The Supreme Court Database

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>The Supreme Court Database</title> <meta name="generator" content="Coda" /> <meta name="description" content="The Supreme Court Database is the definitive source for researchers, students, journalists, and citizens interested in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Database contains over two hundred pieces of information about each case decided by the Court between the 1946 and 2012 terms. Examples include the identity of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed, the parties to the suit, the legal provisions considered in the case, and the votes of the Justices." /> <meta name="keywords" content="supreme court, spaeth, database" /> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> <style type="text/css" media="screen,print">@import "includes/globalStyle.css";</style> <style type="text/css" media="screen,print">@import "fwCore/styleDebug.css";</style> <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript" src="includes/globalJs.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript" src="fwCore/jsDebug.js"></script>  <script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.2/jquery.min.js"></script> <script src="includes/bxSlider/jquery.bxslider.min.js"></script> <link href="includes/bxSlider/jquery.bxslider.css" rel="stylesheet" /> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="images/favicon.ico"> </head> <body> <a name="top"></a> <table width="980" align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style=""> <tr> <td width="75%" style="height:90px; text-align:left;"> <a href="http://law.wustl.edu"><img src="images/wulaw.png" alt="wulaw" width="439" height="54" /></a> </td> <td width="25%">   </td> </tr> </table> <table width="980" align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="#ffffff" style="border:2px solid #ccc; margin-top:5px;"> <tr> <td style="background-image:url('images/logo321.gif'); border-right:1px solid #ccc;"><a href="index.php"><img src="images/trans.gif" alt="image" width="196" height="125" border="0" /></a></td> <td style="background-image:url('images/_hdrImagesV2/hdr2a.jpg'); border-right:1px solid #ccc;"><img src="images/trans.gif" alt="image" width="196" height="125" /></td> <td style="background-image:url('images/_hdrImagesV2/hdr2b.jpg'); border-right:1px solid #ccc;"><img src="images/trans.gif" alt="image" width="196" height="125" /></td> <td style="background-image:url('images/_hdrImagesV2/hdr2c.jpg'); border-right:1px solid #ccc;"><img src="images/trans.gif" alt="image" width="196" height="125" /></td> <td style="background-image:url('images/_hdrImagesV2/hdr2d.jpg');"><img src="images/trans.gif" alt="image" width="196" height="125" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="navBox" style="background: #666; border-bottom:1px solid #ccc; "><a href="about.php"><div class="navBox"><img src="images/_nav/aboutOff.gif" alt="image" width="57" height="15" border="0" /></div></a></td> <td class="navBox" style="background: #666; border-bottom:1px solid #ccc;"><a href="data.php"><div class="navBox"><img src="images/_nav/dataOff.gif" alt="image" width="45" height="15" border="0" /></div></a></td> <td class="navBox" style="background: #666; border-bottom:1px solid #ccc;"><a href="data.php"><div class="navBox"><img src="images/_nav/dataOff.gif" alt="image" width="45" height="15" border="0" /></div></a></td> <td class="navBox" style="background: #666; border-bottom:1px solid #ccc;"><a href="analysis.php"><div class="navBox"><img src="images/_nav/analysisOff.gif" alt="image" width="76" height="15" border="0" /></div></a></td> <td class="navBox" style="background: #360; border-bottom:0px solid #ccc;"><a href="documentation.php"><div class="navBox"><img src="images/_nav/documentationOn.gif" alt="image" width="127" height="15" border="0" /></div></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="5" align="left" style="background: #360; border-bottom:1px solid #fff; "><img src="images/trans.gif" alt="image" width="1" height="7" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="5" align="left" valign="top" style="background: #EEE; color:#360; padding-top:7px; border-right:1px solid #ccc; border-bottom: 1px solid #ccc;" > <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="margin-left:15px;"> <tr> <td class="subTopNavBoxOff" style="color:#360; "><a href="documentation.php?s=1" style="color:#360;">Online Code Book</a></td> <td class="subTopNavBoxOff" style="color:#360; "><a href="documentation.php?s=2" style="color:#360;">Downloadable Code Book</a></td> <td class="subTopNavBoxOn" style="color:#360; "><a href="documentation.php?s=3" style="color:#360;">Code Repository</a></td> <td class="subTopNavBoxOff" style="color:#360; "><a href="documentation101.php" style="color:#360;">SCDB Web 101</a></td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="5" valign="top" style="padding:35px;" > <div class="header" style="color:#360;">Code Repository</div> Users of the Supreme Court Database are oftentimes interested in manipulating the data in a particular fashion, or merging the data with other available data sources about the Supreme Court. This section of the website contains contributed computer code that can be used to perform particular common tasks. (In the future the website will also host contributed datasets that can be easily merged on to the Supreme Court Database.) <br /><br /> If you have questions or comments about the available code please email the author. If you have code you would like to contribute please <a href="contact.php">contact us</a>.<br /> <ol style="margin-left:0px; padding-left:17px;"> <div onClick="toggleBlock('repos0');" style="color:#333; font-weight:normal; cursor:pointer;"><li style="font-size:125%; margin-top:10px;margin-top:35px;">Select Citations, Including Split Votes</li></div> <div style="font-size:100%; ">Date Added : August 24, 2009</div> <div onClick="toggleBlock('repos0');" style="color:#a00; font-weight:normal; cursor:pointer;">click to show/hide details</div> <div id="repos0" class="blockHide"> <div style="font-size:100%;">Some analysts may wish to select a unit of analysis different from the four formats that we distribute. Any selection can be accomplished by parsing the identification variables (SCDB Case ID, SCDB Docket ID, SCDB Issues ID, and SCDB Vote ID). This code selects the first issue for the first docket associated with a particular citation, keeping two records if there is a split vote on that issue. This corresponds to the ANALU=0, or 4 in the legacy database.