MEASURING THE INFLUENCE OF SUPREME-COURT-JUSTICES

This empirical study measures the influence of 99 retired Supreme Cour t justices, analyzing over 1.2 million citations to over 24,000 opinio ns of the Court written between 1793 and 1991. It models the appointme nt process as the selection of a capital investment, treating a justic e's output as the precedents generated each term and using citations a s a proxy for an opinion's value. This model is applied to the retired justices and their opinions, and its consistency is tested by indepen dently analyzing citations by subsequent Supreme Court and circuit cou rt opinions. Influence values also demonstrably track the results of a well-known survey of judicial greatness. The study challenges several common assumptions. Older appointees have been no less influential th an young appointees, and, on an annual basis, older appointees have ac tually been more influential. Private attorneys have made the most inf luential appointees, and former judges show no special advantages.