US Supreme Court Opinions and their Audiences

An investigation of how US Supreme Court justices alter the clarity of their opinions based on expected reactions from their audiences.

This book shows the United States Supreme Court instrumentally uses opinion clarity to enhance compliance with its decisions and to circumvent negative audience responses. It employs a unique measure of opinion clarity that scholars can use in numerous contexts and highlights the importance of strategic language use.This book is the first study specifically to investigate the extent to which US Supreme Court justices alter the clarity of their opinions based on expected reactions from their audiences. The authors examine this dynamic by creating a unique measure of opinion clarity and then testing whether the Court writes clearer opinions when it faces ideologically hostile and ideologically scattered lower federal courts; when it decides cases involving poorly performing federal agencies; when it decides cases involving states with less professionalized legislatures and governors; and when it rules against public opinion. The data shows the Court writes clearer opinions in every one of these contexts, and demonstrates that actors are more likely to comply with clearer Court opinions.