Conflict and its resolution in the Supreme Court.

The article discusses conflict and its resolution in the Supreme Court. Behavior of Supreme Court justices indicating conflict and its resolution constitutes a significant sector of activity that is called law in action. It is surprising that the subject has received little scholarly attention. The main reason for this, apparently, is that only a few persons are in a position directly to observe decision-making in the Courts--the justices themselves and to some extent their law clerks and a few others--and they are not inclined to write about it, at least not systematically. Conflict in the Supreme Court is inevitable as the justices attempt to fulfill their primary political role--the settlement of disputes brought before them. It is due largely to the kinds of cases that come to the Court, those for which legal guidelines are unclear and those which involve basic societal conflicts. Such cases make the justices' values salient in decision-making, and therefore value disparity is a major source of intracourt conflict. Another major source is disparity of conceptions of the basic judicial role. Other sources of conflict include the justices' personalities.