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Abstract:
We construct the complete network of 28,951 majority opinions written by the U.S. Supreme Court and the cases they cite from 1792 to 2005. We illustrate some basic properties of this network and then describe a method for creating importance scores using the data to identify the most important Court precedents at any point in time. This method yields dynamic rankings that can be used to predict the future citation behavior of state courts, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court, and these rankings outperform several commonly used alternative measures of case importance.

Supreme Court, precedent, law, citation analysis, case importance

Abstract:
We construct the complete network of 28,951 majority opinions written by the U.S. Supreme Court and the cases they cite from 1792 to 2005. We illustrate some basic properties of this network and then describe a method for creating importance scores using the data to identify the most important Court precedents at any point in time. This method yields dynamic rankings that can be used to predict the future citation behavior of state courts, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court, and these rankings outperform several commonly used alternative measures of case importance.

Supreme Court, precedent, law, citation analysis, case importance

Abstract:
This paper tests whether Supreme Court justices tip their hands at oral arguments. Specifically, we test whether, when justices ask more questions of one side, that side is more likely to lose their case. The findings support the theory; namely, when justices ask more questions of the petitioner's attorney the Court is significantly less likely to reverse the lower court decision.

Abstract:
The Rule of 4 on the U.S. Supreme Court is one of the only positive powers held by a minority coalition in our federal government (other minority powers are largely negative, such as the filibuster). In this paper we provide a formal model that explores the conditions under which we would expect the Rule of 4 to be invoked by a minority of justices on the Court. We also model the conditions under which such a vote under this rule will be successful. These models lead to explicit hypotheses about each part of the Court's agenda setting process. Using data from 1953 to 1985 we then empirically test our hypotheses. The results indicate that when the pivotal certiorari justice has preferences close to the status quo and when this pivot is ideologically close to the Court median she is more likely to vote to grant certiorari. Finally, our results indicate that such a vote can and is successful when the median justice is ideologically close to the status quo.

supreme court, rule of 4, agenda setting, decision making

Abstract:
Scholars have shown that political actors go public to bolster their policy positions. We also know that, when going public, emotion in language plays a role in presidential speeches (Sigelman and Whissell 2002a, 2002b) and in rhetoric used by senators during impeachment trials (Sigelman, Deering and Loomis 2000). We do not know, however, whether these findings apply to the third branch of government - the judiciary. As such, we seek to determine whether the emotional content of justices' questions and comments made during the only public portion of the Court's decision-making process - oral arguments - affects the decisions they make. Using data from all oral arguments between 1979 and 2006 we find the justices' use of unpleasant language towards the petitioner makes it less likely the Court will reverse the lower court decision, but that positive emotional language does not help the petitioner's likelihood of success.

Supreme Court, oral arguments, decision making

Abstract:
Throughout the twentieth century, Supreme Court justices have expressed the belief that when the sit for oral arguments to discuss cases with counsel and among themselves, these proceedings sometimes play a critical role in how they decide. The key questions, however, are what, if any, information do the justices actually garner from these proceedings; and what consequences, if any, does such information have for the outcomes of cases? There are two main pieces of information they can gather from the oral arguments: information they draw out of counsel about the Court's legal and policy options, and information about how their colleagues view the case. We consider these two types of information in turn. First, and most basically, justices posit that, during oral arguments, counsel provide information that helps them decide on the merits of cases they hear. Second, justices posit that oral arguments can clarify their own thinking and "perhaps that of their colleagues." In other words, during these proceedings, they contemplate how the arguments relate to their own, as well as to their brethrens', vote to reverse or affirm the lower court decision. They do so by speaking with one another as much as they speak with counsel. In this paper we are interested in testing empirically the extent to which justices utilize these two sources of information that can be drawn from the oral arguments, as well as the extent to which such information affects the decisions they make. In so doing, we draw on a unique set of data: notes taken by former Supreme Court Justices Harry Blackmun and Lewis F. Powell as they sat on the bench during oral arguments.

Supreme Court, oral argument, Harry A. Blackmun

Abstract:
This paper addresses a major question in the field of judicial politics, namely what determines whether justices join coalitions on the U.S. Supreme Court‘ Scholars have answered this question by analyzing votes at the Court’s agenda setting stage and by analyzing the bargaining and accommodation that occurs when the justices write their opinions. We take a different tack and argue that the coalition formation process begins in earnest during oral arguments. To uncover the inner workings of this process, we draw upon the notes Justice Harry A. Blackmun took of his colleagues’ comments and questions during oral argument. We empirically model both the note taking process and how these notes aided Blackmun in forming coalitions after oral arguments. Our results show systematic patterns in Blackmun’s note taking behavior and, more importantly, that the information Blackmun gained during oral arguments later influenced what coalition he joined.

coalition formation, decision making, oral argument, Blackmun, Supreme Court, archival data

Abstract:
We posit that Supreme Court oral arguments provide justices with useful information that influences their final votes on the merits. To examine the role of these proceedings, we ask the following questions: (1) what factors influence the quality of arguments presented to the Court; and, more importantly, (2) does the quality of a lawyer's oral argument affect the justices' final votes on the merits? We answer these questions by utilizing a unique data source-evaluations Justice Blackmun made of the quality of oral arguments presented to the justices. Our analysis shows that Justice Blackmun's grading of attorneys is somewhat influenced by conventional indicators of the credibility of attorneys and are not simply the product of Justice Blackmun's ideological leanings. We thus suggest they can plausibly be seen as measuring the quality of oral argument. We further show that the probability of a justice voting for a litigant increases dramatically if that litigant's lawyer presents better oral arguments than the competing counsel. These results therefore indicate that this element of the Court's decisional process affects final votes on the merits, and it has implications for how other elite decision makers evaluate and use information.

Abstract:
We construct the complete network of 26,681 majority opinions written by the U.S. Supreme Court and the cases that cite them from 1791 to 2005. We describe a method for using the patterns in citations within and across cases to create importance scores that identify the most legally relevant precedents in the network of Supreme Court law at any given point in time. Our measures are superior to existing network-based alternatives and, for example, offer information regarding case importance not evident in simple citation counts. We also demonstrate the validity of our measures by showing that they are strongly correlated with the future citation behavior of state courts, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. In so doing, we show that network analysis is a viable way of measuring how central a case is to law at the Court and suggest that it can be used to measure other legal concepts.