6623181715_da9ec3523d_zLast week, we began our review of the individual Justices’ writing with a close look at the majority and concurring decisions for the first five years of our study period, 2000-2004. Today we turn to the Court’s dissents over the same period.

The Court’s most common dissenters between 2000 and 2004 were three of the Court’s more liberal members: Chief Justice Moses Harrison (2000-2002) and Justices Charles Freeman and Thomas Kilbride.

Table 24_A

Justice Freeman’s civil dissents, on average, were significantly longer than those filed by other Justices. In contrast, although Chief Justice Harrison and Justices Kilbride and Garman dissented relatively often, their dissents tended to be roughly the same length as the other members of the Court.

Table 24_B

Tomorrow, we’ll begin our review of the second five years with the individual Justices’ majority opinions between 2005 and 2009.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Paul Sableman (no changes).