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The Changing Course: The Use Of Precedent In The District Of Columbia Circuit, Patricia M. Wald

Cleveland State Law Review

An article by my colleague Judge Edwards uses a series of computer runs from the court's 1983 term to make out a statistical case that our members mostly agree with each other and do not fall into predictable "conservative," “liberal," or even "moderate," voting blocs; labels that the press so dearly loves to pin on us. I agree that our votes in a large number of cases, particularly administrative law cases, do not so easily typecast us. I do, however, think that in the high visibility cases, involving controversial social or "moral" issues, our differences in judicial philosophy, on the …