Yesterday, we showed that between 2008 and 2016, an unusually
high level of questions from Justice Garman indicated that she was
likely writing an opinion. We also demonstrated that when Justice
Garman was in the minority, she averaged more questions to the
party she would vote against rather than the party which would
ultimately lose.
Today, we turn to the related question – does writing an
opinion make it more likely that the first question will come from
Justice Garman?
Overall, when Justice Garman is in the majority of an
affirmance, she asks the first question of appellants in 15.69% of
cases, and of appellees 14.71% of the time. Writing has an impact;
when she's writing the majority opinion, the likelihood that
she'll ask the first question to appellant grows to 27.27%. The
effect is somewhat less for appellees; Justice Garman asks the
first question 18.18% of the time when writing an opinion. When not
writing, there is a 6.85% chance she'll ask the first
