Justice Carol A. Corrigan by the numbers

Today, we're continuing our series of analytics-driven profiles of each justice of the California Supreme Court in order of length of service. Justice Carol A. Corrigan, our second subject, was sworn in on Jan. 4, 2006, after being appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Prior to joining the Supreme Court, Justice Corrigan had spent 12 years as an associate justice on the California Court of Appeal for the 1st District.

To date, Justice Corrigan has voted in 487 civil cases and 732 criminal, quasi-criminal, juvenile, disciplinary and mental health cases. She has written majority opinions in 71 civil cases -- 14.58% of the total number of cases she has participated in. Her busiest years were 2007 and 2017, when she wrote nine majority opinions apiece. Her lightest year was 2010, when she wrote only one majority opinion in a civil case. Justice Corrigan has written 116 majority opinions in criminal cases, or 15.85% of her total cases. Her busiest year was 2009, when she wrote 13 majority opinions, and her lightest year was 2006, when she wrote only three.

Justice Corrigan has written very few concurrences -- seven in civil cases and 10 in criminal cases. She has written 15 dissents in civil cases and 14 dissents in criminal cases.

Justice Corrigan has written an opinion in 19 civil procedure cases, 14 of them majority opinions. She has written in 16 cases involving issues of administrative law, 14 of them majorities. She has written in 13 tort cases, eight of them majority opinions. She has written opinions in eight constitutional and eight environmental law cases -- four of the con law cases and 6 of the environmental cases being majority opinions. She has written six opinions on arbitration law, only two of them majorities. She has written in five employment law cases, four tax law cases, three wills and estates and three contract law cases (all five employment and four tax cases were majorities, plus two wills and estates and two contract law cases). She has written one majority opinion each in domestic relations, election and insurance law.

Fifty-two of Justice Corrigan's 71 majority opinions in civil cases were in unanimous decisions. Nine of her majorities were in 6-1 decisions, eight opinions were 5-2 cases and two were in 4-3 decisions. Of Justice Corrigan's concurrences, two were in seven-vote majorities, two were in 6-1 decisions and one was in a 5-2 decision. In civil cases, Justice Corrigan's relatively few dissents have not typically been "out on a limb" views. She has written only one dissent in a 6-1 decision, seven in 5-2 decisions and six in 4-3 decisions.

The unanimity rate on the Supreme Court during Justice Corrigan's tenure has been quite consistent. Between 2006 and 2010, the unanimity rate in civil cases was 73.62%. Between 2011 and 2015, it was 76.71% and for 2016 through 2019, it's been 80.65%. Last time, we argued that the best measure of a justice's philosophical alignment with the rest of the Supreme Court was measuring her or his agreement rate with the majority. Throughout her tenure, Justice Corrigan has virtually always been in the majority in civil cases. Between 2006 and 2010, she joined the majority in 93.61% of cases. Between 2011 and 2015, she did so 94.48% of the time, and between 2016 and 2019, she has been in the majority in 92.68% of civil cases.

Between 2006 and 2010, 78.98% of the Supreme Court's criminal decisions have been unanimous. During those years, Justice Corrigan voted with the majority in 98.34% of the criminal cases she participated in. From 2011 to 2015, 79.78% of the court's decisions were unanimous. Justice Corrigan voted with the majority in 98.55% of criminal cases. From 2016 to date in 2019, 76.79% of the court's criminal decisions were decided 7-0. Justice Corrigan has joined the majority in 95.21% of her criminal cases.

Justice Corrigan has written an opinion in 140 of the 732 criminal cases in which she has participated. She has written an opinion in 45 death penalty cases -- 41 of them majority opinions. She has written opinions in 21 sentencing cases including 16 majority opinions. Justice Corrigan has written opinions in 20 criminal procedure cases including 19 majorities. She has written 17 opinions on constitutional law, including 11 majority opinions. She has written opinions in 13 cases involving issues of violent crimes, including 10 majorities. Justice Corrigan has written opinions in 10 juvenile crime cases, seven habeas corpus cases, five cases involving sexual offenses and two cases about political crimes. Of those cases, Justice Corrigan has written 10 majority opinions in juvenile law, three in habeas corpus cases, four involving sexual offenses and two involving criminal offenses. Finally, Justice Corrigan has written one majority opinion involving property crimes, one involving drug offenses and 1 involving attorney discipline and fitness.

Eighty-eight of Justice Corrigan's majority opinions in criminal cases have been unanimous decisions. Only six of her criminal majority opinions have been in 4-3 decisions. Nine of her concurrences in criminal cases have been in unanimous decisions. Seven of Justice Corrigan's dissents in criminal cases were from 5-2 decisions and seven were in 4-3 cases.

Given her extremely high rates throughout her tenure of voting with the majority, which justices have most closely matched Justice Corrigan's voting patterns? To calculate agreement rates, we extract the Supreme Court's non-unanimous decisions on both the civil and criminal sides. We do this because, given the very high unanimity rate which the court nearly always maintains, overall agreement rates would be significantly higher and differences among the justices would be more difficult to discern.

Note one further point. In our politically charged society, occasional writers about the appellate courts too often speak of voting patterns as if Republican and Democratic appointees are perpetually at loggerheads. But note how often the agreement rates between Justice Corrigan, a Republican appointee who is at least moderately conservative on many issues and several of Gov. Brown's appointees are as high as two-thirds or even a bit more. These numbers aren't inflated by including unanimous decisions -- these are cases where at least one of the justices' colleagues disagreed with the majority.

