What Can We Infer From Justice Garman's Question Pattern In Criminal Cases?

Last week, we looked at the data from the past nine years' oral arguments in civil cases, analyzing how Justice Garman's vote, and whether or not she's in the majority, impacts her question patterns.  We also looked at whether it's reasonable to infer that Justice Garman might be writing an opinion in cases where she's unusually active at argument.  This week, we turn our attention to the data for criminal cases.

We analyzed data from 148 criminal arguments in which Justice Garman was in the majority of an affirmance, and 166 arguments in which she was in the majority of a partial or complete reversal.  When Justice Garman is in the majority of an affirmance, she averages 2.51 questions to appellants, only 0.8 to appellees.  Writing the majority opinion has an impact on her questions to appellants – she averages 3.47 questions to appellants across thirty such cases – but averages only 0.67 questions to appellees when she's writing the majority.  There are very few