Taking Note: Justice Harry A. Blackmun's Observations from Oral Argument about Life, the Law, and the U.S. Supreme Court

Bryan, Amanda C.; Houston, Rachael; Johnson, Timothy R.

doi:10.1111/jsch.12228

Search citation statements

Order By: Relevance

Paper Sections

Select...

The Value Of Oral Arguments1

Citation Types

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Year Published

2023

Publication Types

Select...

Article1

Relationship

Self Cite0

Independent1

Authors

Journals

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The Justice also recorded poor performances and consigned those attorneys low grades. As Bryan, Houston, and Johnson (2020) discuss, one of the attorneys in Godinez v. Moran (1993) received a low grade, with Blackmun grumbling that the argument was "one of the worst arguments" he ever heard (p. 50). In Michigan v. Clifford (1984), Blackmun complained that an attorney was "terrible!"…”

Section: The Value Of Oral Argumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Order effects and oral argument at the US Supreme Court

Owens

2023

Social Science Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ObjectiveFor years, scholars have employed Justice Harry Blackmun's private grades of attorneys to measure attorney oral argument quality. Using archival data, I analyze whether Justice Blackmun experienced order effects.MethodsI estimate numerous ordinary least squares regression models on private archival data.ResultsBlackmun's respondent grades appear to have been influenced by his perceptions of how the petitioners performed. This finding holds across a series of checks, including those that examine whether some cases simply attract better or worse attorneys.ConclusionThe results suggest that scholars should not use the Blackmun grades as “point estimates” but, instead, as rankings. They also suggest that previous findings may have overstated the influence of oral argument. The fact that one justice displayed evidence of a cognitive illusion also suggests that such effects may exist in various aspects of decision making.

show abstract

Section: The Value Of Oral Argumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Order effects and oral argument at the US Supreme Court

Owens

2023

Social Science Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Taking Note: Justice Harry A. Blackmun's Observations from Oral Argument about Life, the Law, and the U.S. Supreme Court

Cited by 1 publication

References 1 publication

Order effects and oral argument at the US Supreme Court

Order effects and oral argument at the US Supreme Court

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About