1898178998_1a77d72802_zLast week, we began our study of the voting patterns on the Illinois Supreme Court between 2010 and 2014 by considering the agreement rates between the Justices in non-unanimous civil cases. Now we turn to a different aspect of the issue: the question of swing votes on the Court.

For most of the period, the data reflect our numbers on agreement rates, with Chief Justice Garman and Justices Thomas and Karmeier voting with the majority in the vast majority of non-unanimous civil cases. Justices Theis and Burke vote with the majority only slightly less often, although Justice Freeman is not far behind:

Table 37 ATurning to the subjects most frequently heard by the Court, we find little disagreement among the Justices on tort cases, with six of the seven Justices nearly always in the majority:

Table 37 BNext, we turn to non-unanimous decisions in the field of civil procedure. Here, we find more disagreement, with the Chief Justice and Justices Thomas and Karmeier somewhat less often in the majority: [1]

Table 37 CTomorrow, we’ll conclude our look at the voting dynamics on the Illinois Supreme Court by looking at the individual Justices’ voting data for the entire period – which Justice was most often in the majority?

Image courtesy of Flickr by Tony Webster (no changes).

 

 

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[1]              The Court handed down no non-unanimous decisions in the field of civil procedure in either 2010 or 2011.