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"since 2000 a unanimous decision has been more likely than any other result — averaging 36 percent of all decisions. Even when the court did not reach a unanimo
by juniper_strong 6y ago
"since 2000 a unanimous decision has been more likely than any other result — averaging 36 percent of all decisions. Even when the court did not reach a unanimous judgment, the justices often secured overwhelming majorities, with 7-to-2 or 8-to-1 judgments making up about 15 percent of decisions. The 5-to-4 decisions, by comparison, occurred in 19 percent of cases"
-Washington Post
- sukilot 6y agoThis is likely due to law getting far more specific over the decades, with less room for interpretation.
- jcranmer 6y agoHaving followed a lot of the recent SCOTUS cases, I can say that if you think the law is leaving less room for interpretation nowadays, you are sorely mistaken. Look up the "Armed Career Criminal Act"--it's an example of what seems like it ought to be a simple matter of interpretation (look! it defines "violent felon"!) into a headache (okay, the person has to have committed a crime whose state-level common-law interpretation in 1984 had to have required at least this much force, and I'm sure I'm still missing some details there).