Oral Argument

About this Episode

We finally get around to talking about oral argument on Oral Argument. And, oh do we do so in style. Supreme Court advocate and SCOTUSblog co-founder Tom Goldstein joins us for a portion of the show to talk about what oral arguments are, whether they are worth their costs, what they accomplish, and more. Joe complains about absurd hypotheticals. Christian is unfamiliar with any other kind. Also, we begin with errata, in which we acknowledge Christian’s abuse of the English language.

This show’s links:

• Tom Goldstein’s profile and law firm
• SCOTUSblog and its About page
• Oral Argument Episode 17: Flesh List, with Kim Krawiec
• Kim’s posts here and here about her appearance and with some follow-up information
• Subsume
• Oyez, a resource for, among other things, audio of Supreme Court oral arguments dating back at least to the 1950s
• The U.S. Supreme Court’s own pages for oral argument transcripts and audio
• Barry Sullivan, Other Minds: The Use and Uses of Oral Argument
• Epstein, Landes, and Posner, Inferring the Winning Party in the Supreme Court from the Pattern of Questioning at Oral Argument
• Wikipedia, collecting sources, on Justice Thomas’ approach to oral argument
• The Oyez page for Loving v. Virginia, which links to the audio of the oral argument in the historic case striking down state bans on interracial marriage
• Ronald Collins, Hypothetically Speaking: Justice Breyer’s Dialectical Propensities
• Joshua Stein, Tentative Oral Opinions: Improving Oral Argument Without Spending a Dime
• Oyez page for Kelo v. City of New London
• Oral argument transcript in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, just search for “King Tut” within this document
• Adam Liptak, A Taxonomy of Supreme Court Humor
• Jay Wexler, Laugh Track II - Still Laughin’!