A plurality decision is a court decision in which no opinion received the support of a majority of the judges.
26-553: Plurality may refer to: [REDACTED] Look up plurality in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Law and politics [ edit ] Plurality decision , in a decision by a multi-member court, an opinion held by more judges than any other but not by an overall majority Plurality (voting) , when a candidate or proposition polls more votes than any other but does not receive more than half of all votes cast Plurality voting ,
52-460: A court . A majority opinion sets forth the decision of the court and an explanation of the rationale behind the court's decision. Not all cases have a majority opinion. At times, the justices voting for a majority decision (e.g., to affirm or reverse the lower court's decision) may have drastically different reasons for their votes, and cannot agree on the same set of reasons. In that situation, several concurring opinions may be written, none of which
78-417: A persuasive authority when arguing that the court's holding should be limited or overturned. In some cases, a previous dissent is used to spur a change in the law, and a later case will write a majority opinion for the same rule of law formerly cited by the dissent. The dissent may disagree with the majority for any number of reasons: a different interpretation of the case law, use of different principles, or
104-454: A 2021 Taiwanese psychological thriller film See also [ edit ] All pages with titles beginning with Plurality Multiplicity (disambiguation) Plurality of worlds (disambiguation) Pluralism (disambiguation) Plural Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Plurality . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change
130-430: A bench opinion may be handed down, with the judge or panel of judges indicating their decision and a rough explanation of the reasoning underlying it. A slip opinion may also be issued the day the decision is handed down, and is usually not typeset or fully formatted. It is not the final or most authoritative version, being subject to further revision before being replaced with a final published edition. The Supreme Court of
156-475: A case should be viewed where there is no majority supporting the rationale of any opinion: "When a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds." That requires lower courts to look at all opinions to determine which
182-400: A different interpretation of the facts. They are written at the same time as the majority opinion, and are often used to dispute the reasoning behind the majority opinion. Normally, appellate courts (or panels) are staffed with an odd number of judges to avoid a tie. Sometimes when judicial positions are vacant or a judge has recused himself or herself from the case, the court may be stuck with
208-402: A particular case. Depending upon local court rules, citation of the opinion as case law may not be accepted. A memorandum opinion may be issued where the law is so clearly defined that no purpose would be served by issuing an explanation as to why the law requires a certain disposition of the case before the court. In appellate courts, a memorandum opinion may indicate that the judges hearing
234-583: A plurality opinion can be found in the Supreme Court's decision in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board , 553 U.S. 181 (2008). In considering whether Indiana's voter identification law passed constitutional muster, three justices believed the proper analysis was to apply the balancing approach laid down in Anderson v. Celebrezze , 460 U.S. 780 (1983). Three other justices agreed with the outcome of
260-550: A system in which each voter votes for one candidate and the candidate with a plurality is elected Psychology and psychiatry [ edit ] Multiplicity (psychology) , also known as plurality, a psychological condition where multiple personalities form within an individual Dissociative identity disorder , dissociative disorder associated with plurality Other specified dissociative disorder , psychiatric diagnosis associated with plurality Philosophy and religion [ edit ] Plurality (church governance) ,
286-473: A tie, in which case the lower court's decision will be affirmed without comment by an equally divided court. A per curiam decision is one rendered by the court (or at least, a majority of the court) acting collectively and anonymously. In contrast to regular opinions, a per curiam does not list the individual judge responsible for authoring the decision, but minority dissenting and concurring decisions are signed. A majority opinion in countries which use
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#1732772159450312-558: A type of Christian church polity in which decisions are made by a committee Plurality of benefices , the holding of two different benefices simultaneously Plurality of gods , an understanding of God in Mormonism Plurality, one of the "twelve pure concepts of the understanding" proposed by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason Ontological pluralism Other uses [ edit ] Plurality (company) , an Israeli semiconductor company Plurality (film) ,
338-410: Is a conflict, the opinion based on the narrowest ground governs. Followers of the second rationale would find the concurring opinion offering the narrowest analysis to be the holding. Whereas, under the third interpretation, only the rationale(s) common to all concurring opinions which arrive at the same result(s) (and to the exclusion of all other rationales) is considered the holding. A good example of
