Supreme Court: Mr. Popular? You lose.

The New York Times had an interesting piece on Supreme Court tendencies which boils down to: the side that receives the most questions loses 86% of the time.

Two interesting pieces from the article:
1. The reality of judicial questions is that the justices are attempting to persuade colleagues through their questions and the responses they ellicit.
2. Using the Dictionary of Affect Language, the study looked at the tone of the question and found that:

Only the unpleasant words, the study found, have predictive power. The lawyer who hears more pleasant words is not more likely to win. But the lawyer who hears more unpleasant words is more likely to lose.