Emotions, Oral Arguments, and Supreme Court Decision Making

Black, Ryan C.; Treul, Sarah A.; Johnson, Timothy R.; Goldman, Jerry

doi:10.1017/s002238161100003x

Cited by 39 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 36 publications

(30 reference statements)

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“…For our primary independent variable, we recognize that a debate exists in the literature regarding which readability measure is best, as reliance on a specific measure of readability varies across studies (Black et al, 2011;Corley, 2008;Corley and Wedeking, 2014;Nelson and Hinkle, 2018;Owens and Wedeking, 2011). All readability measures are an assessment of two important factors: reader comprehension and text complexity.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Opinion Readability on the Impact of U.S. Supreme Court Precedents in State High Courts

Fix

Fairbanks

2019

Social Science Quarterly

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Objective This article examines whether more readable U.S. Supreme Court opinions are cited with greater frequency in state courts of last resort. Methods We use random slope, random intercept multilevel models to analyze 30 years of state high court citations to U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions issued during the 1987–2006 terms. Results Our analysis reveals that opinion readability exerts a strong substantive impact on citation rates. This effect holds while accounting for a variety of factors previously shown to influence citation rates. Conclusion Institutional constraints, workload considerations, and audience costs should lead state high courts to find clearly written opinions more attractive than jargon‐laden ones. This makes the readability of a U.S. Supreme Court precedent a useful heuristic for state courts when selecting among potential relevant precedents. As these courts play a major role in implementing U.S Supreme Court decisions, our findings indicate that the readability of U.S. Supreme Court opinions has a strong effect on their long‐term impact.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Opinion Readability on the Impact of U.S. Supreme Court Precedents in State High Courts

Fix

Fairbanks

2019

Social Science Quarterly

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“…We are certainly not the first to use theories grounded in psychology and linguistics to explain Supreme Court justices’ behaviors (e.g., Schubert et al ). Black et al () demonstrate that when justices use more unpleasant words while communicating with one side, that side is more likely to lose. The intuition is that the justices engage in a kind of intuitive decision‐making process that can be tracked through their emotional language.…”

Section: Laughter and Subconscious Reasoning During Supreme Court Oramentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The more times attorneys speak during an argument, the more opportunities there are for producing laughter. Further, previous research indicates that litigants are more likely to lose if they or the justices speak more during their presentations than their opponents do (Johnson et al ; Black et al ), and we thus control for Justice Utterance Advantage . We also controlled for case issue area using the issue area classifications in the SCDB (Spaeth et al ).…”

Section: Data and Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, a growing body of research treats Supreme Court justices, perhaps appropriately, as human beings and, as such, allows for the possibility that emotions may factor into their decisions (Black et al ). That is, their personal backgrounds may influence votes (Wedeking ; Glynn and Sen ), they may make mistakes (Guthrie, Rachlinski, and Wistrich ), and they might engage in motivated reasoning (Braman ; Braman and Nelson ).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Humor and Persuasion: The Effects of Laughter during US Supreme Court's Oral Arguments

Li¹,

Pryor²

2020

Law & Policy

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Is the decision-making of Supreme Court justices influenced by extraneous factors beyond law and policy? We explore this question by examining attorney-induced laughter during oral arguments in cases heard by the Court. Drawing on theories of political psychology and social cognition, we posit that laughter serves as a positive affective cue that might favorably dispose justices (albeit subconsciously) to the side causing the laughter. Analyzing oral argument transcripts during the 1986-93 terms, we find that the side causing more instances of laughter is more likely to win the votes of individual justices, even while controlling for other legally and politically relevant factors. We further find that the effect of laughter is conditional-it exerts a heightened persuasive power on ideologically congruent justices, in noncomplex cases, and when the legal argumentation is of higher quality. Our research thus contributes to the growing literature on personal and emotional aspects of judicial decision-making and, specifically, the emerging scholarly interest in the role of humor during Supreme Court oral arguments.

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“…Specifically, we use the certainty of the language expressed in the opinion to capture the authoritativeness of the opinion. 1 Our approach expands on the growing trend in empirical legal scholarship to employ computer content analysis to understand judicial decisionmaking (e.g., Black et al 2011;Corley 2008;Owens & Wedeking 2011;Wahlbeck, Spriggs, & Sigelman 2002). It also has the benefit of taking opinion content seriously, and directly links the content of Court opinions to lower court policy outcomes.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The (Dis)Advantage of Certainty: The Importance of Certainty in Language

Corley¹,

Wedeking²

2014

Law Soc Rev

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How can legal decision makers increase the likelihood of a favorable response from other legal and social actors? To answer this, we propose a novel theory based on the certainty expressed in language that is applicable to many different legal contexts. The theory is grounded in psychology and legal advocacy and suggests that expressing certainty enhances the persuasiveness of a message. We apply this theory to the principal–agent framework to examine the treatment of Supreme Court precedent by the Federal Courts of Appeal. We find that as the level of certainty in the Supreme Court's opinion increases, the lower courts are more likely to positively treat the Court's decision. We then discuss the implications of our findings for using certainty in a broader context.

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Emotions, Oral Arguments, and Supreme Court Decision Making

Cited by 39 publications

References 36 publications

The Effect of Opinion Readability on the Impact of U.S. Supreme Court Precedents in State High Courts

The Effect of Opinion Readability on the Impact of U.S. Supreme Court Precedents in State High Courts

Humor and Persuasion: The Effects of Laughter during US Supreme Court's Oral Arguments

The (Dis)Advantage of Certainty: The Importance of Certainty in Language

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