While justices have considerable discretion in the picking and choosing between cases in the creation of their agenda, how much discretion do they exercise in the picking and choosing between the issues that were presented by the parties, or even in developing new issues? Given the Warren Court's reputation for articulating broad rules that went beyond the particular circumstances of an individual case, especially in the area of civil rights and liberties, we would expect that this issue fluidity, particulary the expansion of issues, occurred with some frequency during this era. With an analysis of a random sample of 200 cases from the Warren Court, I found that the justices developed new issues in about one-fourth of all cases, while they suppressed issues that had been fully briefed and argued in over half of all cases. In addition, surprisingly, the Warren Court tended to suppress issues in civil rights and civil liberties cases, rather than expand them.
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