This week, we’re reviewing Justice Liu’s question patterns. As before, our purpose is both to determine whether Justice Liu follows the overall trend when he’s in the majority – more heavily questioning the party that will lose – but also what happens when Justice Liu is dissenting. Does he more heavily question the party that will lose the case, or the party he believes should lose the case?
Interestingly, Justice Liu doesn’t follow the usual pattern even when he’s in the majority – he tends to question the respondent more heavily, regardless of what the decision will be. When he joins a majority affirming, he averages 5.7 questions to respondents and only 4.84 to appellants. When he joins a majority to reverse, he averages 6.27 questions to respondents and 4.94 to appellants. When he joins a majority in a split decision – “affirmed in part, reversed in part” – he averages 6.14 questions to appellants and 3.71 to respondents.
When the majority affirms but Justice Liu votes to reverse, he much more heavily questions the respondent – an average of 13 questions to only 4.33 for appellants. When he dissents from a reversal, he averages 6.33 questions to appellants but only 4 to respondents.
Finally, when the majority affirms but Justice Liu votes for a split result, he averages 17 questions to respondents but only 2 to appellants. When the majority reverses but he votes for a split result, it’s the reverse – 10 questions to appellants and only 3 to respondents.
Join us back here tomorrow as we review the numbers for Justice Liu’s criminal cases.
Image courtesy of Flickr by Allan Henderson (no changes).