CUE Research · Study 19

U.S. Federal Judges

Every federal judge with a recorded birthday since 1789, including every Supreme Court justice.

The question: Do the people trusted with the country’s highest judicial offices share numbers, signs or birthdays?

What stands out

No clear differences. Across every group of 50 or more and every measure, the numbers are within what chance produces.

Worth watching, not enough to claim

  • Day energy + Life Path

    Every judge: 5 day · LP 5 appears only 10 times against about 25.7 expected.

  • Day energy + Life Path

    District courts: 5 day · LP 5 appears only 7 times against about 20.5 expected.

  • Sun sign

    Supreme Court: Pisces appears 16 times against about 8.4 expected (1.91×).

  • Day energy + Life Path

    Every judge: 3 day · LP 7 appears only 18 times against about 33.8 expected.

  • Day energy

    Supreme Court: 8 day energy appears 18 times against about 10.1 expected (1.79×).

  • Day energy + Life Path

    District courts: 5 day · LP 11 appears only 9 times against about 21.0 expected.

Every judge: every birth quarter is within normal variation of random birthdays from the same years.

Every judge Expected, random birthdays 1732–1965 Clear difference Worth watching

Context What explains it

The Supreme Court has had about 116 justices, which is enough to describe but only just enough to test. The full group of federal judges is large.

Many older judges are recorded only to the year, so they are left out.

Source The data

  • U.S. federal judges, 1789–today. Retrieved 2026-09-28. View source
  • Every judge appointed to a federal court under Article III of the Constitution, from the Federal Judicial Center’s Biographical Directory, including all Supreme Court justices.
  • Verification: 2356 of 4077 included. Birth dates from the Federal Judicial Center, the federal courts’ own research agency; judges recorded only to the year or month are left out.
  • Expected values: every day of the years each group was born in, weighted by how many people were born in each year, run through CUE’s engine. Weighting matters for Chinese signs and Life Paths, which depend on the year.
  • A difference is called clear only in groups of 50 or more and at least three standard errors from expected. Because each study tests about a hundred values, a clear difference needs 3.5 standard errors; 2.5 to 3.5 is only “worth watching”.

Reproduce it: the raw data snapshots and build scripts are in CUE’s code repository (scripts/data and scripts/build-*-study.mts).

Further reading

  • Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges