FantasySCOTUS: The Majority Shall Reign Supreme

Ed. note: ATL has teamed up with the 10th Justice to predict how the Supreme Court may decide upcoming cases. CNN has called FantasySCOTUS the “hottest new fantasy-league game.”
In this installment, we will consider which Justices will be found in the majority and which ones will be in the minority. Using the results from Citizens United, we will consider four of the biggest pending cases for this term, Quon, Christian Legal Society, McDonald, and Comstock, to show how predictions sort the Justices into majority and minority votes.


A majority ratio is calculated by dividing the number of predictions placing the Justice in the majority by the number of predictions placing the Justice in the minority. Using majority predictions over minority predictions allows us to state that for every prediction of a justice being in the minority, they will be predicted to be in the majority X times, which follows a standard statement of odds. For example, a ratio of 2 would indicate that the Justice is predicted to be in the majority two times for every one time they are predicted in the minority (2 Majority / 1 Minority). Conversely, a majority ratio of .5 would indicate that they are predicted to be in the majority once for every two minority predictions (1 Majority / 2 Minority). A majority ratio of 1 indicates that the Justice is predicted equally in the majority and the minority. The ratio is bounded on the lower end by 0, in the event the Justice is never in the majority. The ratio is bounded on the upper end by infinity, in the event the Justice is always in the majority. Try as he may, not even Justice Kennedy can achieve this lofty bound.
In Citizens United, the majority ratios are as follows:

Kennedy has the highest ratio at 7.01 (meaning for each minority prediction, he received 7 majority predictions. Roberts was next with 5.52, with Thomas, Scalia, and Alito coming in just under 4. It is obvious that predictions were made based on ideological blocs, since the liberal justices were predicted to be in the minority nearly twice as often as they were predicted in the majority. In this case, none of their ratios even approached 1, so there was no ambivalence about the Justices’ position. Based on the prediction information, we can also generate a second benchmark by multiplying the affirm/reversal percentages and the total number of votes, and using those results to create a majority ratio for comparison.
Multiplying the 908 total predictions by 62%, the percent of predictions for reversal, yields a numerator of 563. Multiplying the total predictions by 38%, the percent of predictions for affirmance, yields a denominator of 345. Dividing the numerator by the denominator would yield a ratio of 1.63. This is the reverse ratio, indicating the Justices in favor of reversal. Swapping the numerator and denominator yields a ratio of .61. This is the affirmance ratio, indicating the Justices in favor of affirming. As seen in Citizens, only the liberal Justices approached the comparison point, indicating that they were perceived as less likely to move out (or “defect”) of the minority, while the conservative Justices were more likely to join in with others in the majority.
How likely are each of the Justices to vote in Quon, Christian Legal Society, McDonald, and Comstock?

Predictions of the 10th Justice, after the jump.

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