The Supreme Court of the United States, 1962-1963

Abstract

HE SUPREME COURT has set what has become almost a pattern of working up to a climax for its final opinion day of a term. This year was no exception. What was without much question the most spectacular and most controversial decision of the term was handed down on June 17, the final day, a week earlier than last year's adjournment. This was the new school prayer case, an opinion that combined cases from Pennsylvania and Maryland. Again the Court set an all-time record in the number of cases disposed of during a term, 2,350. This figure was up from the previous term's 2,157 and the 1,928 disposed of during the 1960 term. The Court continued its record-setting ways in the number of cases remaining on the docket with 474 left. During this 1962 term 151 cases were argued of which 129 were disposed of by 110 written opinions and 19 by per curiam opinions. Three cases were ordered reargued, down from last term's unusually large number, 16. As in recent terms, the division of labor among the justices as represented by written opinions was very even. Justices Douglas, Brennan, and White each wrote thirteen opinions. Chief Justice Warren and Justices Clark, Harlan, Stewart, and Arthur J. Goldberg (serving his first term as successor to Justice Frankfurter) each wrote twelve, while Justice Black was the low man with eleven opinions. In the previous term Justice Harlan succeeded Justice Douglas as the dissenter. In this 1962 term the new champion gained a firmer grip on the title with twenty-two dissenting opinions (up from his previous fourteen). Next was Justice Clark with thirteen, Stewart with seven, Douglas with six, White with five, and Black, Brennan, and Goldberg with four each. Chief Justice Warren wrote no dissenting opinions. In the matter of dissenting votes as distinguished from disssenting opinions written the total number was 177 as against 138 in the 1961 term and 241 in the 1960 term. Justice Harlan, as in the previous term, dissented most frequently with 43 such votes. The others in order were Justices Stewart (31), Clark (23), Douglas (22), Black (17), White (15), Goldberg (12), Chief Justice Warren (8), and Justice Brennan (6). The Court was without dissent (either unanimous or with concurring opinions) in fifty cases by comparison with thirty-six in the previous term. There were thirteen 5-4 decisions (there were five in the 1961 term and twenty-eight in the 1960 term) and four 5-3 decisions. As noted, the Court adjourned on June 17, 1963, the earliest date since the close of the 1955 term on June 11, 1956.