Frequently Asked Questions about Supreme Court Visualizations

Why do the case circles change size?

Circles change size based on the number of citations to it by other cases in the network. The more cases that cite to Case A, the larger it will be. The only exception to this rule is the rightmost case on network (with the most recent date). For visual clarity, this anchor case is always represented with a large circle.

How can I find out what the cases in my network mean?

This tool will not read the cases for you, but it will make your reading more efficient. You can read opinion text directly by clicking on opinions in the visualization. You can see all the Supreme Court Database information for a case. Information will open in a separate window and includes issue area, legal provision involved, and detailed voting information. By using SCDB information and skimming opinion text, you can figure out what is going on in the case fairly quickly. Some networks also have helpful user descriptions.

Why did my network default to 2-degrees?

We do not generate 3-degree networks when it will contain more than 70 cases. We have found networks larger than 70 are too unwieldy and so default those networks to 2-degrees.

Why is a case missing from my network?

When the Supreme Court cites to recently decided cases, the citation form is non-standard such as citing to Slip. Op or 555 S.Ct ___. This currently confounds our automatic citation parser. It's a problem we're working on.

How do I embed a network in my blog?

Use the iframe code shown in the deprecation notice above. Replace YOURIDHERE with the ID of your visualization. You can then put this code in your WordPress blog (or LibGuides site, etc.) just as you would embed a video from YouTube.

What do you mean by "Degree of Dissent"?

We use Degree of Dissent (DoD) in our visualizations of Supreme Court networks to indicate the average level of disagreement in the cases shown. For example, in a network that shows two cases, each with unanimous 9-0 votes, there would be no dissent, and so the score would be 0. By contrast, if a network had only two cases, each with 5-4 decisions, the DoD would be 1.0, indicating a highly dissenting network.

Mathematically, the DoD for a given case is calculated by multiplying the number of dissents by 0.25. This means that a 9-0 case will have the same DoD as a 8-0 case (0.0) and a 6-3 will have the same DoD as 5-3 case.

In some cases you may see that the DoD is not using all of the cases in a network, stating something like: "Degree of Dissent: 0.73 for 16 cases of 17." This occurs because some cases do not have vote information in the Supreme Court Database (Spaeth).

Why is this system deprecated?

When we created these visualizations, we hoped that they would be the first among many visualizations on our platform, and we hoped that users would experiment and engage with them. Unfortunately, after hosting them prominently on CourtListener for many years, they never gained traction, so we decided to deprecate them.

Will my visualizations be deleted?

We have no plans to do so at this time. If we consider doing that, we'll certainly be in touch.

Can I still make new ones?

Yes. The only way to do so is with the API, and you will have to embed the result on your website.