During her first two years, Justice Corrigan agreed with Justice Ming Chin in civil cases 81.82% of the time. Her agreement rate with Justice Marvin Baxter was 75.76%, and she agreed with the pro tems three-quarters of the time. Justice Corrigan voted with Chief Justice Ronald George in 62.5% of non-unanimous civil decisions. Justice Corrigan voted with Justice Carlos Moreno 54.55% of the time, with Justice Kathryn Werdegar 53.33% of the time, and with Justice Joyce Kennard only 36.36% of the time.

Not surprisingly, from 2008 to 2013, Justice Corrigan's closest matches were other Republican appointees. She agreed with Justice Chin in 88.89% of non-unanimous civil cases, with Justice Baxter in 80%, with Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye in 77.78% of cases and with Chief Justice George two-thirds of the time. Justice Corrigan agreed with Justice Werdegar in 57.78% of non-unanimous civil cases, with Justice Kennard 37.78% of the time, and with Justice Moreno in 42.86% of cases. Curiously, Justice Goodwin Liu was among Justice Corrigan's highest agreement rates between 2008 and 2013 -- 73.33%.

Between 2014 and 2018, Justice Corrigan agreed with Justice Baxter in 85.71% of non-unanimous civil cases. She has agreed with the chief justice in 79.41% of cases, with Justice Leondra Kruger in 67.86% and with Justice Chin in 67.65%. Her agreement rate with Justice Werdegar was 65.63%. Justice Corrigan's agreement rate with Justices Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar and Liu is 57.14%.

On the criminal side of the docket, Justice Corrigan's agreement rate in 2006 and 2007 was 92.31% with Justice Chin and 92% with Justice Baxter. Justice Corrigan voted with Chief Justice George in 88.46% of non-unanimous civil cases. Justice Corrigan's agreement rate with Justice Werdegar was 73.08%. Her rate was 65.38% with Justices Moreno and Kennard. Between 2008 and 2013, she agreed with pro tem justices in 92.86% of cases. Otherwise, she remained relatively close to the conservative wing of the Court, with an agreement rate of 88.24% with Chief Justice George, 87.5% with Justice Baxter, 84.85% with Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye and 84.72% with Justice Chin. Justice Corrigan agreed with Justice Liu in 70.83% of non-unanimous criminal cases, and with Justice Werdegar in 65.28%. The agreement rate between Justices Corrigan and Moreno was 50%, and her rate with Justice Kennard was 40.85%.

Between 2014 and 2018, Justice Corrigan's highest agreement rates were with Justices Baxter and Kennard, who cast a limited number of votes in the period before retiring, agreeing with Justice Corrigan each time. Among justices who have served the entire period, Justice Corrigan's highest agreement rate was with the chief justice -- 85.71%. Justice Corrigan has agreed with Justice Chin in 83.67% of non-unanimous civil cases, and with Justice Kruger in 72.97%. Justice Corrigan and Justice Werdegar had an agreement rate of 65.71%. She agreed with the pro tems in only 62.5%. Her agreement rate with Justice Liu was 62.5% and was 62.16% with Justice Cuéllar.

The Supreme Court began posting videos of its oral arguments in mid-2016, so let's conclude with a brief review of oral arguments in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Looking at the entire docket, Justice Corrigan is not an especially active questioner in civil cases, averaging 4.61 questions of appellants to 3.54 of appellees in 2017, 3.06 (appellants) to 2.18 (appellees) in 2018 and 4.07 questions of appellants to date in 2019 to 2.31 of appellees. She is generally a more active questioner in criminal cases, although this year, she has been somewhat less so. Voting with the majority in a civil affirmance, Justice Corrigan averaged 8.67 questions of appellants and 1.73 of appellees in 2017. In 2018, she averaged 2.15 questions of appellants and only 0.21 of appellees. This year so far, she's averaged six questions of appellants and only 2.5 of appellees. Justice Corrigan's patterns when joining a civil reversal have been slightly less consistent. In 2017, she more heavily questioned the (losing) appellees, 4.57 to 2.10. To date in 2019, she averaged 1.6 questions to appellants and 2.4 to appellees. In 2018, Justice Corrigan averaged 4.2 questions to appellants in reversals to 3.67 to appellees.

Turning to the criminal side, we find the same pattern. When joining the majority in a criminal affirmance, she averaged 9.14 questions to appellants in 2017, 6.4 in 2018 and 7.22 in 2019. She averaged 4.68 questions to appellees in 2017, 1.36 in 2018 and 1.11 in 2019.

But when in the majority of a reversal, so far in 2019, Justice Corrigan has averaged 3.77 questions to appellants and only two to appellees. In 2017, she averaged 7.18 questions to appellees in reversals and 5.76 to appellants. In 2018, she averaged 5.28 questions to appellees and 3.56 to appellants.

The data set of cases in which Justice Corrigan dissented is too limited for reliable conclusions, but it suggests that she tends to question the party she is voting against more heavily rather than the party which will lose the case, especially in criminal cases. In 2018, when in the minority of an affirmance, Justice Corrigan asked 18 questions of appellees to only one to appellants. The previous year, when dissenting from a reversal, she averaged 28 questions to appellants to only 4.5 to appellees.

It's striking how much Justice Corrigan's record has in common with Justice Chin's. We concluded our profile of Justice Chin by commenting on how often he votes with the majority, but Justice Corrigan's majority rate is slightly higher. Like Justice Chin, Justice Corrigan tends to file dissents in closely divided cases when one or two votes might change the result, not 6-1 decisions. Although Justice Corrigan most often has voted with Justices Chin and Baxter, she nearly as often votes with Gov. Brown's appointees, even in divided cases -- a tribute to the Supreme Court's unity. 