California Supreme Court by the numbers: oral arguments, part 2

In part one of this series, we looked at the oral argument data for the California Supreme Court as a whole -- how many questions were asked and what we can learn from that data. Today, in part two of this two-part series, we will look at the data for each individual justice and see what lessons we can learn.

Justice Carol Corrigaon

Justice Corrigan tends to average more questions to the party she will ultimately vote against, regardless of whether that party loses. When she was with the majority in a civil affirmance, Justice Corrigan averaged 8.67 questions to the losing appellant and only 1.73 to the respondent. When she was in the majority of a civil reversal, she averaged 4.57 questions to the respondent and only 2.1 to the appellant. When she dissented from a civil affirmance -- meaning she believed that the respondent should lose, but the appellant ultimately did -- she averaged 9 questions to the respondent and only 2.5 to the appellant. There were no civil cases last year where Justice Corrigan dissented from a reversal.

Justice Corrigan's patterns were similar in criminal cases (although she tends to ask more questions). When she was with the majority in a criminal affirmance, she averaged 9.14 questions to the losing appellants, 4.68 questions to respondents. When Justice Corrigan was in the majority of a criminal reversal, she averaged 7.18 questions to respondents and 5.76 to appellants. When she dissented from a criminal reversal, she averaged 28 questions to the appellants and 4.5 to respondents. There were no criminal cases last year where Justice Corrigan dissented from an affirmance.

Justice Leondra Kruger

Justice Kruger's patterns last year were a bit different. When Justice Kruger voted with the majority in a civil affirmance, she averaged 4.31 questions to the losing appellant and 3.78 to the respondent. But when she voted with the majority in a civil reversal, she averaged 4 questions to the winning appellants and 3.48 to the respondents. When Justice Kruger dissented from a civil affirmance, she averaged 4.5 questions to the respondent -- the party she voted against -- and 2.25 to the appellant. There were no civil cases last year where Justice Kruger dissented from a reversal.

In criminal affirmances where she voted with the majority, Justice Kruger averaged 2 questions to winning respondents and only 1.45 to appellants. In criminal reversals where she voted with the majority, Justice Kruger averaged 3.67 questions to respondents and 2.94 to appellants. There were no criminal cases last year where Justice Kruger dissented from an affirmance.

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye

The chief justice's question patterns were similar to those of Justice Corrigan. When she voted with the majority in a civil case, she asked more questions of the losing party -- 4.8 questions to appellants in affirmances to 3 to respondents, and 4.65 questions to respondents in reversals to 3.96 to appellants. When she dissented from a civil affirmance, the chief justice more heavily questioned the party she believed should lose rather than the party which ultimately lost -- 4 questions to the respondent, 3 to the appellant. There were no civil cases where she dissented from a reversal.

Similarly, the chief justice tended to ask more questions of the losing party when she was in the majority of a criminal case last year -- 4.69 questions to appellants to 2.09 to respondents in affirmances, and 3.44 to respondents to 3.25 to appellants in reversals. When she was in the minority of a criminal reversal, she averaged more questions to the party which ultimately lost rather than the party she voted against -- 7.33 questions to appellants, 2.67 to respondents. There were no criminal cases last year where the chief justice was in the minority of an affirmance.

Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar

Justice Cuéllar followed the same pattern. In civil cases when he voted with the majority, he averaged more questions to appellants in affirmances, 6.31 to 4.25, and more questions to respondents in reversals, 5.86 to 5.52. When Justice Cuéllar was in the minority of a civil case, he tended to ask more questions of the party which lost the case rather than the party he voted against. When he dissented from a reversal, Justice Cuéllar averaged 22 questions to respondents and 10 to appellants. When he dissented from an affirmance, he averaged 8.5 questions to appellants and five to respondents.

