Which justice favors the word 'utterly'? Computer program analyzes SCOTUS writing styles
The U.S. Supreme Court issued eight per curiam opinions last term, leaving some court watchers wondering about authorship.
The mystery could be solved with a new algorithm developed by computer scientist William Li and his colleagues, the Atlantic reports. Their computer program analyzes signed opinions to spot words, phrases and sentence structure characterizing each justice’s writing style, then uses its findings to determine the author of unsigned opinions.
The program had an 81 percent accuracy rate in an analysis of 117 opinions.
The Atlantic spoke with Li about some of the writing-style findings, which are summarized in this Stanford Technology Law Review article (PDF) at page 525. They include:
• Chief Justice John J. Roberts Jr. uses the words “pertinent” and “accordingly” a lot. He tends to start sentences with “here” and end them with “the first place.” He also likes the phrases “without regard to,” “given that” and “a general matter.”
• Justice Antonin Scalia favors the words “utterly,” “thinks” and “finally.” He also likes to start sentences with “of course” and “that is not.”
• Justice Stephen G. Breyer likes to use the phrase “in respect to” and to start sentences with “for one thing,” “that is because” and “hence.” He likes to use the words “consequently” and “thing.”
• Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg often uses the words “observed” and “stated,” and likes to start sentences with “notably.” She likes the phrases “reasons stated” and “case concerns.”
• Justice Sonia Sotomayor often uses the words “observes,” “heightened” and “lawsuits.”
• Justice Clarence Thomas likes the phrases “the foregoing reasons” and “address whether.” He likes to begin sentences with “therefore” and “however.”
• Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. favors the words “fundamentally,” “widely” and “regarded.” He also uses the phrases “set out,” “noted above,” “is generally” and “the decision of.”
• Justice Elena Kagan tends to use the words “enables,” “earlier” and “matters,” and the phrases “result is” “after all” and “the theory.”
• Justice Anthony M. Kennedy likes to begin sentences with “though” and “the question is.” He favors ending sentences with “however.” He also uses the phrase “he or she.”
Li developed the program amid speculation that Roberts, who wrote the 2012 majority decision upholding the Affordable Care Act under Congress’ taxing power, had also written the unsigned dissent in the case before switching sides. The computer analysis found that Justice Antonin Scalia likely wrote the dissent.
