{"id":8470,"date":"2017-03-08T19:07:40","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T01:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=8470"},"modified":"2017-03-08T19:07:40","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T01:07:40","slug":"maybe-theyre-just-picky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/03\/08\/maybe-theyre-just-picky\/","title":{"rendered":"Maybe They&#8217;re Just Picky"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Adam Feldman <a href=\"https:\/\/empiricalscotus.com\/2017\/03\/08\/taking-care-of-business\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?hl=en&amp;q=https:\/\/empiricalscotus.com\/2017\/03\/08\/taking-care-of-business\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1489106732015000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGrn3Af-IroRv-ha-59giq8cJLiOA\"><span style=\"color: #1155cc;\">analyzes <\/span><\/a><i><b>SCOTUS <\/b><\/i>statistics on <i><b>Empirical SCOTUS<\/b><\/i>, and notes a slow-down:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"gmail_quote\"><p>The Supreme Court tackles fewer cases by the year.<a href=\"http:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/statistics\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?hl=en&amp;q=http:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/statistics\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1489106732015000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGXh0kSya0RQ94YdbOksamiQVhuSQ\"><span style=\"color: #1155cc;\"> SCOTUSBlog\u2019s statistics<\/span><\/a> as reported by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.firstmondays.fm\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?hl=en&amp;q=http:\/\/www.firstmondays.fm\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1489106732015000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGL1pVH7h1z-bodsMvats-OXYHbzQ\"><span style=\"color: #1155cc;\">First Mondays Podcast<\/span><\/a> show that the Court has also been slower in writing signed opinions this term than in recent terms. What is leading to these changes? One clear anomaly from the Court\u2019s norm is the length of time the Court has been without a ninth Justice. While this vacancy is the longest in recent memory it is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2016\/02\/26\/long-supreme-court-vacancies-used-to-be-more-common\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?hl=en&amp;q=http:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2016\/02\/26\/long-supreme-court-vacancies-used-to-be-more-common\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1489106732015000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHchTyeudiU5pW-KlLednWKL0ulqw\"><span style=\"color: #1155cc;\">not the longest historically<\/span><\/a>. Still the Court\u2019s workload seems to be declining over time and without other clear rationale aside from the Court\u2019s composition to explain the downward trend.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8472\" style=\"width: 820px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/certs-graph.png?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8472\" class=\"wp-image-8472 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/certs-graph.png?resize=800%2C361&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"361\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/certs-graph.png?w=810&amp;ssl=1 810w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/certs-graph.png?resize=300%2C136&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/certs-graph.png?resize=768%2C347&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/certs-graph.png?resize=250%2C113&amp;ssl=1 250w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/certs-graph.png?resize=150%2C68&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-8472\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: <strong>Empirical SCOTUS<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n<p>The<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fjc.gov\/history\/caseload.nsf\/page\/caseloads_main_page\" target=\"_blank\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?hl=en&amp;q=http:\/\/www.fjc.gov\/history\/caseload.nsf\/page\/caseloads_main_page&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1489106732015000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHRO4fOslytjMNxJcPmKwfD26gc9A\"><span style=\"color: #1155cc;\"> Federal Judiciary Center<\/span><\/a> provides statistics on the number of cert petitions and cert grants every term. As the following figure shows petitions to Court have risen over time but recently declined a bit from their height in 2006.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8473\" style=\"width: 887px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/petitions-granted.png?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8473\" class=\"wp-image-8473 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/petitions-granted.png?resize=800%2C390&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"390\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/petitions-granted.png?w=877&amp;ssl=1 877w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/petitions-granted.png?resize=300%2C146&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/petitions-granted.png?resize=768%2C375&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/petitions-granted.png?resize=250%2C122&amp;ssl=1 250w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/petitions-granted.png?resize=150%2C73&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-8473\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: <strong>Empirical SCOTUS<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n<p>At the same time the number of granted petitions has dropped from 159 in 1981 to as few as 63 in 2011.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Adam proposes no particular reason, and in truth it&#8217;s hard to do so. We could speculate that there are fewer cases worth taking a look at; a related view would be to suggest that the Roberts court (which he joined and began leading in 2005) wishes to examine only cases with true national significance. The graph doesn&#8217;t necessarily support or falsify such a proposition.<\/p>\n<p>But I suppose only the Justices really know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Adam Feldman analyzes SCOTUS statistics on Empirical SCOTUS, and notes a slow-down: The Supreme Court tackles fewer cases by the year. SCOTUSBlog\u2019s statistics as reported by First Mondays Podcast show that the Court has also been slower in writing signed opinions this term than in recent terms. What is leading \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/03\/08\/maybe-theyre-just-picky\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8470"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8474,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8470\/revisions\/8474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}