Abstract

Majority and separate opinions reflect the justices’ deliberations and strategic decision-making. As justices try to shape the legal outcome, private disagreements during the opinion-writing process spill out into the open, becoming the written words of majority and separate opinions. In this article, I ask how justices use separate opinions to shape the law. I argue that the length of an opinion provides a reasonable proxy of the law and the Court’s decision-making at work. Using time series techniques on the number of words in majority and separate opinions from 1953–2009, I examine whether there is a relationship between the number of words in majority and separate opinions. I demonstrate there is a fractional cointegration relationship between majority and separate opinion length. The majority and separate opinion relationship means there will not be a time in which the Court produces incredibly long separate opinions and succinct majority opinions, or lengthy majority opinions and brief separate opinions. I also find that separate opinion length causes the majority opinion to be shorter or longer. Error correction model results indicate that discussions that occur in one term do not conclude when the Court’s term ends, the effects continue in subsequent terms and cases. The law, as the Court generates it in its majority opinions, is shaped by separate opinions.

摘要

多数意见和个别意见反映了大法官的审议和战略决策。当法官试图塑造法律结果时，意见撰写过程中的私人分歧会公开化，成为多数意见和单独意见的书面文字。在这篇文章中，我询问法官如何使用不同的意见来塑造法律。我认为，意见的长度提供了法律和法院在工作中的决策的合理代理。使用时间序列技术对 1953 年至 2009 年的多数词和独立意见的数量，我检查了多数词的数量和独立意见之间是否存在关系。我证明了多数和独立意见长度之间存在分数协整关系。多数意见和单独意见的关系意味着法院不会有时间产生令人难以置信的冗长单独意见和简洁的多数意见，或冗长的多数意见和简短的单独意见。我还发现，单独的意见长度会导致多数意见更短或更长。纠错模型结果表明，在一个任期内发生的讨论不会在法院任期结束时结束，其影响在随后的任期和案件中继续存在。法院在其多数意见中生成的法律是由不同意见形成的。纠错模型结果表明，在一个任期内发生的讨论不会在法院任期结束时结束，其影响在随后的任期和案件中继续存在。法院在其多数意见中生成的法律是由不同意见形成的。纠错模型结果表明，在一个任期内发生的讨论不会在法院任期结束时结束，其影响在随后的任期和案件中继续存在。法院在其多数意见中生成的法律是由不同意见形成的。