This week and next, we’re looking at the distribution of the Court’s civil and criminal cases – unanimous decisions and one, two and three dissenters (for these purposes, we’re defining a “dissenter” as anyone who votes against the Court’s judgment, regardless of whether he or she signs or joins a written dissent).

The unanimity percentage declined throughout the 1990s. In 1990, 78.65% of the Court’s civil decisions were unanimous. That fell to 75.47% in 1991, 67.39% in 1992, 63.16% in 1993 and 54.67% in 1994. The unanimity percentage increased a bit to 62.5% in 1995 and 61.82% in 1996 before falling below half – 49.21% in 1997, 47.89% in 1998 and 48.78% in 1999.

The unanimity percentage increased in the following decade. In 2000, 57.89% of the Court’s civil cases were unanimous. In 2001, it was 74.51%, then 66% (2002), 73.91% (2003) 74.07% (2004) and 81.25% (2005). The rate fell to 57.14% in 2005, but was 80.49% in 2007, 71.43% in 2008 and 82.93% in 2009.

For the most part, the unanimity rate has remained at roughly two-thirds during the past decade. It was 72.73% in 2010, 76.32% in 2011, 55% in 2012, 58.82% in 2013 and 77.78% in 2014. In 2015, 79.55% of the Court’s civil decisions were unanimous. In 2016, exactly three quarters of the Court’s civil decisions were unanimous. In 2017, 80.77% were. Last year, the rate fell to 63.64%, but 78.26% of the civil docket has been unanimous so far this year.

Join us back here next time as we review the Court’s divided civil decisions.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Michel Curi (no changes).