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An Empirical Analysis Of The Confirmation Hearings Of The Justices Of The Rehnquist Natural Court, Jason J. Czarnezki

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Despite the importance of this question, surprisingly little work has been done comparing the statements made by nominees at their confirmation hearings with their subsequent behavior on the Supreme Court. If the hearings reveal substantively valuable information about nominees' views, then we would expect to find a relationship between the Justices' statements and their judicial decisions. This Article is an initial look at that relationship. Specifically, we examine statements involving the nominees' views on stare decisis, originalism and legislative history, and also statements involving their views on the rights of criminal defendants. We then rank order the nominees' confirmation hearings …