Decisionmaking by the Supreme Court can be seen as a flow of steps and procedures which include reviewing appeals and appli- cations to hear a case, oral argument, conference discussion and vote, opinion assignment, opinion writing and circulation, and announcement of the decision on Decision Day. Each of the stages in the process has an impact on the final outcome. Research has revealed much about each of the stages with the exception of oral argument where very little is known. The oral argument can be seen either as a key event influencing judicial decisionmaking or as an opportunity to observe the decisional predispositions of justices. From either vantage, it is reve- latory to understanding its relationship to individual justice's attitudes and votes as well as to leadership and decisionmaking in the Supreme Court. By rendering oral argument susceptible to identification, measurement, and analysis, this project provides the first comprehensive behavioral study of the role of oral argument in Supreme Court decisionmaking. A sample of 300 cases will be selected from the Burger Court period, with half of the cases involving criminal procedure issues and half randomly selected from other issue areas. Data will be developed from transcripts and real-time audio recordings of the behavioral events that occurred during oral arguments. Techniques of verbal content analysis and voice analysis will be used to develop indicators of verbal and nonverbal aspects of behavior. The issue content of the oral argument and the opinions will also be coded. These data will be integrated with existing archived data on judicial attitudes, attributes, and case characteristics. Theoretical objectives include (1) analyzing the relationship between the verbal behavior of Justices in oral argument and their voting decisions; (2) analyzing the issues considered in oral argument and the content of majority and minority opinions; and (3) explaining patterns of involvement, leadership, and affective behavior by Justices during oral argument. In addition to filling an important gap in our understanding of the Supreme Court decisionmaking process, this study will provide a unique opportunity to observe directly expressions of judicial attitudes across issues, across cases, and across time. Prior studies have inferred attitudes about political ideology through voting behavior. This research will complement and extend these studies with direct observation. The development and application of techniques and methods for direct observation and measurement will have far reaching impacts on many other areas in the behavioral and social sciences that would be advanced by systematic observational methods.
