Abstract

A long line of literature examines acclimation effects for newly confirmed U.S. Supreme Court justices. However, most of these analyses focus only on how new justices vote or write opinions. Here, we examine how they act during the one public aspect of the Court’s decision-making process—its oral arguments on the merits. In so doing, we seek to determine whether new justices speak, and interrupt their colleagues, less often than do their more senior colleagues. Using data on justices’ speaking turns and interruptions during all orally argued cases from the 1955 to 2018 terms, we find an acclimation effect exists whereby new justices are significantly less inclined to speak and interrupt their more senior colleagues. Our models also suggest gender and judicial ideology influence the extent to which new justices exhibit such effects during oral argument proceedings.

摘要

大量文献研究了新任命的美国最高法院法官的适应效应。然而，这些分析大多只关注新法官如何投票或撰写意见。在这里，我们研究了他们在法院决策过程的一个公共方面——其对案情的口头辩论中的行为。在这样做的过程中，我们试图确定新法官是否说话和打断他们的同事，比他们更资深的同事更少。使用 1955 年至 2018 年期间所有口头辩论案件中大法官的发言轮流和打断数据，我们发现存在一种适应效应，即新大法官明显不太愿意说话和打断他们更资深的同事。