Between
the
2004
and
2019
Supreme
Court
Terms,
Justice
Thomas
spoke
in
five
oral
arguments
for
a
total
of
fewer
than
200
words.
In
that
window
of
time
he
chose
not
to
speak
in
over
1,100
arguments.
In
that
same
timeframe,
Justice
Breyer
spoke
over
320,000
words
at
oral
argument.
During
those
same
years,
Justice
Thomas
authored
a
combined
417
majority
and
separate
opinions
compared
with
Justice
Breyer’s
319.
This
comparison
highlights
an
underdiscussed
element
of
Supreme
Court
behavior
–
that
of
the
relationship
between
oral
argument
speech
and
opinion
engagement.
Several
camps
emerged
in
the
1990’s
and
early
2000’s
looking
to
understand
the
justices’
goals
in
oral
arguments.
Those
like
Epstein
and
Knight
on
one
hand
and
Segal
and
Spaeth
on
the
other
posited
preference
based
arguments
that
focused
on
how
justices
are
goal-oriented
in
both
oral
arguments
and
with
their
opinion
writing,
with
policy
preferences
driving
their
decisions.
Tim
Johnson
wrote
several
pieces
that
focused
on
multiple
dimensions
of
oral
arguments
ranging
from
how
they
can
be
used
to
predict
case
outcomes
to
the
justices’
other
goals.
In
the
vein
of
information
gain, Johnson’s
work describes
how
the
justices
seek
comprehensive
information
during
oral
arguments
to
help
them
make
informed
decisions
that
align
with
their
goals
while
adhering
to
institutional
norms.
Briefs
provide
a
substantial
amount
of
information,
yet
they
also
reflect
the
argument
positions
of
the
litigants
and
so
they
are
often
biased
in
that
regard,
which
underscores
the
importance
of
justices
seeking
additional
perspectives
to
inform
their
decisions.
According
to
Johnson
and
others,
oral
arguments
are
a
critical
venue
for
justices
to
gather
information
that
is
independent
of
the
potentially
biased
materials
found
in
briefs.
Justices
can
ask
questions
during
these
proceedings
to
clarify
issues
and
obtain
insights
that
might
not
be
included
in
the
written
submissions.
Johnson’s
articles
demonstrate
that
a
portion
of
the
issues
in
majority
opinions
are
raised
uniquely
during
oral
arguments.
This
finding
supports
the
idea
that
oral
arguments
introduce
new
issues
that
may
not
have
been
considered
previously.
Justices
may
also
use
oral
arguments
to
gain
insight
into
the
positions
of
their
colleagues
on
the
Court
and
may
even
attempt
to
convince
them
to
join
along
with
their
preferred
position
on
the
merits.
The
Focus
This
article
looks
at
three
relationships
between
oral
arguments
and
written
decisions:
first
between
the
extent
of
a
justice’s
engagement
in
oral
argument
and
the
decision
to
author
an
opinion
at
all,
second
between
the
extent
of
oral
argument
engagement
and
the
extent
of
written
engagement
in
the
same
cases,
and
third
between
the
language
justices
use
at
oral
argument
and
what
they
write
in
their
decisions.
The
first
two
measures
–
between
the
extent
of
oral
argument
speech
and
the
choice
with
whether
to
write
at
all
and
if
so
how
much
–
are
performed
by
looking
at
the
correlations
in
these
aspects
of
engagement.
The
third
–
the
language
similarity
aspect
uses
cosine
similarity
If
justices
who
speak
more
tend
to
write
more
comprehensive
opinions
or
write
opinions
at
all,
it
may
suggest
a
direct
connection
between
the
justices’
oral
discourse
during
proceedings
and
their
written
analyses.
Examining
the
similarity
between
the
language
used
in
oral
arguments
and
written
opinions
can
shed
light
on
how
justices
frame
their
thoughts
and
arguments.
If
their
language
is
consistent
across
both
formats,
it
may
indicate
a
deliberate
effort
to
maintain
coherence
between
what
they
say
and
do.
