Dr. Adam Feldman

Quick Note: SCOTUS Justices/Nominees’ Ages at Death

Perusing through some data for another post, I came across the age at death of all deceased Supreme Court nominees (those confirmed and not excluding Justice Scalia). The graph on the left shows all of the ages at death over time and the graph on the right shows the life expectancy trend based on the death…

Garland’s Reach into the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court writes full decisions in around 70 orally argued cases every term. The majority of these cases were previously heard by federal courts of appeals. Each of the twelve federal appeals circuits, however, decides hundreds of cases every year, with only a tiny percentage going to the Supreme Court for further review. Appeals…

A New Frontier in SCOTUS Stay Decisions Without Justice Scalia?

While most of the Supreme Court’s notable matters include cases with far reaching implications that are decided with written decisions, some of the most important decisions the Court makes have to do with emergency matters that are time-sensitive. The Court examines a number of stay applications each year, which are typically dominated by capital cases….

A Tale of Two Constitutional Holdings

The Supreme Court held two state statutes unconstitutional during the the 2015 term*: portions of Florida’s death penalty law in Hurst v. Florida and Texas’ abortion statute in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. While lower court rulings relate to the specific statute(s) dealt with in a case, these decisions have nationwide implications. The Court’s decisions have constitutional…

Supreme Court Opinion Readability 2015

How easy are Supreme Court opinions to read? There is quite a bit of variation in the Court’s writings based on the case facts, Justice, clerks, majority coalition, and prior case law involved. Complicating this question further is the difficulty in measuring reading ease. As with measuring writing quality, there are subjective elements that even…

The Summer Pipeline

Supreme Court Justices make few official decisions during the summer. Generally, these relate to emergency matter that require quick injunctive responses. For lawyers, however, the situation is quite different (as the saying goes “time and tide wait for no man”). While the Court does not rule on cases during the summer, cert petitions accumulate just…

Five SCOTUS Decisions Making Waves in the Lower Courts

The 2015/2016 Supreme Court Term had its fair share of significant cases. Some of these cases have effected and will effect large swaths of the population. The ruling in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, for instance, sets guidelines for acceptable state regulations on abortion. Evenwel v. Abbott clarifies how states may draw legislative districts, thus…

Why Garland Makes Sense for Clinton and Obama

Merrick Garland has a stellar judicial record. None of the 330 decisions he authored have even been heard by the Supreme Court on writ of certiorari. Few of his fellow jurists on the D.C. Circuit have dissented in cases where he wrote the majority opinion. He has fed more clerks to the Supreme Court…

A Formula For Supreme Court Clerkships? Harvard and Garland

Is there a formula to becoming a Supreme Court clerk? Perhaps a certain pedigree? How about a prior federal clerkship? The short answer to all three questions is yes. At very least, going to a certain school and working for a specific judge significantly enhance your chances. Much of the discussion surrounding Supreme Court clerkships has centered…

Professors as Amici

Amicus briefs filed before the Supreme Court are most commonly used as a tool for interest groups use to convey their positions (for a look at interest groups’ use of amicus briefs see this article by Professor Paul Collins). This is not the sole use of such briefs though. Non-party individuals and groups that have an…

Quick Note: Supreme Court Stay Applications 2015/2016

The Supreme Court regularly receives applications to stay court orders or mandates pending possible upcoming decisions such as those on certiorari. Many of these requests are received from inmates on death row looking to stay executions. Several instances involve multiple applications based around the same underlying cases. Due to the interest in the stay recently granted in…

Forced Judicial Restraint

When, soon after his nomination to the Supreme Court, Judge Garland was praised for his judicial restraint, this praise was not envisioned for the type of impact Judge Garland’s nomination has made on the Court so far. Similarly, no one calling for judicial restraint or decrying the Court’s judicial activism prior to 2016 expected change to come in…