MORGANTOWN — A West Virginia University assistant professor of political science is leading a research project to study the private communications between U.S. Supreme Court justices.
Jonathan King is focusing on records donated by Justice John Paul Stevens from 1975 until 2004. The documents, which are now at the Library of Congress, include conversations, opinion drafts and memos between justices, providing insight into their interactions and case deliberations.
"We were inspired to pursue this opportunity because of the relative rarity that justices make their private communications available," King said in an interview with The West Virginia Record. "The Blackmun archive, using the papers of Justice Harry A. Blackmun, provided scholars of the Court with one of the first, and most expansive, 'peeks behind the curtain' at what occurs at the Supreme Court."
King said unlike members of Congress or the president — who are frequently in front of cameras, can put forward legislation to signal policy and are active on social media platforms —the Supreme Court is a much less public-facing entity.
King said even their most public-facing component, oral arguments, were just recently made available live, following the pandemic, and are only available by audio as no cameras are allowed in the court.
"As such, these papers provide us with a rare look at what the justices are thinking, how they are communicating with other justices, and ultimately what goes into judicial decision-making processes that result in opinions that shape law and policy within the United States," King said.
King said unlike the Blackmun papers, which end in the 1993 term, Stevens' papers cover the longest natural court in history — when all nine justices served together — during the Rehnquist Court from 1994 until 2005.
"Simply put, we are not really sure how these precedent-altering cases may influence how the justices interact," King said. "That is why we want to look into the papers, what the justices actually said, in order to find out more."
King said over this time period, there are several cases, from Bush v. Gore (2000), to cases that overturned precedent such as Lawrence v. Texas (2003) which overturned Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), to the court using its powers of judicial review and overturning acts of Congress such as in United States v. Lopez (1995).
"Our main goal for this project is to see how interactions change, or even if they do, following these cases," King said. "And, we are very excited to see what the papers hold!"
King said the papers are already public, but one must travel to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., to access them.
"For most researchers, and most people generally, that is not feasible," King said. "As such, we plan to take high-resolution photos of these documents in order to make them publicly available online. We will make available the original images, as well as the transcribed, machine-readable versions on a website, as well as well-known data repositories such as the Harvard Dataverse."
King said their goal is to make the website interactive, so people interested in the courts could look up individual cases, interactions between justices, or cases in specific areas of law.
"While we know these data will be useful for academics, our goal is to make these widely available and easy to use so they could be used, for example, by high school students doing a research project into the role of the Court in government," King said. "A key component of this project is creating an accessible database where anyone could learn about the Court."
King said by studying how the justices interact with each other, particularly following contentious cases, we can learn more about how collegiality influences judicial opinions which can help us understand not only when Stevens was on the Court, but also the current Supreme Court.
King and his team, including graduate students, will spend eight weeks at the Library of Congress collecting and digitizing around 70,000 documents.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, the study will provide valuable insights into the Supreme Court's inner workings and how they have evolved, including the impact of digital technologies on decision-making.
The team aims to have the digitized repository available by early 2025, shedding light on previously opaque processes within the court.
