From TPM: Normal Supreme Court Reversal Rate is 75%, Sotomayor's Is 50%

[Bolo Boffin]

This link is from TPM:

http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/07/some_thoughts_o.html

Every term, commentators attempt to predict the outcomes of the cases in the Supreme Court docket. The statistics, however, suggest that the betting person’s answer should be reversal. According to a recent article in Slate, and based on SCOTUSBlog data:

Overall, this past term the Supreme Court reversed 75.3 percent of the cases they considered on their merits. The pattern holds true for the 2004 and 2005 terms as well, when the Supremes had overall reversal rates of 76.8 percent and 75.6 percent, respectively.

It is interesting how remarkably constant the reversal percentage is — 75%. It suggests that the Supreme Court primarily takes cases it wants to reverse, with only a few exceptions. Assuming the Court takes about 70 cases a term, it will only affirm in about 17 of them. So perhaps the new game for commentators should be listing those 17 lucky cases that will get affirmed.

So when conservatives blather on about how Judge Sotomayor had six opinions (out of over 300) considered by the Supreme Court and had three of them overturned, let them know that her 50% reversal rate is stellar against the norm.

[Wednesdays]

1. K&R

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