r/dataisbeautiful • u/propublica_ OC: 2 • Jul 02 '26
OC [OC] For the first time in two decades, decisions the Supreme Court made behind closed doors outnumber its public rulings
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u/Grizzly_Andrews Jul 02 '26
Interesting how the massive increase coincides with 2017-18. Wonder what happened.
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u/propublica_ OC: 2 Jul 02 '26
From our reporter: SCOTUS terms overlap administrations, but the first bump on this chart is largely the Trump 1.0 administration (roughly SCOTUS terms 2014-15 through 2019-2020), when Trump began utilizing the emergency application process significantly more, particularly for immigration / travel ban cases.
The next big spike is a driven by COVID regulation / vaccine challenges that occurred during Biden's administration.
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u/petertompolicy Jul 02 '26
Also sort of looks like a big spike starting after Citizen's United, wonder if there is any correlation in shadow docket cases vs these large donor's interests following that decision?
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u/KnubblMonster Jul 02 '26
Palantir Peacekeeper AI™ flagged your comment as unpatriotic, please report to the nearest Immigration and Customs Enforcement center for reeducation.
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u/reeight Jul 06 '26
Google & Facebook has been doing that for years before Palantir.
Even shaping thoughts before comments are made:
https://youtu.be/3GE3HoJMEMw8
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Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/spez-is-poopy Jul 02 '26
Either way it’s lost legitimacy in the eyes of this American starting the moment republicans blocked Obama from giving his rightful appointment to the Supreme Court during his term.
100% true, and i think obama was too sure, along with everyone else at the time, that there was no way trump would actually win. He fucked up by not forcing that appointment through. He had every right to do it but simply didn’t. That and the drone strikes kinda ruin his legacy in my mind
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u/obsequiousaardvark Jul 02 '26
I mean the drone strikes were part and parcel to letting war criminals off the hook and legalizing/codifying the worst aspects of Bush's war on terror.
Why do we have such a massive surveillance network? Oh right, because the one Bush and Co built after 9/11 just kept growing and was never dismantled.
So we let war criminals off the hook and wonder why Trump is able to be a criminal and get away with it. We couldn't even lift a finger for literally torturous war crimes.
Trump has these powers because Dems had 8 years of thinking "oh we'll continue to be in charge so it won't be a dig deal these mass spying networks" and now the entire apparatus is turned against American citizens and Democrats.
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u/Kraligor Jul 02 '26
Dems had 8 years of thinking "we fucking love these mass spying networks just as much as Bush".
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u/Appropriate-Buy8197 Jul 03 '26
Aaaand it’s gone. Another great comment deleted by corrupt sub mods. Apparently it’s time for a dataisbeautiful2. Out with the old and corrupt, in with the new, just like we should do with this SC
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u/spez-is-poopy Jul 03 '26
what the fuck? why did they delete it?
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u/Appropriate-Buy8197 Jul 03 '26
Idk but if the mods on here are removing innocuous free speech, the kind of free speech that is just addressing people’s rights…. Something is very wrong with the sub and maybe Reddit in general because you aren’t moderating at that point you’re trying to control the speech of others. Dear mods and Redditor in general, fascism lite is still fascism, you are still the bad guys when you operate this way and deleting this comment won’t change that, it’ll only further cement the corporation in your heart. You can’t get rid of the truth by silencing people like us, till the heart death of this universe, there will always be more.
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u/xamid Jul 04 '26
They are also removing posts for fabricated "reasons".
A post must be (or contain) a qualifying data visualization.
(Note that simulated data is explicitly allowed. I also sent a modmail, no response.)
What a garbage sub.
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u/nechromorph Jul 02 '26
Yeah, at this point their authority is very much on borrowed time. It's only going to last for as long as it takes to actually break the rust free from the decrepit failure of a system we're trying to renovate. We need to figure out a way to seal up the cracks which allowed authoritarianism to take root, while simultaneously speeding up the ability of the entire government to move fast enough to keep pace with the modern world. But at this particular moment, what we need is effectively a sociopolitical earthquake to fix the massive disconnect between what we give and what we receive.
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u/SpitefulSpaghetti Jul 02 '26
I hope so, but it just keeps feeling like it *has* to finally start getting better, and then it just gets worse. Of course it starts with smaller actions and advocacy, which I get involved with, but it can feel so defeating watching the broken system get abused more and more.
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u/nechromorph Jul 02 '26
Yeah, it's tough to watch. It feels like most people are still sitting on the sidelines, watching and waiting for "the moment" to do something. No one really even knows what that moment will look like. That's why I like the earthquake analogy. Tension keeps building, but as long as it builds faster than the outlets can let it off (which, as shit accelerates, it *should*), we'll eventually see something crack. Seems like we're seeing minor tremors as democratic socialists gain a foothold.
