Has the roberts supreme court overturned more decisions than prior supreme courts?
Executive summary
The Roberts Court has overturned notable precedents — including high-profile rulings like Roe — but whether it has overturned more decisions than prior courts depends on how “overturned” is measured; by one academic count the court has overruled precedent about 1.5 times per term, lower than the 2.9-term average before Roberts, though other tallies highlight dozens of major precedent changes under his tenure [1] [2].
1. What the numbers people cite actually measure
Counting “overturns” is not a single metric: some reporters and scholars count only instances where the Supreme Court itself expressly overruled a prior Supreme Court precedent, while others tally any time the Court reverses a lower-court decision or alters doctrinal lines; Washington University data compiled in Law360 tallied 21 Roberts-era decisions that altered or overruled identifiable precedents [2], while Ballotpedia reports that the Roberts Court reversed lower courts in 938 of roughly 1,313 opinions through 2022 — a common practice but a different thing than overturning Supreme Court precedent [3].
2. Per-term comparisons: Roberts has altered precedent less often than some earlier eras
Academic analysis cited by Constitutional Accountability Center and other outlets shows the Roberts Court overruled precedent an average of about 1.5 times per term through a recent term, compared with roughly 2.9 times per term in the era stretching back to 1953 — a direct per-term comparison that indicates Roberts’s Court has not, on average, overturned precedent more frequently than prior courts [1].
3. High‑profile reversals drive public perception
Despite a lower per-term average, a string of consequential reversals — Dobbs (overturning Roe), Janus, and others — has amplified the perception that the Court is unusually willing to upend settled law; reporting and analyses note that a handful of these case outcomes, and the Court’s use of the emergency (“shadow”) docket to intervene, have produced outsized political and media attention that shapes public views independent of raw counts [4] [5].
4. Institutional patterns and partisan readings complicate conclusions
Observers differ on causes: some scholars and outlets emphasize that the Roberts Court’s conservative majority and docket choices explain its willingness to revisit precedent in specific areas, while defenders point to judicial restraint and doctrinal reasoning in many decisions; critics and advocacy groups argue Roberts often votes to overturn precedent in ideologically charged 5–4 cases, a claim advanced in partisan critiques though contested in broader empirical work [6] [7] [2].
5. Limits of available reporting and what remains unresolved
Public sources offer snapshots and competing tallies but no universally accepted, apples‑to‑apples catalog comparing every modern chief-justice era by a single definition of “overturn”; available empirical work indicates the Roberts Court has altered precedent in dozens of high-profile cases (Law360’s 21 count) even as its per-term rate of overruling is lower than the mid-20th-century average [2] [1]. SCOTUSBlog underscores that stare decisis is a nuanced doctrine and that the Court’s reasoning — not just the count — matters to legal stability debates [8].
Bottom line
Measured by the best-available per-term academic comparison, the Roberts Court has not overturned Supreme Court precedent more frequently than prior courts going back to 1953; measured by the public salience and number of consequential precedent changes, it has been unusually prominent and active, producing a perception of more frequent overruling that is reinforced by the emergency-docket interventions and several marquee reversals [1] [5] [2].