To
construct
this
measure
of
similarity
the
algorithm
looks
at
each
justice’s
words
in
each
oral
argument
transcript
and
corresponding
opinion
and
counts
how
many
times
each
word
appears
after
removing
“stop
words”
which
hold
little
to
no
information
value.
Then
it
counts
how
many
times
each
word
appears
in
both
documents.
Cosine
similarity
looks
at
these
two
lists
and
checks
how
similar
they
are.
The
data
used
are
oral
arguments
transcripts
and
opinions
from
the
2004
through
the
2022
Supreme
Court
terms.
The
oral
argument
transcripts
were
supplied
by
Jake
Truscott’s
compilation
via
his
R
based
tool SCOTUSText.
The
justices
of
focus
are
the
nine
on
the
current
Court
and
the
most
recent
retiree,
Justice
Breyer.
These
data
are
provided
on
the
justice
level,
thereby
breaking
these
patterns
down
to
focus
on
individual
behavior
along
with
that
of
the
justices
generally.
Understanding
these
relationships
may
reveal
strategic
behavior
in
how
justices
use
oral
arguments
to
influence
their
colleagues
or
shape
public
perception.
A
justice
who
uses
more
persuasive
language
during
arguments
may
also
adopt
similar
rhetoric
in
their
opinions,
suggesting
a
conscious
strategy
to
convey
specific
innuendo.
Findings
The
first
analysis
looks
at
the
likelihood
of
a
justice
authoring
an
opinion
at
all,
based
the
volume
of
their
speech
at
oral
argument.
The
plot
is
a
combination
of
a
bar
and
box
plot
with
confidence
intervals
in
black.
Justice
Kavanaugh
exhibited
the
highest
correlation
with
.294
(with
a
p-value
of
.000112)
indicating
a
statistically
significant
relationship.
This
means
that
as
Kavanaugh
speaks
more,
the
likelihood
of
authoring
a
decision
in
the
same
case
increases
markedly.
Justices
Alito
and
Kagan
both
showed
significant
correlations
of
.226.
This
indicates
that
their
speaking
practices
are
also
closely
tied
to
the
eventual
written
decisions.
Conversely,
Justice
Roberts
presented
a
negligible
correlation
of
.00519
indicating
no
significant
relationship
between
his
speech
and
the
presence
of
a
written
opinion.
The
overall
correlation
across
all
justices
between
the
volume
of
speech
and
the
presence
of
written
decisions
is
low
(.0431).
This
finding
underscores
the
notion
that,
on
average,
the
amount
of
speech
produced
does
not
significantly
predict
the
presence
of
written
decisions
among
the
justices
collectively.
This
also
implies
that
individual
justices’
relationships
on
this
front
vary
widely
in
terms
of
when
opinions
are
ultimately
rendered.
Moving
forward
along
the
same
train
of
thought,
the
next
figure
looks
at
the
relationship
between
the
amount
of
oral
argument
speech
and
the
length
of
opinions
when
authored.
Based
on
arguments
where
each
justice
engaged
at
all,
Justice
Jackson
had
the
highest
average
number
of
words
spoken,
followed
by
Justices
Kagan
and
Breyer.
Justice
Thomas
had
the
lowest
number
of
average
words
in
oral
argument
with
308.6.
Looking
at
decision
length,
Justice
Breyer
had
the
highest
average
length
with
5623.59
words.
Justice
Barrett
with
2331.58
words
per
decision
had
the
least
words
on
average.
The
overall
correlation
between
words
spoken
and
words
written
across
justices
is
.2316
indicating
a
weak
positive
correlation.
This
suggests
that,
in
general,
justices
who
tend
to
speak
more
during
oral
arguments
also
tend
to
write
longer
decisions,
but
the
relationship
is
not
very
strong.
Justices
Jackson
and
Kagan
have
high
average
oral
argument
word
counts
and
relatively
high
average
decision
lengths,
indicating
a
robust
engagement
in
both
oral
arguments
and
written
opinions.
