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Supreme Court of the United States

Akron Law Review

Rehnquist

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Unanimity On The Rehnquist Court, Thomas R. Hensley, Scott P. Johnson Jul 2015

Unanimity On The Rehnquist Court, Thomas R. Hensley, Scott P. Johnson

Akron Law Review

The unanimous decision making process is an intriguing phenomenon. However, the process of justices with different backgrounds, attitudes, and perceptions uniting on a decision raises many difficult questions for judicial scholars. Despite these challenges, the limited amount of knowledge in the area of unanimous decision making is troubling because such decisions constitute a sizable portion of judicial decisions. For example, nearly one-half of the Court's decisions were unanimous during the 1996-1997 term. Given the Court's penchant for unanimity, it is obvious that research into this area can contribute substantially toward explaining the behavior of the Justices on the Court. Thus, …


Chief Justice William Rehnquist: His Law-And-Order Legacy And Impact On Criminal Justice, Madhavi M. Mccall, Michael A. Mccall Jul 2015

Chief Justice William Rehnquist: His Law-And-Order Legacy And Impact On Criminal Justice, Madhavi M. Mccall, Michael A. Mccall

Akron Law Review

In this article, we explore Chief Justice Rehnquist’s criminal justice decisions through an empirical analysis of the Court’s decision-making tendencies for the most recent natural court and a review of selected criminal justice decisions written by Justice Rehnquist throughout his career. To start, we limit the analysis, with only two exceptions, to decisions actually written by Justice Rehnquist. Although Chief Justice Rehnquist, in that position, had an important role in leading other justices to agree with him by assigning cases, we gleaned a substantial amount of information regarding his decisional patterns and policy preferences by analyzing the opinions he personally …