Background Perhaps more than any other Supreme Court tradition, oral arguments have gone through significant changes over the years. The Supreme Court is as old as the nation even though the first oral arguments were not held until the 1790’s. While presently it may feel like oral argument practice and procedure are relatively static. There…
Category: oral arguments
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…
Measuring Oral Arguments in the 2023/2024 Term
Some things from this year’s oral arguments are clear. We know for instance, who is talking more and less. These intricacies follow from what we saw last term. Justice Jackson is the most active justice in arguments. Thomas is the least. There are several aspects of oral argument that are below this playing field surface….
Passing the Oral Argument Torch
What seemed like an innocuous comment during oral arguments on October 3rd, 1994 by Richard Seamon, attorney for the Department of Justice in the case of United States v. Shabani led to lengthy retort. Seamon, prepared to end the arguments stated, “Unless the Court has further questions, I have nothing further.” Justice Breyer in his…
And We’re Off to the Races
If you feel like the 2022 Supreme Court Term just ended you are not alone. The justices began this term much like where they left off in June 2023 — with the October argument session of the 2023 Term now complete and six oral arguments already under the justices’ belts we are seeing similar variation in…
Another One Bites the Dust: End of 2022/2023 Supreme Court Term Statistics
[This piece was co-authored by Jake Truscott, a Post-Doctoral Researcher for C-SPAN Scholarship and Engagement] It has been another crazy year before the Supreme Court as the justices took up important cases related to Affirmative Action, student debt, voting, and religious rights among other issues. The justices decided several of these important cases along ideological…
A New Landscape Unfolds: Supreme Court Oral Arguments in the 2022-2023 Term
In a term marked by arguments flowing past their allotted times, the justices had quite a bit to say in the 2022-2023 oral argument sessions. Of course the justices could properly focus their energy on the paltry 59 cases for argument. That number is quite a far cry from 197 arguments the Court heard in…
How Oral Argument Data Back Up Expectations in the Court’s Affirmative Action Cases
Yesterday the Supreme Court heard the long-awaited oral arguments in cases that may overturn the right to affirmative action in higher education. Some states like Michigan already banned action through popular vote. For states that still allow it though the question of constitutionality is on the Court’s agenda. In Grutter v. Bollinger, decided in 2003,…
A Definitive Look at the New OAs Led by KBJ
Something is clearly different this Supreme Court term after only two weeks of oral arguments. There is a chippiness in the air that wasn’t overtly present before. The distinction between the left and the right of the Court is still in play, but newly appointed Justice Jackson has had control of the proceedings far more…
Arguments in U.S. v. Washington
Here’s your daily dose of SCOTUS Analytics. Today the justices heard arguments in US v. Washington about Whether a state workers’ compensation law that applies exclusively to federal contract workers who perform services at a specified federal facility is barred by principles of intergovernmental immunity. Malcolm Stewart argued for the US and Tera Heintz, from…
April Week 1 in Review
Here are the mini-analyses I ran this week: Text Analysis of Thompson v. Clark (20-659) Below is an analysis from Thompson v. Clark (20-659) which was released this week. It was a 6-3 decision. First, here is a wordcloud (a visualization of the most dominant words used) of the majority opinion authored by Justice Kavanaugh…
Empirical SCOTUS 