“In My Opinion . . .”: Justices’ Opinion Writing in the U.S. Supreme Court, 1946–1997

Abstract

Objectives. We develop hypotheses to explain the opinion writing by justices on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1946–1997. Methods. We use data from the U.S. Supreme Court Database, Phases I and II, to examine the proportion of cases in which a justice writes an opinion each term as well as the differences between writing majority, dissenting, and concurring opinions. OLS regression with robust standard errors is the estimation procedure. Results. We find that a justice's position as Chief Justice, professional and education background, reputation ranking, and tenure on the Court can explain a justice's opinion writing. At the same time, we discover that particular variables have different affects on writing majority, dissenting, or concurring opinions. Conclusions. This study demonstrates the importance of both structural and personal background variables in explaining judicial behavior. It also shows the importance of analyzing different kinds of judicial opinions when explaining the justices’ opinion writing.