Yesterday, we investigated whether a more active bench at oral argument in civil cases suggested that the majority opinion would be longer. Today, we look at the same question on the criminal side of the docket by tracking the correlation between total questions and the length of the majority opinion.
We report the data for the criminal docket in Table 432 below. Although we get the expected sign on the correlation in almost all years on the criminal side – more questions do typically imply a longer majority opinion – the correlation is no greater, and sometimes less than it is on the civil side. So it appears that a more active bench does not necessarily imply a longer opinion.
For 2008, the correlation among non-unanimous cases was 0.31. Among unanimous decisions, it was 0.22. For 2009, the correlation among non-unanimous cases was -0.28. Among unanimous decisions, it was 0.31. For 2010, the correlation among non-unanimous cases was 0.33. Among unanimous cases, it dropped to nearly nothing (and would remain there for four of the next five years) at 0.1. For 2011, the correlation between questions and length in non-unanimous cases was 0.35. On the unanimous side, it was 0.16. For 2012, the correlation in non-unanimous cases was 0.13. For unanimous decisions, it was 0.03. For 2013, the correlation among non-unanimous cases was 0.3. Among unanimous decisions, it was 0.16. For 2014, the correlation among non-unanimous cases was 0.37. Among unanimous cases, it rose to 0.27. For 2015, the correlation among non-unanimous decisions was -0.52. Among unanimous cases, it was 0.16. And last year, the correlation among non-unanimous decisions was nearly nothing at -0.11. For unanimous decisions, it was 0.44.
Join us back here next Tuesday as we turn our attention to a new question.
Image courtesy of Flickr by Mark Goebel (no changes).