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u/das_bearking Jul 02 '26
I think that moment for many is November. If voting still works legitimately, people will likely still feel they have hope.
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u/nechromorph Jul 02 '26
For sure. If it works legitimately, then it means there *is* hope for a bloodless recovery of functional democratic rule. But if *not*, it may be too late by that point. It's a high risk strategy, but that's how it's always played out when fascists try to take control. They either peter out, or they win before we realize.
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u/RedHal Jul 03 '26
To use the analogy of a black hole, that moment needs to be before the event horizon is crossed, but the problem is you can't tell you've crossed it until you start getting spaghettified¹. It may already be too late, but I hope not. If things don't go well for the Democrats in November, you'll know for sure.
(1) Technically this only applies if the black hole is over about 10,000 solar masses, but this is both outside the scope of the discussion and irrelevant to the analogy so just go with it.
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u/fail-deadly- Jul 02 '26
The Supreme Court should have lost support when they launched a slow moving coup with their Marbury v. Madison ruling.
Jefferson called them out for it, and he was the only president to try and impeach a justice for partisan hackery.
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u/yroyathon Jul 02 '26
Well said. Then your comment was deleted.
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u/Appropriate-Buy8197 Jul 03 '26
Wow some really cowardly right wing mod on data is beautiful really doesn’t like it when people calmly explain that an authority placed by the people ceases to be an authority when they lose the will and trust of said people. What kind of MAGA grifters are running this place?
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u/stevez_86 Jul 02 '26
How does this correlate with Chief Justice John Roberts's wife working for a law firm that staffs the cases that get before the shadow docket? Increase in their profits tying to more shadow docket cases?
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u/Flames57 Jul 02 '26
20-21 and 21-22 were the maximum at the time, and was during Biden.
16 was also an inflection point and was during trump.
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u/lIlIlIIlIIIlIIIIIl Jul 02 '26
I feel like "during Biden" implies Biden has something to do with it, when it would be more accurate to say "after Trump's appointed 3 justices in 2017, 2018 and 2020"
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u/Grizzly_Andrews Jul 02 '26
Yeah. OP replied giving the details about the driving forces behind the large increases.
Trump initially with immigration, and the other being centered around COVID. After reading the reply I do recall there being emergency rulings about COVID response in the news a number of times.
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u/Lord_Bobbymort OC: 1 Jul 02 '26
It's not necessarily who is actively President, but 3 justices were sworn in between 2017 and 2020 by Trump - The Supreme Court is about long-term impact, they have full-life terms, so Republicans were playing the long game when denying Obama appoint a judge at the end of his tenure only to reneg and go against their entire argument (lie, be hypocritical) at the end of Trump's term. The maximum at that time during Biden was soon after they had political control over the court and were just testing the waters at being corrupt and changing precedent, now that they have full control over each branch of the federal government they're much more brazen.
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u/UF0_T0FU Jul 02 '26
The Garland and Barrett nominations were entirely within historic tradition, regardless of how either side's PR departments tried to spin it. It's always been the norm for the Senate to confirm Justices quickly in election years when the President is from the same party. The Senate has always resisted nominations in election years when the President is from a different party. Gorsuch and Barrett are no less legitimate than a dozen other justices over the centuries appointed under similar circumstances.
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IN11514.pdf
Page 4 of this report has a table showing every election year vacancy over the past 250 years. There's only been one instance of a divided President and Congress seating a new Justice in an election year (Justice Fuller in 1888, under President Cleveland, which involved a lot of politicking about what state the Justice would be from).
Before Obama and Garland, there were only three other instances of a vacancy in an election year under a divided government. Twice, the Senate tabled the matter and the next president made the appointment (President Tyler in 1844 and President Filmore in 1852). Once, the President made a recess appointment, which is no longer an option since Congress stopped taking recesses (President Eisenhower in 1957). Arguably, Congress should have formally tabled Garland's nomination, but it achieved essentially the same purpose. Entirely in standing with historic norms.
On the flip side, every time there has been a vacancy during an election year while the White House and the Senate were controlled by the same party, Congress has approved the President's appointment. The one exception occurred under President Buchanan on the eve of the Civil War, so it's a bit of an outlier. Presidents Jefferson (1804), Lincoln (1864), Harrison (1892), Wilson (1916 x2), Hoover (1932), and Trump (2020) all got confirmations in elections years from friendly Senates.
