The Supreme Court of the United States, 1971-1972

IF THE HISTORIANS of the future set a "watershed" point between the "Warren Court" and the "Burger Court" the recent term of the Court undoubtedly will be a part of that dividing line. The close vote in a considerable number of cases was one indication of a transitional stage. Too, in this term the nature of a remarkable number of the cases supported the proposition that this is a public law court. Once again the Court operated without a full complement of justices for much of its term. The death of Associate Justice Hugo L. Black before the opening of the term and the retirement and later death of Associate Justice John M. Harlan left only seven justices participating in proceedings until Lewis F. Powell and William H. Rehnquist took the oath on January 7, 1972. Even then there was a period of abstention by them from voting and decisions because they had not been present for the oral arguments. As to the statistical "box score" for the term, the Court disposed of a total of 3,645 cases, a new all-time record. In the 1970-71 term it was 3,322 (as corrected in the publication of this year's statistics) and in the 1969-70 term the total was 3,409. The number of cases remaining on the docket declined slightly from the previous term's 890 to 888. Cases argued went to 176 (including one of original jurisdiction now pending) from the 151 and 144 respectively of the two previous terms. A rather dramatic increase came in the number of cases disposed of by signed opinions, 143 by 129 signed opinions compared with 126 by 109 signed opinions in the previous term. Per curiam opinions remained stable with 24 this term and 22 the previous term. Cases set for reargument this term were 5 compared with 3 in the 1970-71 term.