364-456: Is actually the view of a majority of the members of the court. Therefore, the concurring opinion joined by the greatest number of judges is referred to as the plurality opinion . A dissenting opinion (or dissent) is an opinion written by one or more judges expressing disagreement with the majority opinion. A dissenting opinion does not create binding precedent nor does it become a part of case law . However, they are cited from time to time as
390-403: Is the most narrow compared to others. This opinion will be called the controlling opinion , and can be a mere concurrence, not the plurality. The Marks Rule has raised the following schools of thought regarding the appropriate basis for determining the holding in such fractured cases: (a) the narrowest analysis essential to the result derived from a combination of all concurring opinions, (b)
416-524: The Anderson approach, but believed the proper analysis was to apply the rule in Burdick v. Takushi , 504 U.S. 428 (1992), which "forged Anderson' s amorphous 'flexible standard' into something resembling an administrable rule". Regardless of the approach used, a reading of the opinions together results in a holding that "neutral, nondiscriminatory regulation of voting procedure" is constitutional so long as
442-531: The common law system becomes part of the body of case law . Such decisions can usually be cited as precedent by later courts. In some courts, such as the Supreme Court of the United States , the majority opinion may be broken down into numbered or lettered sections. This allows judges who write an opinion "concurring in part" or " dissenting in part" to easily identify which parts they join with
468-414: The United States issues slip opinions with the following disclaimer: The "slip" opinion is the second version of an opinion. It is sent to the printer later in the day on which the "bench" opinion is released by the Court. Each slip opinion has the same elements as the bench opinion—majority or plurality opinion, concurrences or dissents, and a prefatory syllabus—but may contain corrections not appearing in
494-423: The appeal find no error in the opinion being appealed to be worthy of comment. An advisory opinion or certified question are those issued by a court or administrative body or panel that do not dispose of a particular case. They often address a general issue or matter, or are issued in a case that is being heard outside their jurisdiction. They are not issued for the purposes of deciding a particular case before
520-426: The bench opinion. Caution: These electronic opinions may contain computer-generated errors or other deviations from the official printed slip opinion pamphlets. Moreover, a slip opinion is replaced within a few months by a paginated version of the case in the preliminary print, and—one year after the issuance of that print—by the final version of the case in a U. S. Reports bound volume. In case of discrepancies between
546-474: The burden imposed by the regulation is minimal or not severe. Judicial opinion A judicial opinion is a form of legal opinion written by a judge or a judicial panel in the course of resolving a legal dispute, providing the decision reached to resolve the dispute, and usually indicating the facts which led to the dispute and an analysis of the law used to arrive at the decision. An opinion may be released in several stages of completeness. First,
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#1732772159450572-399: The concurring opinion offering the narrowest rationale, or (c) only those parts of the concurring opinions which overlap and arrive at the same result. For example, if one follows the first interpretation, then the holding in the case should be viewed as the narrowest rationale supported by all of the concurring opinions read together as though it were a single majority opinion, and where there
598-444: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plurality&oldid=1241103855 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Plurality decision A plurality opinion is the judicial opinion or opinions which received
624-399: The majority, and which sections they do not. Opinions may also be issued in ways that limit the amount of authority that they have as precedents for future cases. In United States legal practice , a memorandum opinion (or memorandum decision) is an opinion that does not create precedent of any kind in some jurisdictions. A memorandum is often brief and written only to announce judgment in
650-406: The most support among those opinions which supported the plurality decision. The plurality opinion did not receive the support of more than half the justices, but still received more support than any other opinion, excluding those justices dissenting from the holding of the court. In Marks v. United States , 430 U.S. 188 (1977), the Supreme Court of the United States explained how the holding of
676-405: The print and electronic versions of a slip opinion, the print version controls. In case of discrepancies between the slip opinion and any later official version of the opinion, the later version controls. A unanimous opinion is one in which all of the justices agree and offer one rationale for their decision. A majority opinion is a judicial opinion agreed to by more than half of the members of
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