Performative Judging? Measuring the Effect of Video Recording on Judicial Behavior in Circuit Court Oral Arguments
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: With the advent of remote-video technology and recent pushes to include video feeds in U.S. Supreme Court hearings, many are concerned about the effect that video and streaming might have on the behavior of U.S. judges and court participants. Previous research has shown that judges react to public sentiment, and anecdotal evidence suggests that introducing video recording might induce greater levels of "performative judging," where behavior changes when there are cameras in the courtroom. We use AI-powered diarization to analyze the transcripts of oral arguments, leveraging the quasi-random adoption of video feeds in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court. When comparing cases with audio recordings to those with video recordings, we find that judges tend to speak more and for a greater portion of proceedings and are more likely to interrupt attorneys, although these results are model dependent. These findings suggest that when considering whether to introduce cameras into U.S. federal courtrooms, courts and policy makers should consider the consequences on judges' behavior in addition to possible institutional or public benefits.
Authors: Aaron R. Kaufman, Dane Thorley, Lucy Williams
Institutions: New York University Abu Dhabi, Brigham Young University
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7128914475