The Role of Oral Argument in Supreme Court Decision Making
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Decisionmaking by the Supreme Court can be seen as a flow of               steps and procedures which include reviewing appeals and appli-                 cations to hear a case, oral argument, conference discussion                    and vote, opinion assignment, opinion writing and circulation,                  and announcement of the decision on Decision Day.  Each of the                  stages in the process has an impact on the final outcome.                       Research has revealed much about each of the stages with the                    exception of oral argument where very little is known.  The oral                argument can be seen either as a key event influencing judicial                 decisionmaking or as an opportunity to observe the decisional                   predispositions of justices.  From either vantage, it is reve-                  latory to understanding its relationship to individual justice's                attitudes and votes as well as to leadership and decisionmaking                 in the Supreme Court.                                                                                                                                           By rendering oral argument susceptible to identification,                       measurement, and analysis, this project provides the first                      comprehensive behavioral study of the role of oral argument in                  Supreme Court decisionmaking.  A sample of 300 cases will be                    selected from the Burger Court period, with half of the cases                   involving criminal procedure issues and half randomly selected                  from other issue areas.  Data will be developed from transcripts                and real-time audio recordings of the behavioral events that                    occurred during oral arguments.  Techniques of verbal content                   analysis and voice analysis will be used to develop indicators of               verbal and nonverbal aspects of behavior.  The issue content of                 the oral argument and the opinions will also be coded.  These                   data will be integrated with existing archived data on judicial                 attitudes, attributes, and case characteristics.  Theoretical                   objectives include (1) analyzing the relationship between the                   verbal behavior of Justices in oral argument and their voting                   decisions; (2) analyzing the issues considered in oral argument                 and the content of majority and minority opinions; and (3)                      explaining patterns of involvement, leadership, and affective                   behavior by Justices during oral argument.                                                                                                                      In addition to filling an important gap in our understanding of                 the Supreme Court decisionmaking process, this study will                       provide a unique opportunity to observe directly expressions of                 judicial attitudes across issues, across cases, and across time.                Prior studies have inferred attitudes about political ideology                  through voting behavior.  This research will complement and                     extend these studies with direct observation.  The development                  and application of techniques and methods for direct observation                and measurement will have far reaching impacts on many other                    areas in the behavioral and social sciences that would be                       advanced by systematic observational methods.
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