Oral Argument

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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.
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Continue Reading What Are Justice Kruger’s Question Patterns When She Disagrees With the Majority in Criminal Cases?

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.
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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.
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Continue Reading What Are Justice Cuellar’s Question Patterns When He Disagrees With the Majority in Civil 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?
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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.
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Continue Reading What Are Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye’s Question Patterns in Criminal Cases When She Disagrees With the Majority?

A few weeks ago, we established that court-wide, the party which is likely to lose tends to get the most questions in oral argument.  Now, we’re investigating individual Justices’ records – when the Justice agrees with the majority, does he or she follow the usual pattern, and when he or she doesn’t agree, does the Justice more heavily question that party that will lose, or the party he or she thinks should lose?  This week, we’re looking at Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye’s data.
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Continue Reading What Are Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye’s Question Patterns in Civil Cases When She Disagrees With the Majority?

For the last two weeks, we’ve been looking at the Supreme Court’s question patterns at a court-wide level.  We reviewed the academic literature studying oral argument questions at the U.S. Supreme Court, which has concluded that the party which will lose averages the most questions.  We then reviewed the year-by-year data at the California Supreme…