THE ASTUTE LEGAL MIND OF W:

At Supreme Court, 5-to-4 Rulings Fade — but Why? (LINDA GREENHOUSE, 5/22/08, NY Times)

Where have all the 5-to-4 decisions gone?

And whatever happened to the “Kennedy Court”?

A year ago at this time, the Supreme Court had decided 13 cases by votes of 5 to 4, out of 41 total decisions. That proved to be an accurate snapshot of a highly polarized term. By the time the court wrapped up its work five weeks later, a third of the cases — the highest proportion in years — had been decided by margins of a single vote.

But so far this term, with 35 cases decided with full opinions, there has been only a single 5-to-4 decision. It came in a low-visibility statutory case, not in a hot-button constitutional one.

The point of nominating Roberts (and Miers) was to improve the collegiality of the place and enable the moderates to vote conservative, which the intellectual bullying of guys like Scalia and Thomas makes less likely. It worked.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 22, 2008 8:25 PM