Source of Information or 'Dog and Pony Show'?: Judicial Information Seeking During U.S. Supreme Court Oral Argument, 1963-1965 & 2004-2009

Abstract

Scholars and lawyers have long debated what role, if any, oral argument plays in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision-making process. While some have attempted anecdotally to determine whether or not Justices use oral argument to gather information in order to decide a case, few have attempted to investigate oral argument empirically. Additionally, no scholar to date has specifically measured the levels of information-seeking behavior during oral argument of individual Justices. Finally, there have been few studies attempting to quantitatively compare oral argument behavior in different time periods. This study attempts to address such deficiencies in Supreme Court scholarship.

Keywords: oral argument, Supreme Court