U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justices

[Jim Eshelman]

We pretty much know the Sun-sign astrology of the legal profession. Two reasonably large studies published by Rupert Gleadow separately showed that the Sun in Sidereal Libra has a statistically significant excess of solar positions at the births of eminent attorneys.

Now, it could have gone differently in theory... looking bad (on the surface) for Sidereal astrologers. Many of us were aware that, while Libra is the sign of the balances, as much the symbol of the legal profession as the Caduceus is for the medical field, we also knew that the constellation Virgo was the actual goddess of justice figure - shown on Roman star charts as a reclining goddess actually holding the scales in her hand. A statistical excess of solar placements in Sidereal Virgo would have fit the star-mythology of the legal profession at least as well but, well, would have been embarassing because that spike would have come in Tropical Libra.

Fortunately, we didn't have to go through that. Two separate studies showed that, for eminent attorneys, the Sun has a pronounced preference for Sidereal Libra.

But the judiciary is a different matter. The one study I've seen of eminent jurists showed the Sun in Sidereal Virgo as the decisive factor. This makes sense to me: It distinguishes the skills and means of an attorney from those of a judge. It leaves the plying of the trade to Libra, and the final discernment to Virgo. The legal profession may be symbolized by the scales of Libra, but the final disposition lies in the hands of those who are symbolized by the goddess holding the scales, under the tutelage of the planet Mercury.

Today, I found that this is even more so than I had ever suspected.

Earlier today, I noticed that the last two Chief Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, though born a generation apart, both had Saturn in Libra - the sign of her exaltation, and the sign of the legal field of which they have exercised the preeminent authority in our nation. I thought I should check whether this was a trend that continued across the 200+ years of appointing Chief Justices to the court.

In U.S. history, there have only been 17 Chief Justices - about one for every three U.S. Presidents, on average. This is a small number; but these 17 charts produce some striking data.

Saturn
First, there really is a tendency for those who become Chief Justices to have Saturn in Libra. On average, every sign should have a particular planet about one and a half times for 17 charts. However, four Chief Justices have Saturn in Libra. I can't tell you the exact odds, because I don't have a way of calculating the true mean expectancy of Saturn being in Libra for that period. Of even greater interest is that the three signs that have the most Saturn placements are right next to each other - the stretch of Leo, Virgo, and Libra (one-fourth of the zodiac) has 10 Chief Justices' Saturns. That is, one-fourth of the zodiac has about 60% of all the Saturn placements of the sample. Since from the earliest of these 17birthdays (1739) to the last (1955) is 216 years, or 7 1/3 orbits of Saturn around the zodiac, there was plenty of time to distribute this planet more evenly.

Or did that extra third of an orbit account for about a fourth of the signs having such an excess? It appears not. The earliest birth, in 139 had Saturn in Cancer, and the last in 1955 had it in Libra - the quarter is correct - but only one birth (Chief Justice Roberts) occurred after the 7 full cycles were completed. The 10 births with Leo, Virgo, and Libra Saturns were distributed as follows: 1745, 1745, 1777, 1808, 1833, 1862, 1890, 1891, 1924, 1955.

Sun
Pulling back from Saturn to the faster planets, it got much more interesting.

Here's the first punch line: Of 17 Chief Justices in U.S. history, SIX of them have the Sun in Virgo. That's over a third (35%), where about 8% would be expected.

Three more each were in Pisces and Capricorn, which is about double the expectancy. But the Virgo excess is in the range of 4 standard deviations above the expected number. The odds against this being a meaningless, chance event are huge.

Virgo, the most common Sun-sign of judges overall, is by far the leader among Chief Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Neat!

Moon
The Moon didn't have any patterns worth reporting. Even though we only have birth times on six of these guys, there isn't any doubt of the Moon sign other than a couple of cases, and only one of these matters: EIther Cancer of Gemini has three Chief Justice Moons, and the other has two (like four other signs). That's not hugely significant. The one thing we can say for sure is that the leader is NOT Virgo - which is the only sign to show zero Moon placements for this group.

Mercury & Venus
Mercury and Venus reinforce the solar pattern. I don't place a lot of emphasis on this, but it's worth noting.

Mercury can never be more than 28° from the Sun, and it spnds most of its time around 18° on one side or the other of the Sun. One doesn't tend to see a Mercury excess exactly in the Sun sign - either it doesn't show a significant excess at all, or it could be one sign on either side. But in this case, with all the signs around it showing only 1 occurrence, Virgo - yes, again, Virgo - can boast five Mercuries. The odds against this happening by chance are thousands to one. Mercury spends less than 9% of the time in Virgo, and here it claims over 29% of the Mercury placements.

Venus is less dramatic. Two signs - Virgo and Scorpio - claim three Venus placements each. Equally distributed around Libra, this is the type of pattern I've seen when the strongest Sun-sign is in the middle (in this case, Libra). That isn't true here - with a third of the Suns in Virgo, we'd expect Venus distributed espefially in Leo and Libra, but instead we get Scorpio and Virgo. That's interesting. It's even more interesting because these are two signs of Venus' debility (and, with the Sun so heavily in Virgo, Venus couldn't have appeared any significant number of times in the third sign of its debility, Aries).

Mars
Mars is stunning. Like the Sun, it occurs 6 times in Virgo!

Now, Mars does spend more time conjunct the Sun than opposite it. However, I don't remember any other study where Mars placements peaked the same place as the Sun. (It certainly isn't common.) And, though Mars spends more time in Virgo than on average (about 9.6% of the time, or around 1/10 instead of 1/12), Mars spends even more time in Leo - yet Leo has only 1 Mars placement (sub-average), not 6. Again, the excess is very high.

Mars also was in Capricorn (its exaltation) three times. This is a borderline number. Mars spends less than 7% of its time in Capricorn. These three occurrences don't quite make the 20-to-1 (.05) cut-off, but they easily make the 10-to-1 (.10) threshold of "being interesting."

Jupiter had no significant results - every sign had 1 or 2 Jupiter occurrences - and I've already covered Saturn.

Summary
For the 17 U.S. Chief Justices, both the Sun and Mars spiked sharply (very sharply!) in Virgo, where each occurred 6 times. Mercury also had a signicant spike in Virgo (5 occurrences), and Venus had smaller peaks in Virgo and Scorpo (against expectation). Saturn was in Libra 4 times, and in the band Leo-Virgo-Libra 10 times (compared to, say, Aries-Taurus-Gemini zero times).

The six Chief Justices with Sun in Virgo were:
John Rutledge
John Marshall
William Howard Taft
Harlan F. Stone
Warren E. Burger
William Rehnquist

The six with Mars in Virgo were:
John Rutledge
Oliver Ellsworth
Roger B. Taney
Morrison Waite
Edward Douglas White

Notice that there is only one name in common on both lists. The Mars effect was not a consequence of it being conjunct the Sun.