2018-XX
XX-XXX
Test Case

Summary Analysis

R-00
DATE: 2019-06-22
DOCKET: XX-XXX
NAME: One Fictitious Person v Another
WORTHY: {True, False}

OPINION: {Court, Concurring, Dissenting}
   AUTHOR: Roberts
   JOINING: Roberts, Breyer, Thomas, Ginsburg, Alito, Gorsuch, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh
   GOOD: {Yes, No}
PAGES: ##


Case Commentary

Trying to analyse Citizen's United as my first case turned out to be a bit of a train wreck. We need not go into that any further.

When reviewing future Supreme Court cases, I will start by listed out the following information:

• R-
• The number given to this case on the Supreme Court Website.
• The order is was decided in the term.
• From 01 to 85 (or so), typically
• DATE
• When decided.
• As opposed to when argued.
• DOCKET
• The case number.
• NAME
• The title.
• What they are calling this thing.
• WORTHY
• Is the case of legal importance?
• Is it worthy of The Court?
  • Or is it not?
• A forced choice:
  • True
  • False
• This is nothing more than my personal opinion on the matter.


• OPINION
• The type of Opinion it is; be it:
  • Of the Court
  • Concurring
  • Dissenting
• Since there can be more than one Opinion, this section and those that follow will be repeated for each Opinion.
• AUTHOR
• Who wrote the Opinion?
• JOINING:
• Who joined in the Opinion?
• GOOD
• Do I agree with the Opinion?
• Compiling statistics on this last is a major motivating factor for this series.
  • Which Justices do I tend to agree with?
    • Disagree with?
  • Which Justices diverge from the pack Most Often?
    • Least Often?
  • And so on.
• This is, also, a forced choice:
  • Yes
  • No
• PAGES
• Length of the opinion.
• I have a hunch stupidity is linked to length.

I decided to use Citizen's United as my first Test Case. And that is a long and complicated decision... taking far more time and mental effort to parse than I had expected.

But as much as anything, the six-month delay (from starting to read Citizen's United until now) came from not knowing what information I wished to record... and the manner in which I wished to record it. For the longest time, I was planning on compiling the Summary Analysis in a separate JSON file. But that would be rather inelegant, as JSON is harder for humans to read (certainly, it's harder to read than the header information at the top of this page) and would require multiple documents for each opinion (an HTML page such as this and a separate JSON file). Besides, it will only be slightly harder for me to pull (i.e. parse) the data from the top of these HTML pages (as opposed to a separate JSON file), when it comes time to make those graphs. So, that is the way I have decided to go.

Then, the first case of the current Term Year is painfully simple and straightforward... you know, so why was a bothering with Citizen's United, an excruciatingly complex case? Well, it was my expectation that after reviewing Citizen's United, I would be able to bypass many corner cases (and thus, avoid painting my dataset into a corner), which, perhaps, I have. But then again, let us not overlook the power of momentum. I pushed this project to the side (call it the back-burner) for a good half-year based on the complexities of Citizen's United (and the problems I was having in writing up that particular case... morale, perhaps, being the central obstacle). I mean (in literal truth), the words I have used thus far on this page (so, count them) will be overkill when it comes to analysing the first case of the 2018 Term: Mount Lemmon Fire District v Guido et al. It's a moronically easy and straightforward case. And in the end, perhaps where I should have started.

But then again (and again... and again), the Summary Analysis format I have concocted for this project is deceptively simple. Who knows what problems I would have encountered had I not reviewed a complicated case, first?

And with that, it is time to move on.

Let us (finally) begin.