Opinion Construction in the Roberts Court
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6090787 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Adam Feldman (University of Southern California, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 192-209 |
| Publication date | 2017-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Law & Policy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0265-8240 • E-ISSN: 1467-9930 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/lapo.12074 |
| OpenAlex | W3123184059 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 35 |
The Supreme Court's main output is the decision on the merits. Little is known, however, about how such decisions are constructed. This article is one of the first to look at the way Supreme Court opinions are constructed by examining the impact of the core linguistic resources at the Court's disposal. It does so in a novel manner by measuring the Court's reliance on wording from parties’ merits filings, amicus briefs, and lower‐court opinions between the 2005 and 2014 terms. To accomplish this goal, the article compares language in over 13,000 documents in the Court's docket during this period with their respective majority opinions. The article then looks at the relative impact of parties’ briefs and filings, amicus curiae briefs, and lower‐court opinions on the Court's majority opinion language. This article provides both macro– and microlevel analyses by locating the relative effects of these linguistic resources on the Court's overall opinion language as well as by breaking these findings down by individual justice. In the aggregate, this article finds that, of the three resources analyzed, the Court tends to use language from parties’ merits briefs most frequently, then wording from lower‐court opinions, and the least from amicus briefs, but that differences in case level factors shift the relative utility of each of these three resources
Concurring opinion · Court of equity · Court of record · Dissenting opinion · Economic Justice · Law of the case · Majority opinion · Original jurisdiction · Political science · Precedent · Remand (court procedure · Sociology · Supreme court · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Jury Decision Making Processes · Law · Legal Education and Practice Innovations
Understanding the Role of Linguistic Complexity in Famous Trial Outcomes
The U.S. Supreme Court’s Increasing Use of Legal Scholarship
Judicial globalization from below
The Use of Amicus Briefs
A Fresh Perspective
Measuring Policy Diffusion in Federal Systems
I Can’t See You; Can You Hear Me? Gender Norms and Context During In-Person and Teleconference U.S. Supreme Court Oral Arguments
Well said
Habit and creativity in judges' definition and framing of legal questions
Courts
Judges and Their Audiences
The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited
On Law, Politics, and Judicialization
The Solicitor General and the United States Supreme Court
The Influence of Amicus Curiae Briefs on the Supreme Court
Bargaining and Opinion Assignment on the US Supreme Court
An Efficient Method of Estimating Seemingly Unrelated Regressions and Tests for Aggregation Bias
Enforcement of Civil Rights Law in Private Workplaces
Ideas with Consequences
The Tenth Justice
Friends of the Court
Lower Court Influence on U.S. Supreme Court Opinion Content
Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953–1999
The Influence of Amicus Curiae Briefs on U.S. Supreme Court Opinion Content
The Influence of Oral Arguments on the U.S. Supreme Court
Taking Rights Seriously
Repeat Players in the Supreme Court
Overruled
The Supreme Court and Opinion Content
A Bayesian Hierarchical Topic Model for Political Texts
Measuring Issue Salience
The Hierarchy of Justice
Signals from the Tenth Justice
The Norm of Stare Decisis
Appellate Court Supervision in the Federal Judiciary
Strategic Auditing in a Political Hierarchy
| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,13 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2026 (9) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 9 |