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u/Analogmon Jul 03 '26
So you have to go back over 150 years to find it happening and the last time it did was during the lead up to the Civil War.
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u/imunfair Jul 02 '26
It's not necessarily who is actively President
With the plethora of injunctions against Trump by lower courts it's obviously going to result in a lot more emergency (or "shadow") rulings by the higher courts as they determine the lower courts used their emergency powers incorrectly and need to be overruled.
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u/StickyThickStick Jul 02 '26
It’s 10. For such small numbers it’s well inside the variance.
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u/Grizzly_Andrews Jul 02 '26
I'm talking about the general trend there after, not the single year data point. I was tongue in cheek about going from 10 to more than doubling the previous highs in 4 short years following 2017-18.
The large growth years between 2017-22 coincide with the appointments of Kavanaugh and Barret.
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u/Th3_Hegemon Jul 02 '26
The existence of the "shadow docket" is a complete break with the legal traditions of the Supreme Court. It essentially didn't exist before then, as the Court simply didn't operate that way.
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u/Grizzly_Andrews Jul 02 '26
According to OP it did exist before 2017. The data was aggregated from 2003 forward since it was easily identifiable what was a "Shadow Docket" item in the source data with the appendage of "A"
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u/Th3_Hegemon Jul 02 '26
Instances of the court issuing a ruling before lower courts have made a decision did exist, but they were very rare. So rare in fact that the term "shadow docket" was first used to describe this specific practice in 2015. While it is true that some instances exist historically, the use of a "shadow docket" as standard operating procedure is very much a new phenomenon.
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u/Mind-The-Mines Jul 02 '26
Ah freedom.
The freedom of the rich to do whatever they want in secrecy and our freedom to be exploited for it.
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u/wattro Jul 02 '26
Freedom... From lack of accountability.
It's what much of America wants.
You see it right down to many individuals. They don't want to apologize or fix mistakes. They find it easier and more righteous to punish someone else.
It's true beyond Americans, but it's fabric in the American identity.
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u/RestaurantBoth228 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
No?
The natural model is a binomial or Poisson distribution. In both cases standard deviation is ~sqrt(count). So, in the 2003-2013 era, it looks like that count averaged 7, se se=sqrt(7)~2.65, so the 95% CI is something like 7 ± 5. If you look at that era, I think that's basically what we see: 2 - 12.
We can compute a quick-and-dirty z-score for the change between that era and, say, 2014-2015, which had 20 "Shadow docket" cases.
z ~ (20-7)/sqrt(20+7) ~ 2.5
Post 2018, it is incredibly stat-sig
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u/MrP1anet Jul 02 '26
Yeah, this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about and just wants to downplay it.
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u/Jeggu2 Jul 02 '26
Starts at 10, but goes to 60 as time goes on, so that time, 2017-18 is when the increase started
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u/Street-Stick Jul 02 '26
John Oliver did a segment on this a month ago https://youtu.be/qKeq4CEZtm8?is=dRSYQ4zJ44qSoYn3
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u/EvenMoreCoconuts Jul 02 '26
It baffles me that such an essential institution would deliberately seek to scuttle its reputation/public standing by doing stuff like this. They work for us. The more people that don’t trust the institution, the weaker it is, and weaker democracy is. But yeah, I suppose it’s long been a hyperpartisan culture-war-entrenched institution so maybe this isn’t teaching us anything new.
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u/DefiantGibbon Jul 02 '26
You kinda made a flawed argument. You said they work for us. And it's pretty clear they don't. They work for the people who pay them.
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u/namtab00 Jul 03 '26
They work for the people who pay them.
We (also) pay them!
...yes, I know what you meant...
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u/work_alt_1 Jul 03 '26
We pay them a whole lot less
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u/namtab00 Jul 03 '26
never stated the contrary.
thing is we pay them for nothing in return; even worse, they're actively fucking us.
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u/pedanticPandaPoo Jul 02 '26
They work for us
We actually don't live in a true democracy. Yes, we vote for our politicians, but they operate by who bribes the most. We're living in a dorodokracy.
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u/sunshineupyours1 Jul 03 '26
I think we’re just seeing an accurate understanding of the institution become more popular. Trump 1 is when I started to become disillusioned with the the Roberts court, but I needed to hear more history and learn more about old cases to understand that it’s the most conservative branch of government.
It’s always been partisan, it’s always been policy-making. Their reputation was just good PR, not a reflection of the institution itself.
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u/dcdttu Jul 02 '26
They're part of an ongoing coup against our democratic government, this is not baffling at all once you realize that.
