Work

Friends with Motives: Using Text to Infer Influence on SCOTUS

Year: 2016

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: We present a probabilistic model of the influence of language on the behavior of the U.S. Supreme Court, specifically influence of amicus briefs on Court decisions and opinions.The approach assumes that amici are rational, utility-maximizing agents who try to win votes or affect the language of court opinions.Our model leads to improved predictions of justices' votes and perplexity of opinion language.It is amenable to inspection, allowing us to explore inferences about the persuasiveness of different amici and influenceability of different justices; these are consistent with earlier findings."Language is the central tool of our trade."

Source: Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP)

DOI: 10.18653/v1/d16-1178

Authors: Yanchuan Sim, Bryan Routledge, Noah A. Smith

Institutions: University of Washington, Carnegie Mellon University

Language: English

Topic: Judicial and Constitutional Studies

Subfield: Law

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Funder: Amicus Therapeutics