Which SCOTUS justices crib the most from briefs?
Justice Clarence Thomas apparently cribs a bit more from briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court than other current justices, according to a study that used anti-plagiarism software to determine the overlap.
Lawyer Adam Feldman, a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Southern California, conducted the study, the New York Times reports.
Feldman’s study looked at opinions from the 1946 to 2013 terms in which there was only one merits brief per side. The justice whose opinions had the highest rate of overlap with briefs was Justice Frank Murphy, with a median overlap rate of 12.5 percent.
Since the Burger Court era, justices with the highest overlap values are Justices Clarence Thomas (11.3 percent), Sonia Sotomayor (11 percent) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (10.5 percent). According to the Times, “all three sometimes produce institutional prose.”
The current justice with the lowest overlap rate is Elena Kagan (7.1 percent), who has “a livelier writing style,” the Times says.
The article says Thomas’ use of wording from briefs doesn’t suggest misconduct, but it does “illuminate his distinctive role on the court.”
Thomas wrote seven majority opinions last term that averaged just 12 pages in length. “Since his views on major legal questions can be idiosyncratic and unlikely to command a majority,” the Times says, “he is particularly apt to be assigned the inconsequential and technical majority opinions that the justices call dogs.”
Thomas is “more expansive” in his dissents in concurrences, many of which addressed constitutional issues and were longer than the majority opinions, the story says.
