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New Data on State Supreme Court Cases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Matthew E. K. Hall  and
Jason Harold Windett
Matthew E. K. Hall
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame South Bend, IN
Jason Harold Windett*
Affiliation:
Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, USA
*
Jason Harold Windett, Saint Louis University, 3750 Lindell Blvd, Saint Louis, MO, 63108. Email: jwindett@slu.edu
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Abstract

The study of U.S. state supreme courts has been significantly constrained by a lack of available data. To remedy this deficiency, this article introduces an original data set of every state supreme court ruling from 1995 through 2010. We utilize automated textual analysis to search the text of thousands of state supreme court decisions and extract critical information on each case. This automated coding approach produces reliable measures of state supreme court decision making when compared with data collected by human coders. We present trends in docket size, dissent rates, and legal issues being heard in front of the court. This new data set will offer scholars numerous opportunities to expand our knowledge of judicial politics in the American states.

Keywords

judicial politicsjudicial behaviorjudicial selectionmethodologycomparative judicial
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , December 2013 , pp. 427 - 445
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2013

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