5 ms·

Simple predictor of supreme court cases: which side is asked more questions

24 points by fleaflicker 17y ago

stcredzero 17y ago
Interesting. So the more you can affirm the views of the judges, the more likely you are to win. If you pique the interest or curiosity of the judges, the more likely you are to lose. That's disturbing. To me that's the stance the least likely to get at the truth. I wonder if there's a highly intelligent and advanced alien civilization out there that would view our adversarial judicial system a mere refinement on "trial by combat."
- olefoo 17y ago
  The agonistic system used in jurisdictions inheriting from english common law is trial by combat. It's supposed to work that way. The requirement of a disinterested judge, the structured dialogue of contending opinions; the whole notion of facing the accuser directly and of having a champion to represent your interests fall out of this. There are other judicial systems where a judge-advocate investigates and is supposed to arrive at the truth (mostly in nations that inherit from the Napoleonic Code); but anglo-saxon justice is explicitly a substitute for the duel.
mdasen 17y ago
There could be a simpler explanation: the Justices are asking the side which is inherently unlikely to win more questions because they have a greater need to justify their case. If you're arguing what is likely to win by the logic of the status quo or dominant paradigm, there's almost no need to state your case - the Justices will already know the logic and arguments behind your case. If you're fighting from the opposite side, there are a lot more questions, clarifications, etc. that need to be made to understand your position. And you're still likely to lose even if you've made a good case because you have the inherently weaker case. Basically, what I'm arguing, is that the Justices generally know the arguments for the stronger case and so there isn't a lot of questions to be asked, but want to give the weaker case an opportunity to make their case and prove that they, in fact, have a stronger case. However, it's unlikely coming from the weaker side that you'll have the stronger case in the end.
- alextp 17y ago
  The article comes pretty close to saying that in the end, when judging the affect of the words.
- endtime 17y ago
  What you say is probably true, but it doesn't negate the claim; rather, it justifies it. The question distribution is still a good predictor of the outcome.
pierrefar 17y ago
I wonder what this kind of analysis will find if applied to the high courts of other countries. Of course, we'll need to control for how the high court judges are installed in the different countries. Could make for a very interesting comparison.
jhancock 17y ago
interesting stat. But calling it a predictor may be a stretch as it does little to help either side make decisions as to how far to push a case. Once your making oral arguments in front of the highest court, there is little room left for such a stat to be useful.
lincolnq 17y ago
Correlation doesn't imply causation! This newspaper article seems to take this simple observation and twist it into "don't let the judges ask you questions". As far as I can tell, there's no evidence for this causal relationship.

24 points by fleaflicker 17y ago

Interesting. So the more you can affirm the views of the judges, the more likely you are to win. If you pique the interest or curiosity of the judges, the more likely you are to lose. That's disturbing. To me that's the stance the least likely to get at the truth. I wonder if there's a highly intelligent and advanced alien civilization out there that would view our adversarial judicial system a mere refinement on "trial by combat."

olefoo 17y ago
The agonistic system used in jurisdictions inheriting from english common law is trial by combat. It's supposed to work that way. The requirement of a disinterested judge, the structured dialogue of contending opinions; the whole notion of facing the accuser directly and of having a champion to represent your interests fall out of this. There are other judicial systems where a judge-advocate investigates and is supposed to arrive at the truth (mostly in nations that inherit from the Napoleonic Code); but anglo-saxon justice is explicitly a substitute for the duel.

mdasen 17y ago

There could be a simpler explanation: the Justices are asking the side which is inherently unlikely to win more questions because they have a greater need to justify their case. If you're arguing what is likely to win by the logic of the status quo or dominant paradigm, there's almost no need to state your case - the Justices will already know the logic and arguments behind your case. If you're fighting from the opposite side, there are a lot more questions, clarifications, etc. that need to be made to understand your position. And you're still likely to lose even if you've made a good case because you have the inherently weaker case. Basically, what I'm arguing, is that the Justices generally know the arguments for the stronger case and so there isn't a lot of questions to be asked, but want to give the weaker case an opportunity to make their case and prove that they, in fact, have a stronger case. However, it's unlikely coming from the weaker side that you'll have the stronger case in the end.

alextp 17y ago
The article comes pretty close to saying that in the end, when judging the affect of the words.
endtime 17y ago
What you say is probably true, but it doesn't negate the claim; rather, it justifies it. The question distribution is still a good predictor of the outcome.

pierrefar 17y ago

I wonder what this kind of analysis will find if applied to the high courts of other countries. Of course, we'll need to control for how the high court judges are installed in the different countries. Could make for a very interesting comparison.

jhancock 17y ago

interesting stat. But calling it a predictor may be a stretch as it does little to help either side make decisions as to how far to push a case. Once your making oral arguments in front of the highest court, there is little room left for such a stat to be useful.

lincolnq 17y ago

Correlation doesn't imply causation! This newspaper article seems to take this simple observation and twist it into "don't let the judges ask you questions". As far as I can tell, there's no evidence for this causal relationship.