The Influence of Retirement on U.S. Supreme Court Justices : Opinion Regression to the Ideological Center

This paper examines the prevalent trend of the moderation of the opinions of members of the U.S. Supreme Court as they near retirement. Across a range of legal areas, the written opinions of both traditionally conservative and liberal justices regress toward the center of the political ideological spectrum in their final year on the bench. Using a database of all justices who have left the court since 1980, this paper assesses the accuracy of several methodologies to measure the ideology of judicial opinions. My analysis continues by comparing a justiceﾒs ideological stance during their career on the Supreme Court against an ideological assessment of the written opinions of that justice in their final year on the court. This paper suggests future research into the causal factors of the phenomenon of opinion moderation as a justice nears retirement