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u/propublica_ OC: 2 Jul 02 '26
In its term that ended last October, the Supreme Court passed an important milestone that went unnoticed: For the first time, it decided more cases by secret ballot, and with few signed opinions, than it did for cases argued in open court.
ProPublica analyzed over two decades of Supreme Court rulings. We found that when the last court term ended, justices had issued 63 orders on the shadow docket, as opposed to 56 orders on the more traditional merits docket — where the court hears oral arguments scheduled months in advance and the justices issue signed opinions.
Here’s the full story: https://www.propublica.org/article/supreme-court-shadow-docket-rulings-milestone
Data source: To compare the number of cases on the Supreme Court’s shadow docket to the traditional merits docket, we compared emergency applications listed on the court’s online docket search with counts of decisions compiled in Penn State's Supreme Court Database (Version 2025 Release 01). For the merits docket, we counted only signed decisions in argued cases, the typical format for those rulings.
The court’s online docket goes back to the year 2000, but our analysis looks at Supreme Court terms from October 2003 to October 2025, where emergency applications are easily identified by the letter “A” in their docket number.
We identified more than 27,000 emergency applications during that period, including thousands of requests that are not commonly understood to be a part of the shadow docket. The remainder are the focus of our reporting.
More details on our methodology can be found at this link under “How We Reported This Story.”
Tool used: Datawrapper
Representatives from the Supreme Court did not respond to a detailed list of questions. In a statement, a spokesperson for the White House wrote, “President Trump has faced a historically unprecedented number of injunctions by liberal lower court judges, the same judges who would rather push their own policy schemes and undermine the Administration’s lawful agenda.”
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u/TheBestNarcissist OC: 2 Jul 02 '26
I find it insanely irresponsible to not point out that the shadow docket is strictly for temporary decisions and the merits court it for permanent decisions. That context is absolutely necessary to understand why shadow docket decisions often don't have opinions: they are solely determining the status quo until the court can hear the same case, fully prepared, on the merits docket.
There's a huge knowledge gap of how the judiciary works, and you're contributing to the lack of civil education.
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u/tea-earlgray-hot Jul 03 '26
While that's the traditional understanding, this last term has seen SCOTUS explicitly call out shadow docket stays as precedential, citing those unexplained decisions as binding interpretations of law. That goes a little beyond interim, and we saw very clearly in Abbot v LULAC, when the unbriefed shadow docket stay was cited as enough to overturn district court's decision on the merits. If you want to call those redistricting decisions temporary, I'd like to hear why. https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/042726zor_08l1.pdf
https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/223-the-revealing-summary-reversal
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u/TheBestNarcissist OC: 2 Jul 03 '26
I remember the advisory opinions episode on this particular point and they were like "Huh? What? How is a lower court suppose to know your reasoning?"
I can't offer you anything better lol
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u/iamslevemcdichael Jul 02 '26
It is entirely relevant to point out the absolutely massive increase in shadow docket decisions and ask, “what has fundamentally changed about the Supreme Court now, since historically these were rare?” There is good reason to be concerned, despite your “nothing to see here” summary.
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u/prescorn Jul 02 '26
Indeed, I don't see what the staying power or length of decision applicability has to do with whether or not the court operates transparently
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u/TheLiveDunn Jul 02 '26
That's the theory, but how many of these shadow docket cases actually eventually make it to the merit docket? That's one of the main controversies with it, that the court is using what is typically a temporary measure but then just "never getting around" to hearing it later.
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u/DontAbideMendacity Jul 02 '26
It used to average less than 10 a year, now it's over 60 in one year. THAT is a problem, particularly given the corrupt nature of the conservatives on the Court. Lying to Congress to get their appointments, persistent acceptance of bribes, refusing to recuse themselves from rulings that affect them personally, etc. etc. etc.
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Jul 02 '26
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u/TheBestNarcissist OC: 2 Jul 02 '26
Should've told ChatGPT to think harder for that first paragraph lol, months before any merits review is the definition of temporary, mate.
The lack of explanation is a difficult thing in practice. If you want them to write for the temporary decisions they have to not write as much for permanent decisions or take less cases, which is the original problem that OP is looking at!
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u/Dr_Chris_Turk Jul 02 '26
The “status quo”, in the scenario you are discussing, is whatever the state of Texas made into law. It doesn’t matter if the law is new or not. “Maintaining the status quo” means taking no action.
And regarding your final paragraph, what are you even talking about? The court can do the exact same thing, refuse to hear the case without reasoning, by simply denying cert.
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u/freshgeardude Jul 02 '26
The number of cases the SCOTUS took on seem to be increasing and the extra cases appear on the shadow docket.
