Amicus Curiae Briefs In The United States Supreme Court

The purpose of this research is to analyze and develop a narrative describing the relationships between amicus curiae briefs submitted to the United States Supreme Court, the opinions of the justices, and the outcome of the case. The Supreme Court cases selected for the statistical analysis come from the Washington University Law School’s “Supreme Court Database” to narrow the results to cases relevant to state issues. Supreme Court cases included in the case study section of this report have unique or special characteristics that set them apart from other cases. Through our research, we gauged the ideological leanings of groups that submitted briefs to the Supreme Court and compared them to the ideologies of Supreme Court justices who wrote the opinions of the respective cases. We concluded that, in most cases, there is evidence that amicus briefs have a significant impact on the outcome of a case and that the ideology of the groups is the same as the justice that is referencing them.