The Least Productive Supreme Court Ever?
The Supreme Court is on track to decide the fewest number of cases after oral argument in over 150 years. Despite the reduced workload, the justices are behind this term, having issued opinions in just over half of the 62 argued cases. We will get more opinions tomorrow (Wednesday) morning, but the justices will have to pick up the pace if they are to finish before the July 4 holiday, as is traditional.
There may be extenuating circumstances behind the Court’s slow pace this term — the pandemic, shadow docket filings, and (of course) the Dobbs leak, to name a few. But the Court’s declining speed and productivity seems to be something of a trend. Idneed, as data Adam Feldman put together suggests, this may be the least productive Supreme Court ever. As Feldman notes, last year the Court “decided the fewest number of cases on oral argument since the Civil War,” and they will decide even fewer this year.
From Feldman’s post on EmpiricalSCOTUS:
Since the number of oral arguments has dropped since 2017, presumably the Roberts Court’s average is even lower than that shown in the graph. The Court’s lack of productivity is also evident in the following graph (based on cases orally argued derived from the Supreme Court Database) showing
Article from Latest