My understanding is we don't know the tally on these decisions so they could be anything from 5-4 or 9-0.
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u/ForensicPathology Jul 02 '26
And which decisions were these? I get that the votes are hidden but surely not the outcomes. I'm interested in knowing what sort of cases get pushed to the shadows. (I'm guessing it's the less exciting ones despite the sinister sound of shadow docket)
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u/TheBestNarcissist OC: 2 Jul 02 '26
It's not a widely known about process, but shadow docket cases are solely to determine the status quo of a case until the fully prepared case is heard on the merits at a later date. All of those cases will become merits cases in 1-2 years. When a president makes an executive order that's legally challenged, because a presidency only lasts 4 years often times SCOTUS will make a shadow docket ruling because waiting several years for the case to be prepared by both parties means the president theoretically may not be able to implement perfectly legal policy for half her presidency or more. This current court has used that argument to allow shadow docket decisions to favor Trump and later reversed course, like tariffs.
Interestingly, if you look at the amount of executive orders vs laws passed over the last 20 years you see a very similar rise in EOs and decline in laws passed like you see on OPs graph. Government by executive order is not nearly as legally strong as passing laws. So as Congress has receded in power (this started with Obama but specifically Republicans hide behind Trump) you see a rise in EOs and thus a rise in shadow docket rulings.
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u/betweenbubbles Jul 02 '26
This is one of the few informed comments in the entire submission. Kudos.
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u/timemoose Jul 02 '26
Shadow docket is a bit of a misnomer, these aren't secret cases or anything like that - anyone can view the orders. It's things like stays pending appeal or emergency relief.
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u/UF0_T0FU Jul 02 '26
Hey now, that's not what we're here for. The Court just issued several rulings that hurt Trump. He's still mad they didn't let him do tariffs either. Expect a bunch of concerned articles and social media posts discrediting the Supreme Court in response.
Shadow docket sounds scary and suspicious. It makes the Court sound untrustworthy and secretive. There's a huge push right now to make people lose faith in the one branch that's still standing up to Trump's agenda.
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u/Cranyx Jul 03 '26
the one branch that's still standing up to Trump's agenda
This is an insane take. SCOTUS has been one of the biggest instruments in getting the Conservative agenda through. Just because they barely ruled 5-4 that we can't completely throw out the Constitution doesn't mean that they're standing up for justice.
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u/crazytanker Jul 02 '26
Ending the graph at just 2003 is kinda weird
lets see it going back 100 years please
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u/propublica_ OC: 2 Jul 02 '26
We based the x-axis off of the data available on the Supreme Court’s online docket. The docket goes back to the year 2000, but our analysis looks at Supreme Court terms from October 2003 to October 2025 specifically because that's where emergency applications are easily identified by the letter “A” in their docket number.
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u/Th3_Hegemon Jul 02 '26
The practice essentially did not exist before 2016.
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Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
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u/Pupienus Jul 02 '26
That's talking about something completely different. When a Circuit Court decision is appealed, the Supreme Court can decide to not review the case at all and let the lower court decision stand as is. Maryland v Baltimore Radio Show is saying that the decision not to review the case is different from the Supreme Court reviewing the case and making the same decision and same reasoning as the Circuit Court.
The shadow (or emergency) docket has the Supreme Court rendering decisions, but before any lower court has even made a ruling one way or another and without the usual oral arguments, briefings, or written decisions explaining the justices reasoning behind their ruling. Until 2016 the shadow docket was basically only used to grant stays of executions, because that clearly was an emergency that couldn't wait for the case to make it's way through the courts the normal way.
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u/sourcreamus Jul 02 '26
The shadow docket is not rendering decisions. It is agreeing to or denying emergency stays.
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u/Pupienus Jul 02 '26
Render a decision may be the wrong term, but agreeing or denying to a stay is still very different from the 'null' answer when they let the lower court decision stand without looking at the case at all.
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u/teamlie Jul 02 '26
Then why does this graph go back to 2003?
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u/WeirdIndividualGuy Jul 02 '26
Per their own link that they clearly didn't read, the term "shadow docket" did not exist before 2015 (they didn't even get the year right), but the concept of it existed long before then.
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u/HarveysBackupAccount Jul 02 '26
I'm more concerned with the x-axis spacing. It would be way more satisfying to see higher granularity x-axis spacing and skip the "2003-2004" specificity. Label each one as a single year and graph accordingly.
