Criminal procedure: how each Justice has voted
Searches and seizures, confessions and Miranda, self-incrimination, right to counsel and jury trial. 890 cases since 1946 in the Supreme Court Database (plus OT2025 from our records). The chart shows each sitting Justice's share of votes on the liberal side over a rolling three-term window; gaps mean too few votes.
- Possible shift: Clarence Thomas voted more conservatively relative to the Court in OT2008–OT2025 (lean -0.29, 106 votes) than in OT1991–OT2007 (lean -0.16, 102 votes); p = 0.0254, q = 0.4056 after correcting for multiple tests — not significant after that correction.
- Possible shift: Samuel A. Alito Jr. voted more conservatively relative to the Court in OT2015–OT2025 (lean -0.41, 41 votes) than in OT2005–OT2014 (lean -0.16, 76 votes); p = 0.0038, q = 0.1368 after correcting for multiple tests — not significant after that correction.
first vs second half of tenure, relative lean, permutation test; shift if Benjamini-Hochberg q < 0.1 across all tests; >= 12 votes in each half, >= 6 terms. "Lean" compares each vote with the Court's majority in the same case (+ more liberal, − more conservative), so it is not driven by which cases the Court chose to hear. Justices with short tenures or few votes on an issue are not tested.
| Justice | Votes | Liberal side | Lean vs Court | Opinions written |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sonia Sotomayor | 95 | 68% | +0.18 | 21 |
| Elena Kagan | 80 | 64% | +0.10 | 14 |
| Ketanji Brown Jackson | 11 | 55% | 0.00 | 5 |
| John G. Roberts Jr. | 119 | 36% | -0.09 | 18 |
| Brett M. Kavanaugh | 21 | 52% | -0.10 | 6 |
| Amy Coney Barrett | 14 | 36% | -0.21 | 3 |
| Clarence Thomas | 208 | 19% | -0.23 | 54 |
| Neil M. Gorsuch | 25 | 44% | -0.24 | 9 |
| Samuel A. Alito Jr. | 117 | 21% | -0.25 | 42 |
Source: Supreme Court Database (Spaeth et al.) votes through OT2024; OT2025 from our decision records. Direction coding follows the Supreme Court Database, which classifies, e.g., pro-defendant, pro-civil-liberties and pro-regulation outcomes as liberal; it is a convention, not a judgment.