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The SCOTUS Database


HeinOnine, the National Science Foundation, and several law schools have assembled several databases which contain information on decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States, organized by the specific case or the justices involved, and then further organized by the case citation, the case docket, and issue and legal provisions. See: http://scdb.wustl.edu/data.php The data is available in several formats, including .xlsx files for Excel. The data covers decisions going back to 1946. See Fig. 1 below for example of a downloaded spreadsheet. The meaning of the different numerical codes used on the spreadsheet, can be found on the documentation section of the web page, http://scdb.wustl.edu/documentation.php?var=issue , or in the downloadable code book. So for example, you can filter the cases in the column entitled, 'Issue', for 10500 to review all of the decisions for, "statutory construction of criminal laws: Mann Act and related statutes."

There is also a search engine, which allows you to look up cases by citation, or set the criteria (based on issues, time period, case disposition, the Court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing, the identity of the parties (government, non-government, agency of the federal government, international)) for cases you want to review. See: http://scdb.wustl.edu/analysis.php . So you can both get a assortment of graphs categorizing cases in different ways (including which were liberal or conservatives votes, as shown in Fig. 2 below) and a list of cases under the criteria you select (see Fig. 3), which include links to case specific detail, and ultimately the decisions themselves.


 
 

Sean O'Shea has more than 20 years of experience in the litigation support field with major law firms in New York and San Francisco.   He is an ACEDS Certified eDiscovery Specialist and a Relativity Certified Administrator.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the owner and do not reflect the views or opinions of the owner’s employer.

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