</div> <div style="font-size:100%; "><i>Author : Andrew D. Martin / <a href="mailto:admart@umich.edu" style="color:#333; text-decoration:underline;">email</a></i></div> <div style="font-size:100%;"><i>Download File : <a href="_codeRepository/citationSplitVote.do">citationSplitVote.do</a></i></div> </div> </div> <div onClick="toggleBlock('repos1');" style="color:#333; font-weight:normal; cursor:pointer;"><li style="font-size:125%; margin-top:10px;margin-top:35px;">Select All Dockets, Including Split Votes</li></div> <div style="font-size:100%; ">Date Added : August 24, 2009</div> <div onClick="toggleBlock('repos1');" style="color:#a00; font-weight:normal; cursor:pointer;">click to show/hide details</div> <div id="repos1" class="blockHide"> <div style="font-size:100%;">Some analysts may wish to select a unit of analysis different from the four formats that we distribute. Any selection can be accomplished by parsing the identification variables (SCDB Case ID, SCDB Docket ID, SCDB Issues ID, and SCDB Vote ID). This code selects the first issue for associated with each docket, keeping two records if there is a split vote on that issue. This corresponds to the ANALU=0, 1, or 4 in the legacy database.</div> <div style="font-size:100%; "><i>Author : Andrew D. Martin / <a href="mailto:admart@umich.edu" style="color:#333; text-decoration:underline;">email</a></i></div> <div style="font-size:100%;"><i>Download File : <a href="_codeRepository/docketSplitVote.do">docketSplitVote.do</a></i></div> </div> </div> <div onClick="toggleBlock('repos2');" style="color:#333; font-weight:normal; cursor:pointer;"><li style="font-size:125%; margin-top:10px;margin-top:35px;">Convert Justice-Centered Data into Wide Format</li></div> <div style="font-size:100%; ">Last Modified : August 27, 2009</div> <div onClick="toggleBlock('repos2');" style="color:#a00; font-weight:normal; cursor:pointer;">click to show/hide details</div> <div id="repos2" class="blockHide"> <div style="font-size:100%;">The Justice Centered Data contain one record for each justice participating in the dispute for the chosen unit of analysis. For example, each docket will have a record for each justice in the Cases Organized by Docket dataset. For some types of analysis it is useful to have one record for each unit of analysis with a column of data for each justice. This is the way in which the vote data was included in the legacy Supreme Court Database. This Stata program takes data from our long format and "flips" it to a wide format.</div> <div style="font-size:100%; "><i>Author : Andrew D. Martin / <a href="mailto:admart@umich.edu" style="color:#333; text-decoration:underline;">email</a></i></div> <div style="font-size:100%;"><i>Download File : <a href="_codeRepository/wideVote.do">wideVote.do</a></i></div> </div> </div> <div onClick="toggleBlock('repos3');" style="color:#333; font-weight:normal; cursor:pointer;"><li style="font-size:125%; margin-top:10px;margin-top:35px;">Compute Term-by-term Percentages of Cases with Concurrences</li></div> <div style="font-size:100%; ">Date Added : April 14, 2011</div> <div onClick="toggleBlock('repos3');" style="color:#a00; font-weight:normal; cursor:pointer;">click to show/hide details</div> <div id="repos3" class="blockHide"> <div style="font-size:100%;">This code takes the justice-centered data and allows us to compute term-by-term percentages of cases that have one or more concurring votes. This code could be modified to do a similar aggregation for any justice-specific variable.</div> <div style="font-size:100%; "><i>Author : Patrick C. Wohlfarth and Andrew D. Martin / <a href="mailto:admart@umich.edu" style="color:#333; text-decoration:underline;">email</a></i></div> <div style="font-size:100%;"><i>Download File : <a href="_codeRepository/concurrences.do">concurrences.do</a></i></div> </div> </div> </ol> <div class="footer"> </div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="5" align="right" > <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="margin-right:25px;"> <tr>  <td style="width:15px;"> </td> <td class="miniNavButton" style="background:#360; "><a href="contact.php" style="font-size:75% ;color:#fff;">CONTACT</a></td> <td style="width:15px;"> </td>   <td class="miniNavButton" style="background:#360; "><a href="#top" style="color:#fff;font-size:75%;">TOP</a></td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="5" align="left" valign="top" style="background: #EEE; color:#360; padding-bottom:7px; border-right:1px solid #ccc; border-top: 1px solid #ccc;" > <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="margin-left:15px;"> <tr> <td class="subBtmNavBoxOff" style="color:#360; "><a href="documentation.php?s=1" style="color:#360;">Online Code Book</a></td> <td class="subBtmNavBoxOff" style="color:#360; "><a href="documentation.php?s=2" style="color:#360;">Downloadable Code Book</a></td> <td class="subBtmNavBoxOn" style="color:#360; "><a href="documentation.php?s=3" style="color:#360;">Code Repository</a></td> <td class="subBtmNavBoxOff" style="color:#360; "><a href="documentation101.php" style="color:#360;">SCDB Web 101</a></td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td height="30" style="background: #360 "><img src="images/nsf360.gif" alt="image" width="196" height="50" /></td> <td colspan="3" style="background: #360; color:#ccc; padding-left:10px;"> The Supreme Court Database has been generously supported by the National Science Foundation. </td> <td height="30" style="background: #360; text-align:center;"><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0; " src="http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights20.png" /></a></td> </tr> </table> <table width="902" align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="" style="margin-top:15px;"> <tr> <td align="center" valign="middle" style=""> <br> <img src="images/washu_logo.png" alt="washu_logo" width="241" height="20" /> <br><br>  </td> </tr> </table> <script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 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The Supreme Court Database