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.B.

doi:10.1353/sch.2020.0020

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…A few examples show what his notes look like. In First National Maintenance Corp. v. NLRB (1981), Blackmun wrote: “The argument has persuaded me to reverse” (Bryan, Houston, and Johnson 2020, p. 50). In Kosydar v. NCR (1974), he noted that the respondent attorney “makes a better argument than I thought he could” (Johnson 2009).…”

Section: The Value Of Oral Argumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…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!” She also received a low grade (Johnson 2009).…”

Section: The Value Of Oral Argumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Order effects and oral argument at the US Supreme Court

Owens

2023

Social Science Quarterly

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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.

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Section: The Value Of Oral Argumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Value Of Oral Argumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%