Supreme Court Justices as Human Decision Makers: An Individual-Level Analysis of the Search and Seizure Cases

This paper applies a fact model of decision making to the justices of the United States Supreme Court. The theoretical model assumes that the justices, as human decision makers, are incapable of considering the hundreds of facts that can affect a particular case. Rather, they rely upon a relative handful of cues to guide their decisions. The model is tested using the votes on search and seizure cases by the justices at the center of the Burger Court: White, Stewart, Powell and Stevens. The results show that a significant proportion of the variation in each justice's decisions can be explained by a small number of facts. Finally, it is shown that for these justices and these cases, there is no evidence that judges become more conservative with age.