One bit of conventional wisdom that’s frequently heard about appellate review in California is that if a Court of Appeal opinion isn’t published, seeking Supreme Court review is a hopeless task. This week, we’re looking at the data to see if that’s true – civil cases in this post, criminal in the next.
The short
Today, we’re reviewing Justice Groban’s participation in oral arguments in criminal cases for patterns. Once again, Justice Groban is relatively closely aligned with the majority in most cases.
Continue Reading What Are Justice Groban’s Question Patterns When He Disagrees With the Majority in Criminal Cases?
This week we’re concluding our review of the individual Justices’ question patterns during oral argument by looking at the record of Justice Groban since he took his seat in 2019. We begin as usual with civil cases.
Continue Reading What Are Justice Groban’s Question Patterns When He Disagrees With the Majority in Civil Cases?
When Justice Kruger votes with the majority in a criminal case, she follows the expected pattern, more heavily questioning the losing party. When she joins the majority in an affirmance, she averages 2.38 questions to appellants and 1.91 to respondents. When she joins the majority in a reversal, she averages 3.6 questions to respondents and 3 to appellants. When she joins the majority in a split decision, she averages 1.77 questions to respondents and 1.68 to appellants.
Continue Reading What Are Justice Kruger’s Question Patterns When She Disagrees With the Majority in Criminal Cases?
This week, we’re reviewing Justice Kruger’s oral argument question totals to see what we can infer from the data on her likely vote.
Continue Reading What Are Justice Kruger’s Question Patterns When She Disagrees With the Majority in a Civil Case?
We determined last time that Justice Cuellar tends to more heavily question appellants than respondents in civil cases regardless of how the majority is leaning. This time, we’re looking at the data for criminal cases.
Continue Reading What Are Justice Cuellar’s Question Patterns When He Disagrees With the Majority in Criminal Cases?
For the past few weeks, we’ve been reviewing individual Justices’ questioning at oral argument in civil and criminal cases since the Court first started posting argument videos in 2016. The question is this: if as a general matter, the party likely to lose the case gets more questions at oral argument, can we use argument analytics to spot likely dissenters? In other words, does a Justice likely to dissent ask more questions of the side he or she thinks should lose or the side the majority thinks should lose? This week, we’re looking at the data for Justice Cuellar, civil cases first.
Continue Reading What Are Justice Cuellar’s Question Patterns When He Disagrees With the Majority in Civil Cases?
Today, we’re concluding our review of Justice Liu’s patterns in oral argument with a look at the criminal cases he’s participated in.
Continue Reading What Are Justice Liu’s Question Patterns When He Disagrees With the Majority in Criminal Cases?
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?
Continue Reading What Are Justice Liu’s Question Patterns When He Disagrees With the Majority in Civil Cases?
When the Chief Justice joins an affirmance in criminal cases, she averages 3.49 questions to appellants and 1.53 questions to respondents. When she joins the majority in a reversal, she averages 3.22 questions to respondents, 2.68 to appellants. When she joins the majority in a split decision, she averages 4.23 questions to appellants, 1.55 to respondents.
Continue Reading What Are Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye’s Question Patterns in Criminal Cases When She Disagrees With the Majority?