Last time, we began our review of the year-by-year data on the percentage of divided criminal cases for which the Justices voted with the majority, covering the years 1990 through 2004. Today, we’re looking at the years 2005 through 2018.
Justice Baxter was reliably in the majority of divided criminal cases throughout this period – in the seventies three times (2005, 2009 and 2010), in the eighties three times (2006, 2008 and 2013), in the nineties once (2012) and at 100% three times (2007, 2011 and 2014). In her final year on the Court, Justice Brown voted with the majority in divided cases 70% of the time. Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye has been consistently high like Justice Baxter – in the seventies three times (2015-2017), in the eighties twice (2012 and 2018) and at 100% three times (2011, 2013 and 2014). With the exception of a two year period from 2015 to 2016, when his rate was 50% (2015) and 25% (2016), Justice Chin’s rate was always quite high – in the seventies twice (2008 and 2017), in the eighties four times (2005-2006, 2012 and 2018), in the nineties twice (2009 and 2010) and at 100% four times (2007, 2011, 2013 and 2014). Justice Corrigan’s record was similar. He had only one outlier year, a 50% rate in 2016. Justice Corrigan’s rate was in the seventies once (2013), in the eighties four times (2006, 2008, 2010 and 2017), in the nineties three times (2012, 2015 and 2018) and at 100% four times (2007, 2009, 2011 and 2014)> Since joining the Court, Justice Cuellar’s rate was at 100% twice, in 2015 and 2016, at 57.14% in 2017 and at 63.64% in 2018.
Chief Justice George’s in-the-majority rate was very high throughout his tenure, and these years were no different – 100% in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2010, 95.45% in 2006 and 87.5% in 2008. Justice Kennard’s rate was, in general, fairly low – in the thirties once (2008), in the forties twice (2009 and 2012), in the fifties four times (2007, 2010-2011 and 2013) and in the sixties once (2005). The only outliers were 2006, when her rate was 81.82%, and in 2014 – 100%. In her four full years on the Court, Justice Kruger has voted with the majority in divided criminal cases 100% of the time in 2015 and 2016, 85.71% in 2017 and 72.73% in 2018. Justice Liu’s rate was typically fairly low – in the fifties once (2017), in the sixties twice (2013-2014), in the thirties once (2017) and at 18.19% last year. His rate was 70% in 2015 and 100% in 2016.
Justice Moreno’s rate fell between the conservative Republican appointees and the more liberal appointees – 77.78% in 2005, 72.73% in 2006, 55.56% in 2007, 87.5% in 2008, 66.67% in 2009, 35.71% in 2010 and 50% in 2011. Justice Werdegar’s rate was 50% in 2011, in the sixties four times (2005, 2006, 2013 and 2017), in the seventies four times (2007, 2008, 2010 and 2016), in the eighties twice (2009 and 2015), in the nineties once (2012) and at 100% once (2014). Finally, we review the composite numbers for the pro tem Justices who sat on the Court for one case apiece during these years – 75% in 2005, 83.33% in 2006, 0% in 2010, 92.31% in 2011, 50% in 2014, 100% in 2015 and 2017 and 50% in 2018.
Join us back here later in the week as we begin our review of a new topic.
Image courtesy of Flickr by Pedro Szekely (no changes).