No. 17-1606 · argued March 18, 2019
Ricky Lee Smith, Petitioner v. Nancy A. Berryhill, Acting Commissioner of Social Security
Post-argument lean
From the argument alone, before the decision
The transcript could not be divided between the two sides — an advocate whose side neither the transcript nor the case captions settle, or a header the parser could not read — so there is no lean for this argument.
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193 turns
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The Court’s recording · each line timed to the audio
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From the Court’s official transcript.
October Term 2018, lean against result
Each dot an argument; click one to open it
23 of 30
leaned 75% or more to the petitioner, and the petitioner won
5 of 5
leaned toward the respondent, and the respondent won
46 of 66
decided cases where the lean pointed the right way (always picking the petitioner: 41)
About this page. Built from the Court’s own transcript and recording.
- The lean. Backtested leave-one-Term-out on 511 decided arguments (OT2017–OT2025): 72% of outcomes called right against 70.5% for “the petitioner always wins”, with forecast error (Brier score) 0.197 against 0.209. It refines a strong base rate more than it flips calls. Each Justice’s lean: 67.5% of 4,408 votes against 63.4% for their usual rate.
- Words, not questions. Every Justice turn in an advocate’s time counts toward that advocate’s side; amicus time counts for neither. Counting turns adds nothing once words are counted, and the raw rule “more questions loses” does worse than the base rate, because petitioners argue first and have rebuttal.
- Timing. Each line is timed to the recording: speech recognition matched the Court’s audio to its transcript, and its own text is used for nothing but the clock. Click a line to hear it.
- Method and findings: docs/argument-transcripts.md.