Rachel Yates has kindly invited me to update the David-Goliath Index after my not-so-abrupt departure last autumn. I’ve managed to find time in my busy schedule to compile the numbers, and am happy to present them to you here.

When we left off, the third quarter of 2024 was effectively concluded. My last post including a D-GI was September 3, but by then the Supreme Court of Virginia had cleared its entire argued docket, so I was able to post a 3Q report with confidence. At that point, our Davids had won seven victories and the Goliaths nineteen over the course of the year.

The fourth quarter brought Goliath seven more victories against a lone defeat. That means that the year ended with eight wins for David and 26 for Goliath, for a year-end D-GI of 24/76. Goliath won three appeals for every one he lost over the full year.

Let’s not stop there; the Supreme Court’s first-quarter rulings from 2025 have all arrived. In a development that I haven’t seen since I started compiling this index several years ago, each side won five times in 1Q 2025, for a startling D-GI of 50/50. David hasn’t done this well since before the invention of the index.

Note that this is just the first quarter, a small sample size that may be misleading. The SCV hasn’t changed; it’s just as conservative as ever, and this might be a statistical anomaly. We’ll have nine more months to find out.

–Steve Emmert