The Supreme Court heard some of the most important cases of the term in a month when there almost were no arguments at all. The Court canceled its March and April sitting due to COVID-19. With flexible ingenuity, it then rescheduled ten arguments for May, which was the first time the Court had anything near…
Tag: oral arguments
Changes in Supreme Court Oral Argument Format: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
With a week of telephonic Supreme Court oral arguments under the belt we now have meaningful data points to compare old style oral arguments with the new framework. These new arguments were not without mishaps, however, as both justices and attorneys attempted to navigate this new terrain. With the Supreme Court transcript data and audio…
What to Expect From Kavanaugh’s 1st Term
The tense waiting is now over as Justice Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court on October 6th 2018. One of the big stories following Kavanaugh though is his low rate of public approval. This low rate of approval was apparent soon after Kavanaugh was nominated. Not only this, but as the figure below shows, Kavanaugh was…
A Little Change Will Do You Good: Oral Argument Interruptions 2017
Although female justices have only served on the Supreme Court since 1981, a relatively short slice of the Court’s history, gender imbalances have existed in oral argument interruptions for many years with female justices bearing the brunt of them. These imbalances were identified in a blog post on Empirical SCOTUS with subsequent commentary from Stephanie…
Slicing and Dicing the Court’s 2017 Oral Arguments
While the Supreme Court is lagging in releasing its decisions this term, the justices wrapped up hearing oral arguments almost a month ago. The justices heard 63 oral arguments between October 2017 and April 2018. Within that block of time many expectations were reaffirmed while several new paths were blazed. Aside from those who sit…
Name Dropping in Oral Argument
Supreme Court oral argument is the setting where attorneys get to present their cases to the justices. It is a chance for justices to ask questions and for attorneys to convey important information; especially information that might not be contained in the briefs. Oral argument also functions as a setting for dialogue. In this respect,…
The Strategic Right – Oral Arguments at the Beginning of the 2017 Term
Several possible facets of the justices’ new oral argument strategies became apparent during the first week of oral arguments for the 2017 Supreme Court term. The Court began with a series of high-profile cases – perhaps none as discussed and hotly contested as Gill v. Whitford which looks at gerrymandered voting districts in Wisconsin. The…
Interruptions and References
Supreme Court oral arguments are traditionally thought of as a time for the Justices to interact with and ask question of attorneys in a case. One of the lesser thought of aspects of oral arguments has to do with the interaction among the Justices. Over the years several studies and articles have looked at this…
A Busy Year at the OSG
The United States Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) within the U.S. Department of Justice has its hands full with Supreme Court litigation. Granted, “busy” is a relative term as the OSG has had fewer Supreme Court filings this Term than it has since 2010 (which will almost assuredly still be the case at the end…
The Regulars: Supreme Court Litigation 2015-2016
Since 2001 the Supreme Court has written full opinions in 67-75 orally argued cases per Term. We are certain not to see more than 75 this Term and nowhere near the 151 such cases in the 1982 and 1983 Terms, which were high points for the second half of the 20th century. With fewer cases,…
A Shift in Oral Arguments: An Update
I recently wrote a post where I looked at Justice Scalia’s final ten oral arguments and compared them to the first ten oral arguments after his death. There have been several oral arguments since then and with the data from those arguments I am able to expand the timeframe of that analysis. In this post I examine…
Atypical Oral Arguments In Puerto Rico v. Franklin CA Trust
On Tuesday the Court heard arguments in Puerto Rico v. Franklin Cal. Tax-Free Trust a case that examines whether Congress precluded Puerto Rico from the ability to restructure its public utility debt. Specifically the case looks at whether Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code applies to Puerto Rico. Much of the case and the arguments…
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