Thomas
who
notably
has
lower
engagement
in
oral
arguments,
produces
a
differentially
high
word
count
in
opinions.
While
the
correlation
indicates
a
relationship
between
speaking
amount
and
decision
length,
it
also
highlights
that
the
relationship
is
not
strong
enough
to
conclude
that
higher
speaking
amounts
directly
lead
to
longer
written
opinions.
Factors
such
as
the
nature
of
the
cases,
individual
styles
of
writing,
and
the
complexities
involved
in
each
decision
likely
contribute
to
the
observed
outcomes.
The
last
figure
shows
the
relationship
between
the
similarity
in
language
used
in
oral
argument
and
written
decisions.
The
plot
shows
the
median
similarity
per
justice
with
a
red
dot
with
other
datapoints
around
them
showing
different
levels
of
similarity.
The
bulk
of
the
observations
by
justice
are
in
the
thicker
hubs
in
a
similar
manner
to
a
box
plot,
with
the
outliers
towards
the
edges.
Justice
Jackson
had
the
highest
average
similarity
.782,
suggesting
that
her
language
is
most
similar
between
oral
argument
and
decision
text.
Justices
Alito
and
Sotomayor
also
have
relatively
high
average
similarities
(.748
and
.720,
respectively).
Justice
Thomas
has
the
lowest
average
similarity
(.599),
indicating
a
lower
alignment
between
his
word
choice
in
oral
argument
and
decision
text
compared
to
other
justices.
Concluding
Thoughts
The
general
insights
from
these
results
highlight
the
variability
in
how
justices
engage
with
both
oral
arguments
and
written
opinions,
reflecting
different
approaches.
First,
there
appears
to
be
a
notable
distinction
between
justices
who
actively
engage
in
oral
arguments
and
those
who
are
more
reserved
in
that
setting,
with
some
justices
demonstrating
a
clear
connection
between
how
much
they
speak
and
their
likelihood
to
author
opinions.
This
suggests
that
for
some
justices,
speaking
in
oral
arguments
may
serve
as
an
important
aspect
of
their
decision-making
process.
Second,
the
weak
but
present
correlation
between
the
amount
spoken
in
oral
arguments
and
the
length
of
written
opinions
suggests
that
while
there
is
some
connection
between
oral
and
written
engagement,
it
is
not
a
strong
or
consistent
one.
Lastly,
the
variation
in
language
similarity
between
oral
arguments
and
written
opinions
underscores
differences
in
how
justices
approach
communication
in
these
two
formats.
Justices
who
exhibit
higher
language
similarity
may
strive
for
consistency
in
how
they
present
their
ideas
in
both
settings,
possibly
reflecting
a
strategic
effort
to
ensure
coherence.
Conversely,
justices
with
lower
similarity
might
adapt
their
language
for
different
contexts
—
perhaps
viewing
oral
arguments
as
more
dynamic
and
fluid,
while
treating
written
opinions
as
more
formal.
This
variability
highlights
that
there
is
no
one-size-fits-all
pattern
in
how
justices
move
from
oral
argument
to
written
decision,
with
some
showing
strong
connections
between
the
two
and
others
exhibiting
more
independence
in
their
methods
of
engagement.
Knowledge
of
how
justices
engage
in
oral
arguments
compared
to
their
written
opinions
can
inform
legal
practitioners
on
how
to
better
present
cases.
Understanding
which
justices
favor
oral
discourse
may
guide
attorneys
in
tailoring
their
arguments.
Researching
these
relationships
can
contribute
to
a
more
comprehensive
understanding
of
judicial
behavior
by
bridging
gaps
in
existing
literature
on
how
oral
arguments
influence
judicial
outcomes
and
enhance
the
understanding
of
the
Supreme
Court’s
decision-making
as
a
complex
interplay
of
verbal
and
written
communication.
Adam
Feldman
runs
the
litigation
consulting
company
Optimized
Legal
Solutions
LLC.
For
more
information
write
Adam
at [email protected]. Find
him
on
Twitter: @AdamSFeldman.
Chris
