United States Supreme Court decision-making data from the Warren Court in 1953 through the Rehnquist Court in 1997. The collection, created by Harold J. Spaeth, includes variables on case identification, background, chronology, legal substance, outcomes, and individual justice votes and opinions.
Use Cases
- Modeling justice voting patterns based on individual vote and opinion variables
- Analyzing trends in case outcomes and precedent alteration based on disposition variables
- Studying the evolution of legal issues and provisions over time based on substantive variables
- Examining the Court's caseload and jurisdictional sources based on background variables
Strengths
- Covers 44 years of Supreme Court terms from 1953 to 1997
- Includes six distinct variable types covering case identification, substance, outcomes, and individual justice votes
Limitations
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
- Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified
Provenance
- Source
- Harold J. Spaeth
- Time Range
- 1953-1997
- Geography
- United States