Our latest repost:
We begin our analysis by addressing the foundation of the entire body of data analytic scholarship on appellate judging: competing theories of judicial decision making.
The oldest theory by far is generally known in the literature as “formalism.” This is the theory we all learned in law school, according to which every
Our short series of contextual reposts continues:
Although the state Supreme Courts have not attracted anything near the level of study from academics engaged in empirical legal studies that the U.S. Supreme Courts and Federal Circuits have a number of different researchers have attempted to compare how influential the various state courts are for the
I’m always surprised when I encounter litigators who dismiss litigation analytics as a passing fad. In fact, as shown in the reprint post below, it’s a century-long academic enterprise which has produced many hundreds of studies conclusively proving through tens of thousands of pages of analysis the value of data analytics in better understanding how
The Illinois Supreme Court Review recently marked its sixth anniversary. In April, this blog turns five.
So I thought it was time for a first: cross-posted reprints from the earliest days of the blogs. My early attempts to provide context for the work and to answer the question I often heard in those days: “Interesting,
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?