With this post, we’re addressing a new question in our ongoing review of the Justices’ voting records: how often each Justice is in the minority.  The question serves as an indication of how closely in sync with the majority of the Court an individual Justice is philosophically, and during a Justice’s term as Chief Justice,

Today, we’re beginning our examination of the voting record of Chief Justice Anne M. Burke.  Chief Justice Burke took her seat on July 6, 2006.  Through the end of 2020, she had voted in 463 civil cases.

It’s reasonable to suppose that the distribution of a Justice’s votes between affirmance and reversal might tell us

In criminal cases where the Chief Justice is voting with the majority, she tends to question the appellant more heavily regardless of the result – a break with the expected pattern.  When joining an affirmance since the Court first started posting oral argument videos, she has averaged 1.71 questions to appellants and 1.08 to appellees. 

For the past few weeks, we’ve been reviewing the oral argument data on individual Justices, trying to determine whether it’s possible to predict from the analytics whether a particular Justice is likely to dissent.  This week, we’re looking at the numbers for Chief Justice Burke.

When the Chief Justice is in the majority, we see

Chief Justice Burke has participated in 33 domestic relations cases.  She has voted for defendants’ position in 14 cases and against defendants 19 times.  From 2007 to 2009, she voted for defendants in three of nine cases.  From 2010 to 2014, she voted for defendants in seven of fifteen cases.  From 2015 to 2019, she voted for defendants in four of nine cases.
Continue Reading How Has Chief Justice Burke Voted in Domestic Relations Cases?