The Justices Aren't as Nice as They Used to Be

摘要

As the Supreme Court heads into its heavy end-of-term season, with same-sex marriage and Obamacare on the docket, scholars at Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia have determined that modern justices' opinions are "more long-winded and grumpier" than those of their predecessors. The researchers-computer science and mathematics professor Daniel Rockmore and doctoral candidate Keith Carlson from Dartmouth, and associate law professor Michael Livermore from the University of Virginia School of Law-relied on data crunching to trace the evolution of the court's literary style from 1791 to 2008.