Correction: An earlier version of this report said that a case argued in April in which four justices did not ask one side questions set a modern-era record. Subsequent to publication, an eagle-eyed reader pointed out that there was a case from 2008 at which only three justices asked government counsel a question and therefore six were silent. We updated the article on May 17 to note that case.

During an oral argument last month in the U.S. Supreme Court, four justices said in various ways “I have no questions,” silence that was noticeable over the phone lines in the telephonic argument format of the pandemic era.