Amicus Briefs: Blog Post #1
The first stage – submission of arguments to the Court
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The Beginnings of Research
The Beginnings of Research
I love podcasts. I follow over fifteen on Spotify – some religiously, some occasionally; some as a day one listener, and some in a backlog process until I reach the first episode. One of these podcasts is 5-4, as the anchors note every episode, "a podcast about why the Supreme Court sucks".
One of the best aspects of podcasts is that they can be consumed at any time of the day. For example, 2:50AM. This happened to be exactly when I was catching up on old 5-4 episodes during summer vacation. An episode series on the Federalist Society included a deep dive into originalism, a theory which I had previously been only tangentially aware of. For the first time, I learned of originalism's deep political roots, and the pervasive influence of conservative legal groups on the Supreme Court. The exposé on the Federalist Society provided an example of something I amorphously knew to be true – that the GOP is much more committed to the judicial branch than the Democratic Party. As I laid in bed, lights off, brain sleep-deprived, I began to consider the growing acceptance of originalism – and then I realized that this had the potential to become my AP Research project. The idea immediately entered my Notes app:
And after significant refining, my middle of the night musings evolved into my current research topic. I initially felt concerned that another researcher had already traced originalism's prevalence in the Court, and while I discovered a sizable body of research on the Court, I found no empirical analyses of originalism. I soon learned that no one else had approached this topic due to the text volume involved: an anlayses on originalism inherently hinges on the ideas expressed in Court opinions, which thus must be subjected to a close reading for the entire time period.
It occurred to me that I could extend my analyses beyond a random sample by applying machine-learning technology. By reading other studies, I learned the generally accepted process of a supervised learning model:
hand-code a random sample
train an algorithm on the random sample
have the machine replicate hand-coding
feed the rest of the corpus into the algorithm to collect data
This technology makes it possible for me to closely read some opinions, but extend my data alaysis to a 70 year period (beginning with the Warren Court).
Ultimately, research on originalism is essential because law in America is intrinsically political, and originalism represents a microcosm of this dynamic. Originalism is a popular talking point amongst conservative legal and political spheres, promising judicial self-restraint yet, as many critics observe, providing the opposite. By collecting this initial data on originalism's prevalence, further studies can apply additional layer of analyses to disprove originalism as a neutral legal mechanism.
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