The Puzzle of Unanimity Consensus on the United States Supreme Court [Hardcover]

The U.S. Supreme Court typically rules on cases that present complex legal questions. Given the challenging nature of its cases and the popular view that the Court is divided along ideological lines, it's commonly assumed that the Court routinely hands down equally-divided decisions. Yet the justices actually issue unanimous decisions in approximately one third of the cases they decide.

Drawing on data from the U.S. Supreme Court database, internal court documents, and the justices' private papers,The Puzzle of Unanimityprovides the first comprehensive account of how the Court reaches consensus. Pamela Corley, Amy Steigerwalt, and Artemus Ward propose and empirically test a theory of consensus; they find consensus is a function of multiple, concurrently-operating forces that cannot be fully accounted for by ideological attitudes. In this thorough investigation, the authors conclude that consensus is a function of the level of legal certainty and its ability to constrain justices' ideological preferences.

InThe Puzzle of Unanimity, the authors skillfully probe the sources of consensus on the Supreme Court and provide new insights on the considerations that shape the justices' choices. Their book is an important contribution to the understanding of judicial behavior. The first comprehensive account of how the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court achieve consensus.Pamela C. Corley is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Southern Methodist University.Amy Steigerwalt is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Graduate Studies at Georgia State University.Artemus Ward is Associate Professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University. The book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Supreme Court decision-making and has many strengths. Importantly, the authors are the first to systematically tackle the puzzle of unanimous decisions captured both in terms of votes and the presence of separate opinionlã$