Media Attention and Deliberation on the Supreme Court

• Published date: 01 June 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129221114049
• Author: Alex Badas,Billy Justus
• Date: 01 June 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2023, Vol. 76(2) 757–769

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129221114049

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Media Attention and Deliberation on the

Supreme Court

Alex Badas

1

and Billy Justus

1



Abstract

The news media acts as a “watchdog”over political institutions by holding them accountable for their actions through

critical commentary. Being that the Supreme Court rarely interacts directly with the public, the news media is the

primary mechanism through which individuals become aware of the Supreme Court’s actions and decisions. Thus, for the

Supreme Court, the news media’s role as a “watchdog”takes greater meaning than it does for institutions that often

speak directly to the public. Considering this, along with the Supreme Court’s use of strategic presentation, we argue that

news media attention to particular cases will inf‌luence the extent to which the Supreme Court deliberates on argued

cases. We f‌ind support for our hypothesis in four contexts. First, cases with more news media attention take longer to

produce a published opinion. Second, cases with greater media attention are more likely to be reargued. Third, cases with

more news media attention produce a higher number of draft opinions before being published. Fourth, cases with more

news media attention produce opinions with a greater share of cognitive mechanisms included in them. Our results have

implications for the Justice’s use of strategic behavior and the potential constraints faced by the Court in its decision-

making.

Keywords

Supreme Court, Media, Deliberation, Judicial Politics, Political Communication

On April 24th of 1985, the Supreme Court heard oral

arguments in Russell v. United States (1985). The case

involved a question of criminal procedure. On June 3rd of

1985, after just 40 days of deliberation and two draft

opinions, the Court announced a unanimous decision

ruling against Russell’s procedural claim. Yet,in the same

term, the Court heard Winston v.Lee (1985). Like Russel l,

Winston was a case that dealt with criminal procedure.

However, in this case, the Court conducted oral arguments

on October 31, 1984, and did not announce an opinion

until 140 days later on March 20th of 1985. Along the

way, the Court circulated six draft opinions before re-

leasing its f‌inal judgment. While the Court engaged in

substantially more deliberation in Winston than it did in

Russell, the result was the same: a unanimous decision

against the defendant who was raising a question of

criminal procedure.

Being that the Winston and Russell cases were similar

along so many dimensions—they were argued during the

same term, each argued a matter of criminal procedure,

both were decided unanimously, and both upheld the

status quo—what could potentially explain the difference

in the amount of deliberation the Court engaged in to

reach these outcomes? One explanation is the difference

in media coverage each case received at the time the

Supreme Court announced it would hear the case. Russell

received below average media attention, and the Court

engaged in relatively little deliberation when deciding it.

On the other hand, Winston received above average media

attention, and the Court engaged in prolonged deliberation

before announcing its opinion.

1

Considering the media’s

status as the fourth estate and a watchdog of government

institutions, and the Justice’s desire to engage in strategic

presentation and control media narratives about their

actions, we hypothesize that greater pre-decision media

coverage of a case will induce the Supreme Court to

engage in more deliberation before announcing a f‌inal

decision.

1

Department of Political Science, University of Houston, Houston, TX,

USA

Corresponding Author:

Alex Badas, Department of Political Science, University of Houston,

Houston, TX 77204-301, USA.

Email: abadas@uh.edu