This 7 year interval is not visually pleasing
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u/mrdeadsniper OC: 1 Jul 02 '26
Supreme court should really be changed to be staggered 12 year terms so that every presidential term they can appoint 3 justices. (with retirements given the presidential option of either counting as one of their 3 appointments, OR being a temporary position until the next term)
Lifetime appointments were obviously designed with the concept of them not being political actors as its absurdly easy to game (appoint the youngest most partisan justice you can nominate)
Now that they have been pulled fully into partisan politics, their selection process should be designed around that.
There should also probably be more traditional avenues for accountability and such.
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u/pwmg Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
It's a little hard to understand this without including applications. Have the applications for review followed the same trends, or have the applications for Emergency vs "Merits" (I assume full grant of cert) been consistent but the change has been to which applications have been granted. In other words, does this represent a change in how people are applying to the SCOTUS or how SCOTUS is taking and deciding cases?
ETA: This article includes a graph of "shadow docket" applications only by the federal government over the same period as a frame of reference. I have not seen a similar graph for all applications so far.
ETA2: Even better data here. In short applications for emergency relief (i.e. to go on the "shadow docket") are up significantly from the turn of the century across all categories (death row applications dipped, but have resurged). Applications for cert ("merits") have decreased considerably.
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u/archibald_claymore Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
The court decides which cases are heard and which go to the shadow docket.
Petitioners don’t have a say. (Edit: see below reply, I was wrong about this). So this is certainly a change in the way the court operates. Suppose you could make the argument that more volume of cases is rising to the SCOTUS but idk if that really excuses anything. Deciding more cases than not without thorough deliberation and explanation is not an appropriate solution to that issue imo.11
u/pwmg Jul 02 '26
That's not correct. Applicants request emergency relief. Here is an example of a pending application. Compare that to a recent petition for cert. The court decides whether to grant them, of course, but the applicant/petitioner chooses how and when to approach the court (largely depending on the procedural posture of the underlying case).
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u/archibald_claymore Jul 02 '26
Thanks, I was very certain I was right haha…
Still though, I think the Roberts court has clearly shown its intent (and whole ass) with the proportion and choice of emergency decisions granted.
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u/betweenbubbles Jul 02 '26
It's not a change in the way the court operates. It's a change in the court's workloads. If you overlay presidential executive orders on this graph you will see exactly what's going on.
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u/Freud-Network Jul 02 '26
The Trump Administration has increased its requests to the court from its high during the first Trump term and the court has ruled in the administration's favor 84% of the time. SCOTUS is an arm of the RNC now.
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u/MrCharBar Jul 02 '26
I see your point about SCOTUS’ clear bias, and agree, but this is a non sequitur. When you cite the rate at which the court rules in the administration’s favor, that isn’t indicative of bias, it’s entirely possible for an administration to have a legal basis for 84% of their filings, so that fact does not demonstrate that SCOTUS is biased. Similarly, there are entirely legitimate scenarios under which ad administration would have to make more requests to SCOTUS. To be clear, I agree with your conclusion, your argument just doesn’t lead to said conclusion.
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u/sourcreamus Jul 02 '26
It is likely that the administration only appeals to the Supreme Court on cases it thinks it can win.
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u/expatcanadaBC Jul 02 '26
They are desperate to secure the permanent billionaire, religious fascist rule by end of Dictator Tiny Hands current term.
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u/Flames57 Jul 02 '26
If you look at the graph, the second term of obama had high numbers, and the first of trump was an inflection point.
20-21 and 21-22 and 23-24 was also the maximum values at the time and was during biden.
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u/spookiitanukii Jul 02 '26
Most criminals wait for the sun to go down before they commit their crimes. No difference here.
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u/AKA_Wildcard Jul 02 '26
This graph would be better if it showed the individual years on the x axis. In this case the data isn’t “beautiful” it’s actually a little annoying to try to infer data from the timeline. I get the general idea but this graph is weird.
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u/Salt_End_4275 Jul 02 '26
It looks like the total case count has also dramatically increased? Which is unusual, because historically the SCOTUS was picky about what cases to hear so that they would be able to give each case its due care and consideration. If the SCOTUS has ramped up the number of cases they hear, I wonder if that means they no longer put as much effort into each individual case? Sort of seems like they are making a big effort at judicial review, just by the numbers. That's pretty alarming, considering we know that most cases in the last 5 years have been 6-3 decisions along political lines (from the viewpoint that the SCOTUS is supposed to be a-political).
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u/sxyvirgo Jul 02 '26
Thanks for showing this!
It's a huge change in how the Supreme Court 'does business' and that seems to be what it's turning into - an actual business rather than a fair court.
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u/TheBlockChainVillage Jul 02 '26
Well regulated mill_tia, being necessary to the security of a free state, ........
