The Supreme Court Database provides data and analysis on Supreme Court cases from 1953 to 2008. The Database was created by Harold Spaeth who is Research Professor of Law at Michigan State University College of Law and Emeritus Professor of Political Science at Michigan State and is hosted by the Center for Empirical Research in the Law School at Washington University in St. Louis. The original aim of the Database, which was created in the late 1980ãs, was to "include and classify every single vote by a Supreme Court justice in all argued cases over a five-decade period". The Database contains 247 pieces of information for each Supreme Court case. These include categories providing identification variables such as citations and docket numbers, background variables dealing with the origin and source of the case and voting and opinion variables including how the individual justices voted. A link to the full text of the Court's decision is given for each case. There is guidance on using the Database including an online code book providing information on the data and numeric codes used, guidance for users on manipulating or merging the data with other data sources and for users wanting to analyse a case or a collection of cases.
Supreme Court Database
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