Another law professor friend recently started listening to some Supreme Court oral arguments after some time away, and remarked to me that the arguments have gotten very long, and that many of the Justices have stopped letting people answer their questions. I think most people who follow the Court's arguments have noticed a similar phenomenon.
For instance, Professor Mike Dorf observes about yesterday's arguments in Moore v. Harper:
The oral argument yesterday in Moore v. Harper lasted nearly three hours and yet various Justices seemed to be in so much of a rush–or simply wanted to interrupt the advocates before they finished answering the Justices' questions–that there was no time to make some important points, even as a great deal of time was spent on issues that aren't presented . . .
. . . .at various points, both Justice Alito and Justice Gorsuch asked questions and then cut off the answer before the advocate got out even a few words, presumably because they didn't like the answers they were getting. They then declared themselves unsatisfied but moved on before giving the advocate a chance to address the particular source of dissatisfaction.
This sort of rudeness was bipartisan. Justice Sotomayor–as she has sometimes done in other arguments–insisted that an advocate give a yes or no answer to a question with respect to which the advocate's position entailed some nuance, expressing annoyance and accusing the lawyer of inconsistency when he hedged. Justice Jackson (to a lesser extent) also seems to have picked up this penchant for demanding yes-or-no answers. Maybe that approach is effective on cross-examination in a trial (although even then I think it makes the lawyer come across as a bully), but unless an advocate is being outright obstreperous, it's unbecoming in an appellate argument.