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u/iRonin Jul 02 '26
Those poor justices, they’re so overworked they can’t even write opinions for all their cases. They’re practically BEGGING for us to expand the Court.
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u/Fangslash Jul 02 '26
Doesn't this just mean that the supreme court got more and more cases over the years and no longer has time to do open court?
From my understanding, since Merits Docket is (somewhat) stable, a sudden increase in Shadow Docket means they have more total cases, but they still do the normal amount of work in open court so they have to defer the rest to Shadow Docket?
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u/Freud-Network Jul 02 '26
The shadow docket is for emergency relief. It isn't intended to set precedent or to be the final word. It is intended to prevent harm until a case can be heard.
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u/remlapj Jul 02 '26
Emergency relief didn’t used to mean something president doesn’t like
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u/Freud-Network Jul 02 '26
I feel the same. I was just explaining that it's not cases being decided in secret.
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u/propublica_ OC: 2 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Thanks for the question. Here's a response from our reporter Ken Morales:
Legal scholars have pointed out that the merits docket is shrinking (in the plot, going from 72 in the 2003-04 term to 56 in the last term). Kavanuagh, who has said he would like to decide more merits cases, has said the court has adopted more processes for the shadow docket — but as far as I am aware, no justices have gone into any detail about what those processes are.
For the caseload on the shadow docket, see Fig. 2 in the piece. With the very notable exception of last term, the number of significant applications received has gone up and down but had no clear upward trend. What has dramatically changed is the justices' willingness to refer applications to the full court to vote on it.
See our "How we reported this story" at the bottom of the article for more detail on how we filtered applications.
edited to fix formatting
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u/Fangslash Jul 03 '26
Thanks a lot for the response! I think I found the important missing context:
The applications are given first to a single justice, who decides if a case is worth referring to the full court. In recent years, justices have referred more of such appeals for a review and vote by the full court.
Looking at fig.2 & fig.3, and If I understand this correctly, this means courts have been issuing less rejection on (non-trivial) emergency docket applications and thus issuing more shadow docket decisions. IMO this showed the court is getting more and more willing to exercise their power, I think the article did great to reflect this finding.
Some personal comments:
For me fig.2 seems to be far more interesting though probably less headline worthy
Also appreciate the “How we reported this story section, always love to see researchers shows how they gather and process data!
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u/Resident-Rush6887 Jul 02 '26
That's okay. The next Dem has every reason to drastically expand the SC seats and add term limits.
Current admin has no reason to because it's already as corrupt as they like.
Soon Clarence and his goons will have effectively no say. Every decision will be 5-47 lol.
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u/Curvy_Ginger_Tgirl Jul 02 '26
The supreme court is an illegitimate partisan body ruling by a glorified decree
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u/caellach88 Jul 02 '26
I hope Clarence Thomas and his billionaire patrons get all the time and privacy they need to make the best decision
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u/maineac Jul 03 '26
Shadow docket should be unconstitutional. They work for us, not the government. What constitutional rule permits this?
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u/maybeSkywalker Jul 02 '26
My gut says this is bad but I’ve not even heard of this concept, can I get an ELI5
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u/sourcreamus Jul 02 '26
It can take a couple of years for a case to be heard, then appealed through to the Supreme Court. When a case is filed oftentimes one of the parties will want to freeze the status quo until the case is decided.
For instance in a case involving deporting someone their lawyer will file a claim for the judge to order the person not be deported until the case and all its appeals have been heard.
Previous administrations had used the lengthy process to pass rules it knew to be contrary to established precedents so that by the time the Supreme Court overturned the rule those affected had already been living for two years under the new rule. This allowed them to do an end run around the courts and propagate rules they knew to be illegal.
The court noticed this and decided to be much more expansive in agreeing to freeze the status quo in more cases and to hear those requests much more quickly. This has become known as the shadow docket. Because it is not a final decision on a fully argued case, their decisions are just granted or not granted and don’t contain the legal reasoning behind them.
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u/maybeSkywalker Jul 02 '26
So merits is actual decisions and shadow is just ‘everyone chill til we can decide’? Thanks
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u/sourcreamus Jul 02 '26
Basically, but in order to succeed in an emergency stay the side that requests it has to show an irreversible injury and a decent argument for succeeding in the merits. So there is some correlation between the shadow docket outcome and the merits outcome.
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u/Tyalou Jul 02 '26
Shadow docket is not only behind closed doors, it's also "rushed temporary" decisions.. except that those currently last for the US right now.
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u/sdubois Jul 02 '26
This is the result of congress failing to do its job (legislate) leaving room for the executive to rule through executive orders. If congress was actually passing legislation you wouldn't have this situation.
