Most consequential Supreme Court justices

[Angel of Death]

I took the Supreme Court database of all decisions since 1946 and gave each justice

• 2 points for being part of a majority of one
• 1 point for being part of a majority of two
• 1 point for participating in an equally divided vote:

and this is what I got:

1738	William Rehnquist
1684	Byron White
1386	William J. Brennan, Jr.
1319	Sandra Day O'Connor
1305	Anthony Kennedy
1287	John Paul Stevens
1276	Harry Blackmun
1180	Antonin Scalia
1052	Warren E. Burger
970	Lewis F. Powell, Jr.
941	Potter Stewart
896	Thurgood Marshall
878	William O. Douglas
802	Hugo Black
797	Clarence Thomas
752	Felix Frankfurter
728	Tom C. Clark
616	Earl Warren
614	Ruth Bader Ginsburg
596	Stephen Breyer
587	David Souter
578	John Marshall Harlan II
547	Harold Hitz Burton
524	Stanley Forman Reed
410	Fred M. Vinson
348	Robert H. Jackson
336	John Roberts
316	Samuel Alito
278	Charles Evans Whittaker
202	Sherman Minton
140	Arthur Goldberg
130	Sonia Sotomayor
115	Frank Murphy
110	Elena Kagan
107	Abe Fortas
99	Wiley Blount Rutledge

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Interesting, but obviously flawed, given that Rehnquist spent much of his career dissenting from major opinions, while Justices like Brennan, O'Connor, and Warren were crucial to many major decisions. If nothing else, though, it does reward longevity.