Inside the Taft Court: Lessons From the Docket Books

For many years, the docket books kept by certain of the Taft Court Justices have been held by the Office of the Curator of the Supreme Court. Though the existence of these docket books had been brought to the attention of the scholarly community, access to them was highly restricted. In April of 2014, however, the Court adopted new guidelines designed to increase access to the docket books for researchers. This article offers a report and analysis based on a review of all of the Taft Court docket books held by the Office of the Curator, which are the only such docket books known to have survived. ... This article proceeds as follows. Part I briefly introduces the Taft Court Justices and their voting practices. Part II discusses the major Taft Court cases that were unanimous both at conference and in the published report of the decision. Part III examines cases that were not unanimous at conference but became unanimous by the time the Court announced its decision. Part IV analyzes the Court’s non-unanimous cases. Part V reports on the Taft Court’s opinion reassignment practices. Part VI concludes