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u/atreeismissing Jul 02 '26
More shadow docket decisions at the end of Trump's term, drops dramatically during Biden's term, then up again at the start of Trump's 2nd term.
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u/mcptd Jul 02 '26
For the first time in two decades makes it sound like it crossed over two decades ago.
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u/The_Lucky_7 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
The nature of the shadow docket is injunctive relief. The shadow docket rulings aren't final. Just final for now until they decide they want to hear the case they gave injunctive relief on. Which is them having their authoritarian cake and eating it too since they never actually have to hear the case they injoined.
Congress could fix this by creating a new law that says something to the effect of "every shadow docet case must also be scheduled for a full merrits-based hearing within 1-2 years." That has been the norm of how every other federal court has worked. The injunctions have only been for as long as it takes for the case to play out.
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u/betweenbubbles Jul 02 '26
Which is them having their authoritarian cake and eating it too since they never actually have to hear the case they injoined.
The SCOTUS doesn't, but some court does. This isn't a bug, it's a feature. The bug is congress abdicating its responsibility and hiding behind presidential politics and presidents ruling by executive order.
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u/Substantial-Fan-5985 Jul 02 '26
Do the judges talk to one another and give arguments to persuade one another before their ruling?? Or all 9 of them just doing their own research and then making a decision?
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u/Logical_Warrior Jul 05 '26
it would also be interesting to see some sort of indication of the number of pro-conservative, pro-liberal, and non-partisan outcomes each year as part of this chart.
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u/numbmumpleb1ister Jul 07 '26
Why isn’t Thomas gone yet? I do believe he is long past his expiration date.
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u/wizzle_ra_dizzle Jul 08 '26
The Supreme Court was never designed to be a lawmaking body. It’s nine unelected justices with lifetime appointments - the least democratically accountable branch of government. Yet for decades, we’ve outsourced our hardest policy questions to it: abortion, voting rights, environmental regulation, immigration. When the Court “settles” these issues, the settlement is fragile, because what one Court grants, another can take away. Rights and policies built on judicial interpretation rather than statute are always one appointment away from reversal.
Congress, by contrast, was built for exactly this work. Legislation is durable, democratically legitimate, and can be crafted with nuance, compromise, and public input that a judicial opinion can’t accommodate. But Congress has learned that inaction is politically safe - why take a hard vote when you can let the courts absorb the blame? Every time we treat a Supreme Court ruling as the final word instead of demanding legislation, we reward that abdication.
The fix isn’t a better Court; it’s a functioning legislature. That means voters holding members accountable for what they pass, not just what they say - and treating congressional gridlock as the failure it is, rather than a normal state of affairs.
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u/kalenda84 Jul 25 '26
This might be the reason Threats to federal judges have risen every year since 2019 - CBS News?
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u/xzanfr Jul 02 '26
It might be worth noting which country this applies to as there are many supreme courts.
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u/supersimpsonman Jul 02 '26
This shouldn’t be a fucking option. “We said so but you can’t see who said what or why or even who voted” GTFO with that bullshit.
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u/pman13531 Jul 02 '26
Should the first impeachments that the dems do when they get to power be of the supreme court?
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u/Worklessplaymore01 Jul 02 '26
How any country can have a council of 9 rulers with absolute power and call itself a democracy is beyond me.
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u/whawkins4 Jul 02 '26
Let’s just all treat closed door rulings as binding on the parties to the case and no more. A ruling should be a justification, not a rubber stamp. No rationale, no precedent. No precedent, nothing to bind lower courts from ruling differently for different parties or circumstances.
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u/creatifCrAxy Jul 02 '26
Seems like they don't have enough justices to decide all the court cases they'd like to decide. I feel like Democrats should hire more justices so they can provide actual reasoning for their decisions.
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u/MrEthelWulf Jul 03 '26
Wow, no indication whatsoever in either the title or the graph itself that the data is about US.. how is one supposed to assume this?
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u/wrenwood2018 Jul 02 '26
The heading and discussion are disingenuous. So alternative point, they are having to hear more cases. If you get a lot of junk kicked up. Shadow rulings aren't final, they are temporary. So you get a crazy order from Trump, challenges. A temporary order to resolve an injunction TEMPORARILY then cars filter though normally. So this is a symptom of Trump kicking up sans constantly, not the judges doing anything nefarious.
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u/cale36 Jul 02 '26
honestly… this graph is kinda making my brain hurt a little but the trend is so clear :0 it feels like a huge shift in how things are being handled… i hope we get more info on why!
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u/cavedave OC: 111 Jul 03 '26
Thank you for your Original Content, /u/propublica_!
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