The Linguistic Style of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

Abstract

With the historic nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, many are wondering what type of justice she will be if confirmed to the Court. Most of this focus has been on trying to predict what type of outcomes she would reach as a Supreme Court justice based on how she decided cases as a lower court judge. This article has a different focus. Given that lower courts treat the words of Supreme Court opinions as law, how justices write those opinions has important significance. This study is the first to empirically examine the linguistic style of Judge Jackson. It does so by analyzing opinions she wrote as a district court judge and comparing those to the recent opinions of current and recent Supreme Court justices, as well as opinions form then-Judge Sotomayor when a district court judge. For the analysis, this study uses the just-updated Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software (released February 2022) to measure fifteen different features of Judge Jackson and various justices’ linguistic style in opinion writing. While this study cannot say anything about how Judge Jackson may vote or what her jurisprudence may look like if she becomes Justice Jackson, it does provide an insight into the linguistic style she will likely employ in writing opinions for the highest court in the land.

Linguistic software can provide some insights into the style of judges. In comparing Judge Jackson’s fifty most recent opinions on federal district court with opinions from Supreme Court justices the past three terms and then-Judge Sotomayor’s last fifty opinions while a federal district judge, Judge Jackson tends to be on the lower end or in the middle of the measures compared to the other justices included in this study. Her linguistic fingerprints most match those of then-Judge Sotomayor as well as Chief Justice Roberts. These could change some if confirmed to the Court, though probably not significantly.

Keywords: supreme court, liwc, linguistics