The Intersection of Judicial Interpretive Methods and Politics in Supreme Court Justices’ Due Process Opinions

The Supreme Court, a nine seat bench of unelected and lifetime tenured Justices, determines the constitutionality of dozens of cases each year. In this thesis, I research to what extent the political affiliation of the Justices affect the judicial decision making process and, ultimately, outcomes. Using pattern matching, I evaluate due process opinions from Justice Breyer, Justice O’Connor, and Justice Scalia, all of whom have established constitutional analysis methods, in order to determine if they reasonably adhere to their established method. Due to the highly political nature of due process cases, variance between the expected (adherence to the Justices’ established style) and the observed outcomes (the adherence to or lack of adherence to the established style) can suggest political influence on the Justice in order to get a preferred outcome. Ultimately, I find that there is a significant variance between the three Justices’ and their adherence to their established constitutional analysis method, suggesting that Justices’ political affiliation can manipulate their decision making methods when it is necessary to achieve their preferred political outcome