We provide both Case Centered and Justice Centered data. In the Case Centered data the unit of analysis is the case; i.e., each row of the database contains information about an individual dispute. These data should be used unless the votes of the individuals justices are of interest. The Justice Centered data include a row for each justice participating in each dispute. Please see the Instructions for more information.

For instructions on citing to the SCDB, please consult the codebook's Citing to The SCDB.

The current version of the Legacy Database is only available at the citation level. Docket, Issue and Split Vote formats will be available in the future.

Case Centered Data Total Rows : 19,861 Case Centered data provides case level information; i.e., each row in the database corresponds to a dispute. These data do not contain specific justice vote information. click to show/hide file sets Cases Organized by Supreme Court Citation Rows Included: 19,861 This database includes one row for each dispute. Consolidated cases (those with multiple dockets) or cases with multiple issues or legal provisions are included only once. (For users of the original Spaeth database, ANALU=0.) click to show/hide download options SCDB_Legacy_07_caseCentered_Citation.csv.zip | 1.2 MB SCDB_Legacy_07_caseCentered_Citation.dta.zip | 1.3 MB SCDB_Legacy_07_caseCentered_Citation.por.zip | 1.5 MB SCDB_Legacy_07_caseCentered_Citation.Rdata.zip | 1.1 MB SCDB_Legacy_07_caseCentered_Citation.sav.zip | 2 MB SCDB_Legacy_07_caseCentered_Citation.xlsx.zip | 3.8 MB SCDB_Legacy_07_caseCentered_Citation.xpt.zip | 1.7 MB Justice Centered Data Total Rows : 172,213 Justice Centered data includes a set of justice votes for each dispute, along with the case information. The unit of analysis is the vote. These data should be used if the votes of the justices are of interest. click to show/hide file sets Cases Organized by Supreme Court Citation Rows Included: 172,213 This database includes one set of justice votes for each dispute. Consolidated cases (those with multiple dockets) or cases with multiple issues or legal provisions are included only once. (For users of the original Spaeth database, ANALU=0.) click to show/hide download options SCDB_Legacy_07_justiceCentered_Citation.csv.zip | 3 MB SCDB_Legacy_07_justiceCentered_Citation.dta.zip | 2.7 MB SCDB_Legacy_07_justiceCentered_Citation.por.zip | 6.2 MB SCDB_Legacy_07_justiceCentered_Citation.Rdata.zip | 2.4 MB SCDB_Legacy_07_justiceCentered_Citation.sav.zip | 12.5 MB SCDB_Legacy_07_justiceCentered_Citation.xlsx.zip | 23.5 MB SCDB_Legacy_07_justiceCentered_Citation.xpt.zip | 4.4 MB Release Notes: Minor corrections as reported. Filetype Key: CSV Comma Delimited Text (ISO 8859-1) DTA Stata (Version 10 or later) POR SPSS Portable File (Version 13 or later) RDATA R Data Format (Version 2.0.0 or later) SAV SPSS Data File (Version 13 or later) XLSX Microsoft Excel Worksheet (Version 2007 or later) XPT SAS Transport Format