For 11 years between 1994 and 2005 there was no turnover in membership on the Supreme Court. There were four changes to the Court’s composition between 2005 and 2010 and then another four changes between 2017 and 2022. Of the four newest justices on the Court, three were appointed by President Trump and one by…
Month: October 2024
Using Network Analysis to Gauge the Justices’ Relative Importance in Oral Arguments
Anecdotes and research support the notion that oral arguments do not often influence case outcomes. Chief Justice John Roberts said as much in an interview with Bryan Garner for the Scribes Journal in 2010: “The oral argument is the tip of the iceberg — the most visible part of the process — but the briefs…
What Oral Argument Engagement Tells Us About Supreme Court Opinion Writing
Between the 2004 and 2019 Supreme Court Terms, Justice Thomas spoke in five oral arguments for a total of fewer than 200 words. In that window of time he chose not to speak in over 1,100 arguments. In that same timeframe, Justice Breyer spoke over 320,000 words at oral argument. During those same years, Justice…
Empirical SCOTUS 