NCJ Number
92544
Journal
Judicature Volume: 67 Issue: 6 Dated: (December-January 1984) Pages: 299-304
Date Published
1984
Length
6 pages
Annotation
Although U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Burger has been widely criticized for his assignment practices in opinion writing, an examination of his record reveals equality unmatched by any of his predecessors.
Abstract
An examination of assigned opinions in each of the 12 terms from 1969 through 1980 reveals a remarkably equal distribution of assigned opinions in each of the terms. Treating the terms as a whole, each justice wrote an average of 14.21 opinions per term with a standard deviation of only 1.50. This remarkable record of distributive equality becomes even more impressive when compared with the records of previous chief justices. It is possible, however, to distribute opinions equally while assigning the 'important' cases preferentially. An analysis of assignments does indicate that Burger prefers that the 'liberal' justices not write the opinion in the Court's important cases; however, all chief justices have pursued the policy of preference for ideologically compatible assignees. Using the coefficient of relative variation (CRV), which standardizes a series of standard deviations based on means of varying size, Burger's overall CRV of .47 in the important cases compares favorably with those of Stone, Vinson, and Warren (.40, .55, and .44 respectively) and is about half those of Taft and Hughes. Tabular data and 39 footnotes are provided.