What Can We Infer From Justice Kilbride's Question Patterns In Criminal Cases?

Last week, we analyzed the pattern of Justice Kilbride's questions in oral arguments in civil cases, asking whether it's possible to infer who Justice Kilbride will vote for and whether or not he's writing an opinion. This week, we do the same for the Court's criminal cases between 2008 and 2016.

Overall, Justice Kilbride has voted with the majority in 141 criminal affirmances for the nine years we're studying. In sixteen of those cases, he wrote the Court's opinion. In a further three, he wrote a concurrence. For these cases, he tends to question the losing party more closely (although Justice Kilbride typically doesn't ask many questions), averaging 0.57 questions per argument to appellants, and 0.28 questions to appellees. He questions appellants a bit more heavily when he's writing the majority opinion – 0.81 questions per argument – but his questioning to appellees is actually a bit lighter in such cases, averaging 0.13. Justice Kilbride asked no questions