State Supreme Court Data Project

The State Supreme Court Data Project is currently constructing a data base containing information on State Supreme Court decisions in all fifty states. We are in the process of assembling data on the courts of last resort in all fifty states during their 1995 through 1998 sessions. By late 2002, when our current project ends, we will have gathered data for approximately 21,000 decisions reached by over 400 state supreme court justices seated during those years. We have developed a coding scheme using Microsoft ACCESS that allows us to enter information directly into computers with a remarkable degree of reliability. The coding rules, the template, and the reliability scores achieved in test runs of the data entry process are documented and can be read by clicking on the links above. The high levels of reliability exhibited in the data collection process indicates that we will be able to provide the academic community with valid, reliable data that is highly comprehensive. In addition to the data on the decisions themselves, we have assembled biographical data from published sources for all justices sitting in 1995 through 1998. We have also included basic institutional features and selected contextual variables in the data base. Our hope is that these variables will allow researchers to examine the role individual and contextual characteristics play in state supreme court decisions. With the release of the data, we hope to stimulate interest in the politics of state courts and to promote efforts to move our theories forward by providing a laboratory through which the extraordinarily complex relationships that affect the politics of the judiciary can be unraveled. We expect the data base to be attractive not only to scholars just entering the field but also to more established scholars who wish to expand their scholarly interests.