Justice Cuéllar averaged more questions to the losing party when he joined the majority in a criminal reversal, 3.94 for the respondent to 3.44 for the appellant. But he also averaged more questions to the respondent when he joined the majority in an affirmance -- 2.95 to 2.84. When Justice Cuéllar dissented from a reversal, he averaged more questions to the party he voted against: 4 questions to the appellant, one to the respondent. But when he dissented from an affirmance, he averaged 5.67 questions to the respondent and 3.67 to the appellant.

For two of the seven members of the court, questioning patterns offered no reliable clue to the justice's vote:

Justice Goodwin Liu

In both civil and criminal cases, Justice Liu averages more questions to the respondent. In civil affirmances where he voted with the majority, Justice Liu averaged 6.93 questions to respondents to 5.07 to appellants. In civil reversals, he averaged 6.05 questions to respondents and 4.68 questions to appellants. When Justice Liu dissented from a civil reversal, he averaged two questions to respondents to one to appellants. When Justice Liu dissented from a civil affirmance, he averaged 12 questions to respondents and 4 to appellants. On the criminal side of the docket, when voting in the majority of an affirmance, Justice Liu averaged 4.47 questions to respondents and 3.71 questions to appellants. When he voted in the majority of a criminal reversal, Justice Liu averaged 5.18 questions to respondents and 4.29 questions to appellants. When dissenting from an affirmance, Justice Liu averaged 20 questions to respondents, 6.4 to appellants. Only when dissenting from a criminal reversal did Justice Liu more heavily question the appellant -- 17 to 14.

Justice Ming Chin

Justice Chin voted with the majority in every civil case, questioning the appellant more heavily in each. In affirmances, he averaged 4.06 questions to appellants and 3.25 to respondents. In reversals, he averaged 4.57 questions to appellants and 3.39 to respondents. He questioned the appellant more heavily across the board in criminal cases. When voting with the majority in a criminal affirmance, h averaged 2.45 questions to appellants to only 1.41 to respondents. When voting with the majority in a reversal, he averaged 2.56 questions to appellants to 2.06 to respondents. When in the minority of a criminal reversal, he averaged 8.5 questions to appellants to only 3 to respondents.

Who's Writing

Although question patterns were not an entirely reliable indicator of every justice's vote, heavier-than-trend questioning was a reliable indicator that a justice was writing an opinion.

In civil cases, Justice Corrigan averaged 7.99 questions to appellants and 7.18 to respondents when she was writing. She averaged only 3.36 questions to appellants and 2.2 questions to respondents in civil cases when she was not writing.

Justice Kruger averaged 5.73 questions to appellants and 5 to respondents in civil cases where she wrote an opinion and 3.16 to appellants, 3.06 to respondents when she was not writing.

In civil cases where she wrote an opinion, Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye averaged 4.33 questions to appellants and 6.67 to respondents. She averaged 4.34 questions to appellants and 3.46 questions to respondents in cases where she didn't write an opinion.

In civil cases where Justice Chin wrote an opinion, he averaged 12.13 questions to appellants and 6.75 to respondents. When not writing an opinion in a civil case, he averaged only 2.42 questions to appellants and 2.67 to respondents.

In civil cases where he wrote an opinion, Justice Cuéllar averaged 8.28 questions to appellants and 9.29 questions to respondents. In civil cases where he wasn't writing, Justice Cuéllar averaged 5.63 questions to appellants and 4.89 to respondents.

In civil cases where he was writing, Justice Liu averaged 4.99 questions to appellants and 9.78 to respondents. When he was not writing, Justice Liu averaged 4.59 questions to appellants and 5.97 to respondents. The justices' patterns were nearly identical on the criminal side of the docket, as each justice averaged noticeably more questions in cases where they ultimately wrote an opinion than they did in cases where they did not write.

The lesson for 2017 is clear: Although the California Supreme Court is perhaps somewhat a bit more difficult to read than the U.S. Supreme Court at oral argument, pay close attention -- the justices' questions can tell an advocate a lot about how the case is likely to be decided.