflects.

Detail: Choose a Term from the dropdown menu, then hover over the blue circles to see how many cases of each subject matter the Court considered. Clicking a given category will show you a range of subcategories. Further clicks will ultimately indicate the number of decisions in that universe that resulted in a constitutional holding, or a victory for the government.

For example: Navigating between the circles will show you that the Court decided two state criminal cases in the 2021 Term — one of which related to the Confrontation Clause. Clicking that circle will reveal that the case resulted in a constitutional holding and a decision against the government. Using the dropdown menu to select 2019, you’ll see that the Court decided seven state criminal cases that Term.

This data is sourced from Table III of the print version of The Statistics.

Figure IV

Figure IV(A): Full Opinions / Merits Cases

This chart ranks Justices on one of a range of metrics over time. Use the dropdown menu to select what metric you’d like to rank. Options include percentage of the time each Justice joined the opinion of the Court in nonunanimous cases, percentage of the time each Justice agreed with the disposition of the Term’s nonunanimous cases, number of opinions written, and number of dissenting votes.

Detail: Justices’ names appear (at the right y-axis) according to their rankings for the 2021 Term. Hovering over a Justice’s name reveals their number or percentage for your chosen metric in each Term they’ve been on the Court, stretching back to 2012.

For example: In the 2021 Term, most Justices joined a majority of the Court’s opinions in nonunanimous cases. Justice Sotomayor joined the Court’s opinion in nonunanimous cases 40.0% of the time. Each Justice agreed in the disposition of nonunanimous cases in more than 42% of the Term’s decisions. Justice Kavanaugh agreed most frequently — siding with the disposition in nonunanimous cases 93.3% of the time.

This data is sourced from Table I(A) & I(D) of the print version of The Statistics. Because the visualization ranks Justices, it does not represent visually how extreme the distribution might be for any given metric. For that, you’ll have to hover over a year or a Justice’s name and compare the figures that appear.

Figure IV(B): Applications for Emergency Relief

This chart ranks Justices on one of a range of metrics over time. Use the dropdown menu to select what metric you’d like to rank. Options include number of opinions written, number of dissenting votes, and percentage of the time each Justice agreed with the disposition of the Term’s cases.

Detail: Justices’ names appear (at the right y-axis) according to their rankings for the 2021 Term. Hovering over a Justice’s name reveals their number or percentage for your chosen metric in each Term they’ve been on the Court, stretching back to 2020.

This data is sourced from Table IV(C) of the print version of The Statistics. Because the visualization ranks Justices, it does not represent visually how extreme the distribution might be for any given metric. For that, you’ll have to hover over a year or a Justice’s name and compare the figures that appear.

Figure V: Disposition of Applications for Emergency Relief

This visualization allows you to explore the Court’s actions on its Emergency Docket. Use the dropdown menu to select what metric you’d like to explore. Options include dispositions, unanimity, writings, and public dissenting votes. You can view each of these metrics as “Totals,” or you can explore more granularly by selecting the “Relief Categories” or “Relief Subcategories” buttons. Each dot represents an application, and if you hover over each dot, it will reveal which application it represents.

This data is sourced from Table IV(A) of the print version of The Statistics. For more details regarding the relevant methodology of this table (what category of applications were included, etc.) please refer to the full version of The Statistics, available here.


Visualizations designed and developed by Two-N.