Observing Supreme Court Oral Argument: A Biosocial Approach

Abstract

Abstract. Supreme Court oral argument (OA) is one of many face-to-face settings of political interaction. This article describes a methodology for the systematic observation and measurement of behavior in OA developed in a study of over 300 randomly selected cases from the 1969-1981 terms of the u.S. Supreme Court. Five sources of observation are integrated into the OA database at the speaking turn level of analysis: the actual text of verbal behavior; categorical behavior codes; aspects of language use and speech behavior events; electro-acoustical measurement of voice quality; and content analysis of subject matter. Preliminary data are presented to illustrate the methodology and its application to theoretical concerns of the research project. Peterson, who has published on a wide variety of topics in biopolitics and political behavior, is Professor of Political Science at Alfred University. Glendon Schubert, Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawaii, is a long-time and prolific student of judicial politics, constitutional law, and biopolitics.Stephen Wasby is Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York at Albany. His career has been devoted to the study of public law and judicial politics.A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT of political behavior occurs through face-to-face interaction. The face-to-face setting is present when small groups meet, when candidates face off in debates, and when lawyers negotiate in the corridors of courthouses (Dorff and Steiner, 1981;Nardulli, Flemming and Eisenstein, 1984). The face-to-face setting cuts across levels of government from municipal councils to international summit meetings. It also cuts across time; the face-to-face setting was no doubt even more common in politics 50,000 years ago than it is today. Although a substantial proportion of face-to-face interactions is not accessible to political researchers, another substantial proportion is. Indeed, there is a rapidly expanding wealth of raw political data stored on videotape, awaiting the attention and curiosity of political scientists.' Advances in video recording and microcomputing technology have made the concept of systematic observation of face-to-face politics more physically practical and financially feasible for political researchers (J. N. Schubert, 1988). In contrast with other scientific disciplines in and out of the social sciences, political science has no tradition of direct, observational field research. A few political scientists, however, have begun to apply the theoretical and methodological approach of human ethology in observational studies of politics (Watts,

The Influence of Oral Arguments on the U.S. Supreme Court

“…Others corroborate many of Johnson's findings with in-depth case studies (see, e.g., Benoit 1989;Cohen 1978;Wasby, D'Amato, and Metrailer 1976). Additionally, Wasby et al (1992) find that oral arguments focusing on the procedural posture of a case have led to many of the Court's per curiam dispositions (see also Schubert et al 1992).…”

Information, Oral Arguments, and Supreme Court Decision Making

“…This means that my analysis tests the extent to which oral arguments actually play some role in the policy that is ultimately set by the Court. Although the results may be stronger if I include all types of opinions, scholars who have studied oral arguments have only looked at majority opinions (see, e.g., Benoit, 1989;Cohen, 1978;Schubert et al, 1992;Wasby et al, 1992). Additionally, those who have studied the effect of arguments more generally also analyze the majority opinions (Epstein & Knight, 1998a;Spriggs & Wahlbeck, 1997).…”

Nonverbal contention and contempt in U.K. parliamentary oversight hearings on fiscal and monetary policy

“…[38: 63] Indeed scientific research into the voice is said to be in "its infancy." [39] Nonetheless identifiable characteristics of nonverbal vocal cues include pitch, loudness, the quality or "timbre" of the attention given to such features as speech rate, speech disturbances, the valence of expression and related factors, [43] and to vocal cues between a Justice and a lawyer. [44] Beyond facial expressions and voice, gestures and body movement comprise a third influential mode of nonverbal communication.…”

“…To be sure, measures for coding should avoid incurring inconsistencies arising from human idiosyncrasies, [53] and to the extent that the agreed results reported below are based upon a simple 100% agreement that one set of witnesses or committee exhibited relatively more nonverbal cues (anger, happiness, etc) than the other set of witnesses or committee, the bulk of the coding results do not report as findings any inconsistencies among the coders (and so, a measure such as Krippendorff's Alpha is not used). Studies do not usually discuss differences among coders (although exceptions include: Schubert and colleagues, who comment on a coder's "idiosyncratic tendency to overcode"; [43] and Bucy and Gong, who discuss specific techniques for improving intercoder reliability and precision [9,[55][56][57][58]) and yet-as discussed earlier-receivers of nonverbal messages do not necessarily respond in similar ways, as these signals are conditional on pre-existing attitudes and the situational context of the behaviour, and some individuals are simply more adept than others in discerning the meaning of the signals. Finally, "stereotypical" university undergraduates have been criticized for being "socially compliant" and "more likely to be mercurial in their attitudes because of lack of self-knowledge."…”