This paper describes the dynamics of Brazil's Supreme Court decision-making in the period of democratic transition. It describes how the sitting Justices of the Supreme Court, from 1978 to 1988, decide judicial review cases. Our goal is to identify through the W-Nominate method the formation of coalitions, and to verify whether they can be explained by presidential nominations and past career paths of Justices. We conclude that the court was quite consensual during the democratic transition, since only 11% of the 703 judicial review cases filed and judged in the period, were decided by a majority. The model showed that although the presidential nomination helps to understand the formation of coalitions, this factor is not sufficient to explain the pattern of divergence among the Justices.