Today, we’re reviewing the pattern of Justice Karmeier’s questions in oral argument on criminal cases.
When Justice Karmeier joins the majority of a simple affirmance or reversal, his questions show the expected pattern – he tends to more heavily question the losing side. In affirmances, he averages 1.88 questions to appellants and 0.68 to appellees.
For the past few weeks, we’ve been reviewing the oral argument questioning of individual Justices, attempting to answer this question: if the Court as a whole is likely to more heavily question the party who will lose the case, what about Justices planning to dissent from that result? This week, we’re looking at Justice Karmeier’s
Yesterday, we reviewed the data on Justice Kilbride’s oral arguments in civil cases. Today, we’re looking at the criminal cases.
As you can see from the Table below, Justice Kilbride asks very few questions in criminal oral arguments. When he’s in the majority of an affirmance, he averages 0.48 questions to appellants, 0.3 to appellees.
A few weeks ago, we established that court-wide, the party which is likely to lose tends to get the most questions in oral argument. Now, we’re investigating individual Justices’ records – when the Justice agrees with the majority, does he or she follow the usual pattern, and when he or she doesn’t agree, does the
Last time, we reviewed Justice Garman’s record in oral arguments in civil cases, both when she agreed with the majority and when she didn’t. Today, we’re reviewing the criminal docket.
Once again we begin with cases in which the Court affirms. When Justice Garman agrees, she more heavily questions the losing appellant, 2.44 to 0.79.
For the last two weeks, we’ve been looking at the court-wide data for questions at oral argument. We discussed the academic research into oral argument questions, which demonstrates that at the U.S. Supreme Court, the party which will lose the case generally gets the most questions. We then looked at the data for the Illinois
Last week, we reviewed the academic literature studying oral argument analytics, and then compared the data for civil and criminal cases, both affirmances and reversals, to the outcome of those earlier studies. This week, we’re digging deeper on that work. For last week’s comparison, we aggregated outright reversals and split decisions: “affirmed in part, reversed in part.” Now let’s disaggregate – compare outright reversals to split decisions.
Continue Reading Can You Predict a Split Decision in Civil Cases at the Illinois Supreme Court After Oral Argument?
Yesterday, we disaggregated the data on oral arguments in civil cases where there is a partial or complete reversal. Today, we’re looking at the criminal cases.
Continue Reading Can You Predict a Split Decision in Criminal Cases at the Illinois Supreme Court After Oral Argument?
Last time, we surveyed the academic research applying analytics techniques to appellate oral arguments and then reviewed the data for civil arguments at the Supreme Court since 2008. In this post, we’re reviewing the data for the same period on the criminal side of the docket.
Continue Reading Can a Winner Be Predicted In Illinois Supreme Court Criminal Case Oral Arguments?
Today, we begin a new subject in our ongoing analytics study of the Court’s decision making – oral arguments. Although the academic community has been producing analytics studies of appellate decision making for a century, the analytics study of oral arguments is a much more recent development.
Continue Reading Can a Winner Be Predicted In Illinois Supreme Court Civil Case Oral Arguments?