The Burger Court Opinion Writing Database, which was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (SES-9906629), contains information on the 48,524 memoranda and opinion drafts that justices circulated to their colleagues on the U.S. Supreme Court between the 1969 OT and the 1985 OT. The original documents were found in the personal papers of justices who served during the Burger Court. We acquired and coded all documents found in the papers of former justices Hugo L. Black (Library of Congress), William O. Douglas (Library of Congress), John M. Harlan (Princeton University), William J. Brennan, Jr. (Library of Congress), Thurgood Marshall (Library of Congress), Harry A. Blackmun (Library of Congress), Lewis F. Powell (Washington & Lee University), and William H. Rehnquist (Stanford University).

Codebook (PDF File)

Data (Compressed Stata 10 file)

Document Archive (http://supremecourtopinions.wustl.edu)

Please use the following citation:

Wahlbeck, Paul J., James F. Spriggs, II, and Forrest Maltzman.  2009.  The Burger Court Opinion Writing Database. Washington, DC: George Washington University, Dept. of Political Science, August 6.