Power Dynamics in Supreme Court Oral Arguments: The Relationship between Gender and Justice-to-Justice Interruptions

Feldman, Adam; Gill, Rebecca D.

doi:10.1080/0098261x.2019.1637309

Cited by 13 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…At the U.S. Supreme Court, two recent studies find striking gendered effects in the presence of interruptions during the Court's oral arguments. Feldman and Gill () find that female justices on the Court are interrupted more frequently by fellow justices than are their male colleagues, and Jacobi and Schweers () find that female justices are interrupted at disproportionate rates by male lawyers. Szmer et al () also reveal that Supreme Court justices were nearly 9% less likely to vote in favor of legal positions favored by women attorneys than those favored by male attorneys.…”

Section: Out‐group Assessment Bias In Employment Settingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By shaping negative perceptions of a future justice's fitness to serve on the Court, senatorial bias toward certain nominees also could contribute to increased skepticism among the general public regarding that nominee's qualifications. It can also foster a culture of incivility in which advocates and other justices demonstrate disrespect for and call into question the credibility of their nontraditional colleagues (Feldman and Gill ; Jacobi and Schweers ). Thus, while Senate Judiciary Committee members may not be aware of their biases and may not be “consciously disrespectful,” their behavior nonetheless could have “the ‘real world’ consequence of delegitimizing knowledge, experience, and ultimately, leadership” (Han and Heldman : 22).…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Role of Nominee Gender and Race at U.S. Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings

Boyd¹,

Collins²,

Ringhand³

2018

Law Soc Rev

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We investigate an unexplored aspect of the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation process: whether questioning senators treat female and minority nominees differently from male and white nominees. Applying out‐group theory, we argue that senators will ask female and minority nominees more questions about their “judicial philosophies” in an effort to determine their competence to serve on the Court. This out‐group bias is likely to be exacerbated for nominees not sharing the senator's political party. Our results do not support racial differences, but they do provide strong evidence that female nominees receive more judicial philosophy‐related questions from male senators. This effect is enhanced when the female nominee does not share the partisan affiliation of the questioning senator. Together, these findings indicate that female nominees undergo a substantively different confirmation process than male nominees. We further find that this effect may be most intense with nominees like Justice Sotomayor, whose identities align with more than one out‐group.

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Section: Out‐group Assessment Bias In Employment Settingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Nominee Gender and Race at U.S. Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings

Boyd¹,

Collins²,

Ringhand³

2018

Law Soc Rev

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“…At oral arguments, female attorneys are interrupted earlier and more frequently than men (for instance, see Patton and Smith 2017, 2020). This pattern holds between justices as well; male justices interrupt female justices at higher rates than they do other male justices (Feldman and Gill 2019; Jacobi and Schweers 2017). As a consequence of being interrupted more, women receive less speaking time (Patton and Smith 2017) and face more negative language from justices (Lindom, Gregory, and Johnson 2017).…”

Section: Oral Arguments As Conversationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Since you put it that way… Gender norms and interruptions at Supreme Court oral arguments

Gleason

2024

Social Science Quarterly

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ObjectiveAt U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments, female attorneys are more likely to be interrupted than their male counterparts under some conditions. This makes it difficult for women to effectively construct a narrative and substantively impact case law. While existing work conceptualizes gender as a binary, I draw on recent work stressing gender is performative to deesentialize gender and explore how attorneys’ compliance with gender norms and subtle expectations about men's and women's behavior in a host of contexts, predicts interruptions at oral arguments.MethodsVia quantitative textual analysis of all oral arguments from 2004 to 2019 where one attorney argues for the petitioner and one for the respondent, I examine the extent to which gender norm compliance predicts interruptions.ResultsI find both male and female attorneys are interrupted more frequently when their oral arguments are not gender normative. Thus, an argument that is successful for a male attorney is not necessarily successful for a female attorney, and vice versa.ConclusionMy results underscore female attorneys are not less successful as a matter of course; attorney success is driven by attorney compliance with gender norms. This work also raises a number of normative questions I encourage future scholars to explore.

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“…Personal traits such as gender (Feldman & Gill, 2019; Metcalfe, 2016), race/ethnicity (Farrell & Ward, 2011; King et al, 2010), age (Eisenstein et al, 1988), and educational background (Eisenstein et al, 1988; Haynes et al, 2010) also contribute to workgroup relationships, affecting members' familiarity and cooperation. While these factors are important in understanding courtroom workgroup dynamics, they are beyond the scope of this study.…”

Section: Theoretical Framework: Courtroom Workgroups and The Implemen...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Courtroom workgroup dynamics and implementation of Three Strikes reform

Chen,

Chung,

Sands

2023

Law & Policy

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In 2012, California's voters passed a ballot initiative that scaled back the state's “Three Strikes” sentencing law and permitted certain individuals who were serving 25‐to‐life prison terms to petition for resentencing and potentially release. Using analysis of original qualitative interview data supplemented with court administrative records, this study examines how characteristics of courtroom workgroup members; their intergroup dynamics; political, professional, and administrative considerations; and allocated resources were perceived by court officials to facilitate or impede the implementation of this reform in county courts. Availability of staff and budget was associated with a higher proportion of completed case dispositions in the first 2 years of implementation, but resources were not the only factor associated with timely case processing. Courtroom actors' seniority, experience, and professional security facilitated agreement on processes, schedules, and other details. Small, stable, close‐knit groups established routine procedures and developed expertise more quickly, but could not always avoid bottlenecks or delays. Less stable workgroups had higher rates of denial of petitions for resentencing. Positions toward Proposition 36 shaped by political, professional, or other priorities were perceived to influence some elected DAs' positions and line prosecutors' behavior, manifesting in cooperation, opposition, or mixed messages.

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Power Dynamics in Supreme Court Oral Arguments: The Relationship between Gender and Justice-to-Justice Interruptions

Cited by 13 publications

References 56 publications

The Role of Nominee Gender and Race at U.S. Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings

The Role of Nominee Gender and Race at U.S. Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings

Since you put it that way… Gender norms and interruptions at Supreme Court oral arguments

Courtroom workgroup dynamics and implementation of Three Strikes reform

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