Quantitative Analysis of a Judicial Career:A Case Study of Judge John Minor Wisdom

A. Z. Handford, a Negro, was tried in the Thomasville Division of the District Court for the Middle District of Georgia on a one-count indictment for illegal possession of nontaxpaid whiskey, in violation of 26 U.S.C. 5008(b)(1) and 5642. He was found guilty and sentenced to two years imprisonment. Appellant specifies as errors: '(1) the evidence does not support the verdict, and the motion for judgment of acquittal should have been granted; (2) because of the prejudicial and inflammatory argument of the district attorney, a new trial should be granted.' The alleged `prejudicial and inflammatory argument' consisted of (a) an appeal to racial prejudice and (b) argument that too many of the prosecutor's friends and friends' children get run over up and down the highways. A United States district attorney carries a double burden. He owes an obligation to the government, just as any attorney owes an obligation to his client, to conduct his case zealously. But he must remember also that he is the representative of a government dedicated to fairness and equal justice to all and, in this respect, he owes a heavy obligation to the accused. Such representation imposes an overriding obligation of fairness so important that Anglo-American criminal law rests on the foundation: better the guilty escape than the innocent suffer. In this case zeal outran fairness. The argument of the United States attorney in the district court was improper, prejudicial, and constituted reversible error.' With these words, released on November 13, 1957, John Minor Wis-, dom began one of America's outstanding judicial careers. Since that time, he has written nearly 1,400 signed, published opinions, published over a span of more than 800 of the 1300 volumes of the Federal Reporter. It is fitting that the first page of his first published opinion sounded themes that have featured prominently in those opinions: fairness, equal justice, and, so often, the problems of race. Judge Wisdom's judicial career now sits in my computer. My computer's hard drive contains every published judicial opinion he has signed, from November 13, 1957 through the end of 1995, along with records of the citations to his opinions by the courts and law review articles. Such a distinguished career is not easily compassed - it consumes about 60 megabytes of memory. But it is all there. Of course, it is not really there. Virtual reality is not reality. My carefully constructed, computerized record of Judge Wisdom's career is a colorless and distorted reflection of the real career, the real judge, and the real man. The career is a model of hard work, intelligence, and courage - in practice, in politics, and on the federal bench. The judge is a Solomon equipped with rigorous analysis, profound scholarship, and sparkling prose. The man, with his kindness, humor, and humanity, is an inspiration. Judge Wisdom and his indispensable partner, Bonnie Wisdom, have been parents, uncle and aunt, grandparents, advisors, and friends to more than ninety law clerks now, including, to my great good fortune, myself. Like them all, I am honored to have known the Wisdoms. My computer knows nothing of these things. But can my computer help us learn anything new and interesting about his real career? I believe it can. This article explores the kinds of questions about judicial careers we can approach by using computer data-bases, with the opinions that make up Judge Wisdom's career as a "case" study. Specifically, I have downloaded full-text versions of all of Judge Wisdom's roughly 1400 reported opinions2 and have searched judicial opinion citators and law review databases for citations to those opinions. I searched the full text opinions for certain trends in his writing; I examined the citations for evidence of his influence. I conclude that these kinds of analyses can tell us some things about judges. The analysis of citations, in particular, has value for indicating the importance of a judge's reported decisions relative to each other and the influence of his opinions over time. …