What happens when the United States Supreme Court hands down a decision without a clear rationale behind it? In Matthew Hitt’s new book, he admirably undertakes an examination of these types of decisions, which he calls “unreasoned judgments,” explaining not only the circumstances under which the Court makes these judgments but also their impact on lower federal courts, Congress, and the public.

The main contribution of the book is that it addresses an important and interesting question comprehensively and systematically. The book is empirically sophisticated, testing theoretical predictions with analytic rigor. In the preface, Hitt argues that a well-functioning constitutional court should be both decisive and consistent; however, he asserts that these goals seem to conflict: a “court that prioritizes decisiveness will generate more unreasoned outcomes as it resolves to tackle complex but important cases. And a court that maximizes the logical consistency of its opinions will inevitably avoid … some of those complex but important cases” (pp. xxiii–xxiv). The author defines a consistent judgment as one that is supported by reasoning, which itself is supported by a majority of justices on the Court.

In the first chapter, the author presents his theory for unreasoned judgments, which includes four conditions (the last condition is for plurality decisions only): jurisdiction, case characteristics, preference, and doctrinal. Hitt argues that unreasoned judgments are more likely in cases with mandatory jurisdiction, complex cases, cases in which the justices deviate from unidimensional alignment, and cases in which “the justices’ preferences over long-run doctrine outweigh their concerns over the consistency of the immediate judgment” (p. 15). In chapter 2, the author provides his definition for unreasoned judgments, which include not only plurality decisions—which are decisions where “a majority of justices agree on a judgment but write several separate opinions, none of which carries a majority” (p. 28)—but also certain per curiam decisions, which other studies have not examined. Although earlier literature has focused on plurality opinions, Hitt argues that certain per curiam decisions are also unreasoned judgments: “The brevity of the reasoning in these cases makes it difficult to ascertain what legal rationale was applied in the case and how lower courts ought to deal with similar disputes” (p. 26). Per curiam opinions have not received sufficient attention by scholars, and thus understanding these decisions and differentiating among them are essential to understanding Supreme Court decision making, the importance of the content of opinions, and their impact. Hitt includes per curiam decisions “issued after oral argument and which are accompanied by at least one separate opinion” (p. 32) as unreasoned judgments, recognizing that not all per curiam opinions are alike and that some are actually easy cases, but that if the case was orally argued and resulted in a separate opinion, it is not an easy one.

This is a novel measurement strategy, and Hitt convincingly validates these opinions as not easy ones. However, it is not entirely clear what these cases look like, given an example Hitt provides, which is a one-line per curiam decision (Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association) that was not accompanied by a separate opinion (p. 26). The author also mentions Bush v. Gore, which is obviously a very different per curiam opinion from Friedrichs, and brevity is not the problem in that case. And if it is brevity that is the problem, the author could have included additional information about these opinions, such as the number of words or the number of precedents cited and compared that to consistent judgments. In short, the reader would benefit from a more thorough discussion of these types of per curiam opinions.

Chapter 3 provides the reader with an empirical test for Hitt’s theory of inconsistency: he finds support for many of his hypotheses. For example, the author finds that the Court is less likely to issue an unreasoned judgment when there is a circuit split, but is more likely to do so when it strikes down an act of Congress or when the voting coalition is disordered.

Hitt then investigates the frequency of inconsistency over time in chapter 4: he finds that after 1988, when the Court had almost complete discretion over its docket, both the rate and incidence of unreasoned judgment decreased. This made me wonder whether the change in the number of law clerks over time has had an impact as well. Ultimately, Hitt concludes, “Agenda control reduces the probability that the Supreme Court will produce an inconsistent decision, but the mechanism by which this result is achieved seems to be that the Court may simply avoid cases that are potentially problematic” (p. 82).

In chapters 5–7, Hitt examines the impact of unreasoned judgments. Chapter 5 addresses how lower federal courts treat unreasoned judgments; Hitt includes both district courts and circuit courts of appeal, which previous studies have not done. Hitt finds that federal judges cite and positively treat unreasoned judgments less frequently than other opinions, but that lower federal judges do not criticize unreasoned judgments any more frequently than consistent opinions. Chapter 6 analyzes the response of Congress to unreasoned judgments, whereas chapter 7 examines the response of the public via a survey experiment. Congress does not appear to respond to unreasoned judgments with an increase in criticism of the Court and neither does the public, with the exception of individuals who do not know much about the Court. Hitt also finds that the Court does not appear to damage the public’s acceptance of its decisions or its institutional loyalty when it issues an unreasoned judgment; however, the Court can damage trust in government, but only among individuals with a lower knowledge of politics or the Court.

Hitt concludes his book with a discussion of whether we need a new “inferior” court, arguing that no one court is capable of simultaneously fulfilling both goals of resolving conflict decisively and providing clear and logical reasons for its decisions. He ultimately concludes that “reducing inconsistency at the Supreme Court level through enhanced agenda control likely facilitated more systematic uncertainties in the form of unresolved conflicts. Given the limited societal consequences of unreasoned judgments, this trade-off therefore may have left the state of American government worse off than it was in a more decisive era” (p. 157). Inconsistency and Indecision is a valuable contribution to the field, representing a significant advance in our understanding of Supreme Court decision making and of the impact those decisions have on lower courts, Congress, and the public.