Interesting points: (1) Stare Decisis. Based on confirmation hearings comments, the study found Chief Justice Rehnquist had the "least commitment to precedent" and Justice Scalia and Ginsburg had the most. But in actual practice, it was the "conservative" Justices, Thomas, Scalia, Kennedy, Rehnquist and O'Connor, who were the most likely to alter precedent than the four "moderate/liberal" Justices: Breyer, Ginsburg, Stevens and Souter. Of the "conservative" Justices, Thomas led the pack with 23 out of 535 votes to alter precedent. Only O'Connor, Breyer and Ginsburg voted as their confirmation hearing statements indicated they would. (2) In the arena of criminal defendants' rights, the study examined whether those who expressed a strong preference for protecting criminal defendants' rights (such as Miranda, the exclusionary rule, etc.) were more likely to vote to protect criminal defendants. During confirmation hearings, O'Connor, Rehnquist and Kennedy appeared to have the least commitment to criminal defendants' rights, while Ginsberg, Stevens and Thomas appeared to have the most. In practice however, Thomas, Rehnquist and Scalia voted against the criminal defendant over 75% of the time. Justices Kennedy and O'Connor voted against the criminal defendant 68.7% and 66.4% of the time respectively. And Justice Stevens voted for the criminal defendant in 72.9% of the cases examined. The correlation between the Justices' comments at hearings and their voting record in the area of criminal rights was the strongest of the first three categories examined. Seven out of Nine Justices' voting decisions were in line with the statements made during confirmation. (3) Legislative history. The study's authors - Jason J. Czarnezki, William K. Ford, and Lori A. Ringhand - examined Justices' opinions as to the use of legislative history (with the exceptions of Kennedy and Stevens who were not questioned on legislative history during confirmation), and compared it to Justices' use of legislative history in his or her opinions. As the authors predicted from the comments made during confirmation, O'Connor was the most frequent user of legislative history. Justice Scalia was the least likely to use legislative history. The authors were surprised to find however, that while Justice Thomas had indicated he might accept particular forms of legislative history during his hearings, he cited to legislative history in only 17% of his opinions. The study concludes by stating that confirmation hearings have provided very little substantive information as to the nominee's future judicial behavior. The authors recommend that to fix this, Senators should focus on specific issues and refrain from asking "Big Picture" questions that allow nominees to offer vague responses. After reading the study I found it interesting that the authors used the phrase "altered precedent" to describe how the "conservative" Justices (Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justices Scalia, O'Connor, Kennedy and Thomas) had voted. I would be curious to know how many of the votes to overturn or "alter" precedent were cast to overturn decisions of the more liberal Burger and Warren Courts.